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Title: The Gentle Persuasion
       Sketches of Scottish Life

Author: Alan Gray

Release Date: February 17, 2018 [EBook #56582]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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                              THE GENTLE
                              PERSUASION

                             SKETCHES _of_
                             SCOTTISH LIFE

                                  BY

                               ALAN GRAY

                         BULMAN BROS. LIMITED

                          WINNIPEG: MANITOBA
                                 1918

     I dedicate these simple sketches of Scottish life to the beloved
     memory of the “little lady,” who for forty years was the
     inspiration of my life. When God called her to the rest of
     Paradise, those who knew and loved her said--and they said
     truly--“A Mother in Israel” has been taken from us.

     Requiescat in pace et perpetua lux luceat ei!

                                                    Alan Gray






CONTENTS


                                PAGE

I. THE COLONEL’S FUNERAL           5

II. THE “MONASTERY”               13

III. THE AULD AUMRIE              23

IV. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS       33

V. CROSSING THE RUBICON           39

VI. SETTLING DOWN                 47

VII. DRUMSCONDIE                  55

VIII. AN AULD-FARRANT LADDIE      63

IX. BOYCOTTED                     71

X. THE AULD PROVOST               77

XI. THE MAJOR                     85

XII. THE BURNIN’ O’ THE KIRK      93




THE GENTLE PERSUASION




I. The Colonel’s Funeral


Many years have come and gone since I, Alan Gray, bade farewell to bonny
Glenconan, in which I spent the happy days of my childhood; during these
years I have feasted my eyes on some of the loveliest scenery in the
Empire; my lot has been a most varied one, bringing me in contact with
all sorts and conditions of men; yet in spite of these things I have
never forgotten, and never can forget, the quiet sylvan beauty of my
native glen, or the quaint old-world characters, who then lived in it,
all now, alas, gone over to the great majority.

The other day I had occasion to make a long and tedious journey across
the snow-covered, frost-bound prairie. There was no wind to speak of;
the air, though keen, was not too cold for comfort; my sleigh was well
equipped, my horses strong and willing; my Jehu, a French Canadian,
could speak very little English, and my French was very rusty; and so as
conversation was denied me, I lay back among the fur robes, and fell
into a reverie. On the previous evening I had been in the company of a
very dear friend, the Rev. Harold Courtney, one of the most devoted and
enthusiastic clergymen in the great Northwest. In the course of
conversation he happened to remark; “I have often wondered, Gray, what
led you, the son of Presbyterian parents, to become an Anglican. You are
not the sort of man that would act in a matter like this without the
strongest convictions. How did it all come about?”

“Well, Courtney, it is too long a story to tell to-night. You are right,
however, in supposing that I could not have made the change without
being fully convinced of the superior claims of the Anglican branch of
the Church. It took me a long time to unlearn what had been so carefully
taught me in my younger days, and to see the defects of the system in
which I had been reared. It meant the severing of many associations that
were very dear to me. Some day, perhaps, I’ll tell you the whole story.”

Doubtless it was the memory of this chat that set my wits awandering,
and called up before my mental vision scenes and incidents of long ago
that had made lasting impressions upon my impressionable nature. How
vividly I could realize those scenes: I can see them clearly still. Let
me tell you all I saw as I dozed in my sleigh that fine January day.

I saw myself again a boy in my native town of St. Conan’s on the
northeast of Scotland. The country was clad in the russet mellow robes
of harvest. I could see the Conan Water pursuing its quiet journey to
the sea between finely wooded banks. On the north bank there was the
Craig, a little hamlet consisting of St. Conan’s Episcopal Church, the
Parsonage, the Craig inn, where the “Defiance” coach used to stop and
change horses on its way to and from the city, and a few cottages; on
the opposite bank the long straggling village of St. Conan’s. St.
Conan’s had for many centuries been a place of considerable importance;
its Moot Hill, where in olden days the Earl of Buchan held his Court and
where justice was executed, was still pointed out to the curious. A fine
old one-arched bridge spanned the river and formed the bond of union
between Craig and St. Conan’s. The main street of the village ran
parallel with the river and ended eastward in the market square, where
stood the old Presbyterian parish church, the old parish school and the
principal places of business. On this day which stood out so clearly in
my vision, the school was deserted and the whole village was more than
usually quiet. The flag on the tall staff in the square was floating at
half-mast; the shutters were on every shop window, and the blinds were
down in every house. At intervals the tolling of a bell resounded
through the air. Groups of men in their best Sunday “blacks” were
wending their way towards the great entrance gate of the castle. The
school children were all on the qui vive for what was about to happen. I
could see myself among the rest, a lad of twelve, comfortably clad in
homespun, eagerly watching for the funeral cortege that would soon
appear. At last it came. No hideous hearse was there; but relays of the
local volunteer company, in their picturesque tartan trews and scarlet
tunics, took turns in bearing the body to its last resting-place.
Colonel Forbes, the brother of our “auld laird” had been a famous
soldier, and the men who loved his family and name were carrying him to
his burial after the manner that belonged to the Forbeses of Glenconan.
In front of all strode a stalwart piper, in kilt and plaid of the same
dark green tartan, that of the Clan Forbes, playing a weird and mournful
coronach. In my vision I could see the long procession take its way by
the main street bridge towards St. Conan’s church on the Craig. At the
gate it was met by a little white-robed company of men and boys, who
turned and led the way through the churchyard, the clergyman reciting
the introductory sentences of the Anglican burial service. When they
reached the church door, six of the oldest tenants on the Glenconan
estate took the casket from the bearers and carried it up the nave to
the chancel steps, where the first part of the office was said.

Shall I ever forget the beauty and solemnity of that service? It was so
different from any service I had ever seen. All was so orderly and so
void of anything like gloom.

There was undoubtedly a great deal that to my boyish mind was
unintelligible, but the general impression produced on me was so
profound that I was thrilled to the heart in a way I had never been
before.

Following the cortege out from the chancel to the east end of the
churchyard, I heard the words of Christian hope in a glorious
resurrection spoken by an old and venerable man of commanding
appearance, when the casket had been lowered into the grave, which was
lined with moss and flowers; I listened entranced while the choir sang
the beautiful hymn:

      “Father, in Thy gracious keeping
    Leave we now Thy servant sleeping.”

and then, when all was over, I crept away out of the crowd, to ponder
over what I had seen and heard.

Brought up on the Shorter Catechism, explained, or I should say
distorted, by stern and unbending teachers, I actually believed there
was nothing good in any other faith. But here I had been brought face to
face with a new phase of Christian belief, and one which to my boyish
mind was far more beautiful than that to which I had been accustomed.
Young as I was, I had thought a good deal about such matters. Were I to
go to my father, he would give me no sympathy, but tell me to mind my
lessons, and leave such things for older heads to consider. There was,
however, one man in the village with whom my fondness for books made me
a great favorite. This was old Mr. Lindsay, who had himself been a
probationer of the “Auld Kirk”, but who, because of inability to sign
the Confession of Faith, had never been received into the ministry. For
many years he had been a teacher of a semi-private school in another
parish; but ever since I could remember he had been living near our
home, retired from professional life, and spending most of his time
among his books. To him I would go for advice and instruction.

As soon as our frugal supper was over, I said to my mother, “Mother, I
am going to see the auld dominie, and get him to help me wi’ a gey hard
Latin version that I have to do for the morn.”

“Weel, weel, Alan, do ye sae, but see ye dinna bide ower late, else your
father’ll no be pleased.”

In a few minutes I had knocked at the old man’s door and had been
admitted into the sanctum, where I had spent many a happy evening among
the books.

“Come awa, laddie, and sit you doon. What’s the difficulty the nicht? I
haena seen ye for twa or three days. Are they all weel at hame?”

“Yes, thank ye, Mr. Lindsay, a’body’s fine, I hae a question or twa I
wad like to speir at ye, if you please, about the use of the ablative
absolute; but,” and I hesitated, “It was something else I wantit maistly
to speak to you aboot. I gaed to the colonel’s burial the day.”

“Aye, weel, we’ll take the Latin first, syne we’ll hear aboot the ither
maitter. My leg was gey troublesome the day, else I wad hae gone to the
funeral. He was a good man was the auld colonel, ane o’ the ‘gentle
persuasion,’ in the richt sense o’ the word, an’ deserved a’ the respect
that could be shown him.”

In a few minutes I had told my difficulty in the Latin version and had
the construction fully explained; and you may be sure, my books were
very speedily replaced in my schoolbag.

“Noo,” said Mr. Lindsay, taking a pinch of snuff from his silver box and
leaning back in his arm chair. “Ye was at the funeral, ye wis saying.
What thocht ye o’ that? There would be a lot of folk there, I’ll
warrant. I heard the pipes playing the coronach and I couldna help
thinking of the many times that the sound of the pipes had sounded in
the old colonel’s ear as he led his Highlanders to victory.”

In my simple Scotch way I tried to tell my old friend all I had seen and
heard.

“It wasna like ony ither burial I ever saw. They didna hae a black
mortcloth ower the coffin, but a purple ane. Wasna that queer?”

In ordinary conversation the dominie used the broad Doric Scotch of our
part of the country; when he had any instructions to give or any
important thing to communicate he spoke in good colloquial English,
although sometimes a Scotch word might creep in.

“Weel, you see, Alan, the Episcopalians have a meaning in their use of
colors. They teach through the eye as well as through the ear, just as
our Master did. For several hundreds of years purple has been used as
the emblem of penitence and sorrow; and as penitence and sorrow for sin,
if genuine, will bring peace, so this color teaches that mourning for
one who is dead in Christ is not without hope, but will end in the joy
of the resurrection morning.”

“What a beautiful idea, Mr. Lindsay, I never thought they had any
meaning in it at all, but just used that color because it was pretty.
And they had, oh! such lovely flowers made up in wreaths and crosses,
laid on the coffin. Oor folk never hae onything o’ that kind.”

“No, the auld kirk likes to make death as gloomy as possible. In fact
they look on death as if he were always an enemy. Now the Episcopalians
teach that if a man is seeking first the Kingdom of Christ he has nae
need to fear at death. To hear some Presbyterians speak you would think
that death meant an end o’ a’ thing; whereas the English Prayer Book
teaches that it is only the beginning of another stage of life. In a
book I have here, by a great man called Tertullian, who lived in the
fourth century, it is said that the Christian Church of the first days
turned the gloom of the funeral into a triumph, and that between the
death and the burial their religious exercises were expressive of peace
and hope. They felt that death could not and did not separate them from
the love of their heavenly Father or from the fellowship of the saints;
and so they made use of palms and flowers to give expression to their
hope and trust.”

“Now I hope I understand better the meanin’ o’ what I saw to-day. But,
there wis ae day nae long ago I heard auld Willie Scott the mason--and
ye ken he’s great on religious matters--say to a man in Jamie Reith’s
smiddy that there wis only a tissue paper wall between the English Kirk
and Roman Catholics. He said that their white gowns, an’ organs, an’
chantin’ an’ hymns, were a’ relics of popery. It wis jist a kirk for the
‘gentle persuasion,’ he said; they dinna want ony poor folk there.”

“Dinna ye heed ony o’ auld Willie’s havers; he’s only a poor
narrow-minded body, an’ disna think anybody will be saved except the
‘Auld light’ folk. The white gowns were used in the oldest and purest
ages of the Church, more than a thousand years before the black Geneva
gown was heard of, an’ as to organs, weel, King David himsel’ played on
a harp, an’ I’m thinking if the Almighty was pleased wi’ that, he
wouldna hae ony objection to a grand instrument like the organ. As for
the chantin’ there was plenty o’ that in the temple when the Maister
Himsel’ was worshipping there, and gin He had thocht there wis onything
wrang He wad sune hae let them hear aboot it. If Willie thinks the
English version o’ the Psalms is inspired, he’s awfu’ sair mista’en.
Some of the metre Psalms are perfect doggerel.”

“But I’ll tell you Alan, he spak’ a true word when he said that the
Episcopalian kirk was the kirk o’ the gentle persuasion; for there is
something in it, as a system, that helps to make a man gentle, and kind,
and unselfish. No doubt there may be many imperfect characters among
them, but the teaching of their Church, the use of their Prayer Book,
their ordinances and Sacraments, all help to make them o’ ‘the gentle
persuasion.’ Why, laddie, the very service ye heard the day is a proof
o’ the perfect democracy of her system. It is the same burial service
that she uses for the poorest of her people as for the most exalted in
rank. So you see in the way Willie meant she’s not the kirk o’ ‘the
gentle persuasion’.”

“Thank ye very much for takin’ the trouble to explain all this to me. I
wis wonderin’ if ye could lend me an auld Prayer Book for a day or two;
I would like to read a bit o’ ’t.”

“Surely I’ll dae that, Alan;” and with that he went to his book-shelves,
took down a copy of the Book of Common Prayer and handed it to me.

Putting the precious volume in my pocket, I set out for home, arriving
there in time for family worship, which, according to the custom of his
people, my father conducted every evening.

Such was my day dream. So was the first seed sown many years ago; but to
me it sometimes seems as yesterday, so vividly can I recall it all. My
reverie was a pleasant one. By and by I may go back in spirit to those
old days and tell you something more of the way by which God led me, and
some of the difficulties which I had to overcome, before I could throw
in my lot with the great Anglican Communion.




II. The “Monastery”


“Alan Gray, come to my desk.”

At the sound of these ominous words, thundered out by the master, every
pupil in Glenconan School cast a furtive look at the spot whence the
summons came, and another at poor luckless me as I made my way to the
dread tribunal, carrying in my hand the tawse which had been flung at my
head.

“Is this your book, boy?” he said sternly, holding up gingerly a
well-thumbed copy of Scott’s “Monastery.”

“No, sir, it does not belong to me.”

“Yet it was found in your desk. Have you been reading it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Um, just so; and where do you get such books, pray?”

So long as my answers would only involve myself, I was quite prepared to
reply; but now I was silent.

“Did you hear my question, Alan Gray? I said--Where did you get such
books?”

Not a word came from me to break the dread silence. Many years have
flown since that day, but I can yet see the storm of passion that swept
over the master’s face as he spoke. A volcano slumbered within him,
which he tried to suppress. He was a hard, severe man, was The Reverend
Archibald Angus. A Presbyterian of the old school, he had no sympathy
with the natural love of a boy for all that was legendary and romantic,
and could not brook the idea of any pupil of his daring to read such
unhallowed literature, as he believed all novels to be. A strict
disciplinarian, he demanded the most abject submission to his authority,
and had no mercy for anyone who dared to thwart his will. Theologically
and socially he was narrow and crabbed, and his system of teaching, if
system it could be called, was tyrannical in the extreme.

During the mid-day recess a tell-tale had volunteered the information
that I had been reading a book which was not a class book. Mr. Angus had
gone to my desk and, on ransacking it, had found a copy of “The
Monastery,” which he had promptly confiscated.

“Have I not forbidden you to read novels? And yet you persist in even
bringing your fictitious rubbish here! But you shall not defy my
authority. You must be made an example of. Hold up your hand.”

I obeyed. He stood to his feet and rained blow after blow, first on one
hand, and then on the other. His face was livid with passion and he went
on as if he altogether forgot that it was a thin, white-faced slip of a
boy, and not a man, he was punishing. I bore the pain as long as I
could; at last I gave one big sob and burst into a fit of weeping. The
master ceased and, taking a step or two from his place, he hurled the
forbidden book on the peats that were smouldering on the hearthstone.

I watched my chance; when he returned to resume his seat I made a dash
for the fireplace, snatched the volume from the flames that were already
beginning to curl its boards, made for the door with the fleetness of a
deer, and was down the road towards the river ere anyone could intercept
me. I made for the “Pinkie” well which had a nice stone seat beside it,
rested for a moment to recover my breath and review the situation, and
was about to move on when I heard a gruff voice near me exclaim:

“Hallo, ye scoonril, what mischief hae ye been aifter noo?”

The voice was that of old Willie Scott, the stonemason, who was engaged
in mending a gap in Miss Milne’s garden wall. He was an “Auld Licht” of
the sternest kind, and was disliked by many of the young folks. To those
who only knew him casually he was sarcastic and seemingly uncivil; but
to his intimates Willie had many redeeming qualities. He and I were good
friends, and so I was rather glad to see him at this juncture. I
replied:

“Oh, nae very muckle, Willie. The maister gae me a lickin’ for having
ane o’ Walter Scott’s novels in my desk. He put it into the fire, but I
snapped it out and ran off wi’t. The book wasna mine, Willie, sae I
couldna let it burn.”

“Aye, aye, and that’s the set o’t, is it? An’ what business had ye to be
readin’ sic’ a book when ye should hae been at your tasks? I sair doot
ye’re an ill loon, Alan. What’ll happen to ye the morn, think ye?”

“Oh, I suppose I’ll get anither lickin’, but I can stand that sae lang
as he doesna get a hand o’ George Graham’s book. Man, Willie, you should
see Mrs. Graham’s library! She has all the Waverley Novels, as well as
Dickens and Thackeray. George often let’s me hae a book to read.”

Willie opened his eyes a bit wider and gave a low, prolonged whistle.

“Aye, aye, and sae ye’re takin’ up wi’ that Prelatist, are ye? Ye micht
as well turn Papist at ance when ye’re aboot it. I wonder what yer
mither’ll think when she kens of her laddie keeping such company.”

“Oh, ye needna complain, at ony rate. My mither kens that I often go to
the Hilltown to see George, and she’s well enough pleased. Man, if ye
only saw Mrs. Graham’s books! The sicht wad mak yer mooth water.”

“Perfect trash--a lot o’ lees,” burst forth the old man.

“Aye, but just look at some o’ thae pictures in the ‘Monastery,’
Willie.”

The mason, in spite of his narrow views, was really fond of books, and
in his own way was a hard student; but his reading was mainly confined
to Puritan theology and to such church histories as Calderwood and
Wodrow. The perusal of any work of a lighter character he would deem a
waste of time. Still, he laid down his trowel, seated himself beside me,
wiped his hands on his coarse linen apron, and carefully turned over the
leaves of the little volume. The first picture that turned up was the
interior of a mediaeval church. I could see that he was impressed with
the beauty of the architecture. There was the great east window, filled
with stained glass, intersected with delicate stone tracery; below it
the altar, surmounted by a stone reredos, with a series of bas-reliefs
depicting scenes in our Lord’s ministry. On the super-altar stood a
cross, flanked by two tall candlesticks. In the foreground of the
picture was the chancel-arch, Norman with dogtooth ornaments, while
between that and the Holy Table were the choir stalls with richly carved
canopies, on either side of the central passage. To me the whole was a
thing of beauty. I could not understand the meaning of it all but, taken
along with the narrative, it had cast quite a glamor over me. The old
man gazed intently on the picture for a few moments, then pushed it
towards me with a gesture which said plainly: “Yes, these old churches
are very fine, but I must not admire them too much. The ‘Auld Licht’
notion of a church as plain as a barn, without any pretentions to
architectural beauty, must be right. We must not think of these things
at all. God can surely be, perhaps better, worshipped in a plain barn
than in a magnificent cathedral.” Willie was by no means an unreasonable
man, but his attachment to the Seceder Kirk, of which he was an elder,
kept him from giving vent to his own personal impressions in this
regard.

The reading of Scott may have sometimes interfered with my studies when
it should not have done so, but it gave me an idea of the Church’s
corporate life, that had never been set before me, at school or in
church. Without any intention on Walter Scott’s part, he was doing then,
and he certainly is doing still, an excellent work as an exponent of the
religious life of the past. The perusal of his works has done for many
what it did for me, that is, it has implanted a certain knowledge
respecting church matters, and men have felt constrained to study the
Book of Common Prayer and to compare its usages with those of the
various ages described in the novels and metrical romances.

I could not go to school again that day, and so I slipped home by a back
road and found our mother knitting busily, but quite ready for a chat.

“You’ve surely got out sooner this afternoon, Alan,” said she as I
entered the cottage. One look at my mother’s face showed me she knew
something was wrong. I sat down beside her, showed her the wales on my
hands, and told her the whole story. No matter what trouble I might get
into, I could always go to her in the full assurance of receiving the
sympathy that my case needed, and perhaps more than it deserved. If I
was in the wrong, who could point out the fault, so gently and yet so
convincingly, as she!

“Preserve me, laddie,” she said, “the master’s been ower sair on ye the
day. We’ll say as little aboot it as possible, for ye see ye were in the
wrang, and ye ken, Alan, I wad be the last to approve of your disobeying
Mr. Angus, even if he is a bit narrow-minded and tyrannical. I’ll call
in and see him this evening, and we’ll get a’thing made right.”

And so she did. The harshness and severity of the master could not stand
against my mother’s gentle persuasiveness. I never heard what she said
to Mr. Angus, but I can remember, many years afterwards when I went to
visit him, he asked for my mother and said: “Ye were blessed in a good
mother, Alan; I never was in her presence yet but I felt a better man
for it. No one could be merrier than she; and yet with it all there was
an atmosphere of unconscious saintliness ever about her that had a
wonderful influence upon everyone who knew her.”

When I returned to school on the following day nothing was said of my
escapade. In the playground there were some who would have liked to
lionize me as a bit of a hero, but somehow or other I shrank from any
reference to the subject.

I never again took any such books to school, but I continued to read the
Waverley Novels--very often aloud for the benefit of others. In the long
winter evenings we would sit around a blazing peat fire, in our
stone-flagged kitchen, and listen while father and Mr. Lindsay discussed
current topics of the day. An old college friend used regularly to send
his copy of the Edinburgh “Courant” to the dominie, and the news it
contained formed the subject of many a warm discussion. One matter which
at this time was causing considerable disturbance, in certain circles,
was the movement for the final extinction of the disabilities against
Episcopalians. On this the two took opposite sides. Mr. Lindsay,
although not actually an Anglican, was fully in sympathy with the
movement; my father, on the other hand, had been brought up a rigid
Presbyterian and knew nothing of any other faith. He saw no need, he
said, for the existence of the “English Kirk” in Scotland. The Reformers
had abolished prelacy and all that appertained thereto, root and branch.
The voice of Scotland for over three hundred years had been in favor of
the Presbyterian faith and the Presbyterian form of worship. Why could
not everybody be content to worship as the godly followers of the
Covenant had done, without all the outward show and ceremony, and read
prayers, that were considered necessary in England? Like many of his
fellow-countrymen, my father held in the greatest abhorrence any
cringing to English customs. To imitate the people of the south seemed
to him a giving up of the independence that Scotland had striven so hard
to maintain. In our home I never dared to join in the discussion of my
elders, but, when Mr. Lindsay and I were in his study one evening, I
broached this subject and asked him to tell me how and when the “English
Kirk” came to Scotland.

“Well, you see, Alan,” said he, “what you call the ‘English’ Church is
not the English Church at all; the Episcopalians are really and truly
the representatives of the Christians of long ago who first brought the
gospel into this country. You’ve read in your school history about St.
Columba coming over from the north of Ireland in his ‘curragh’ and
settling with his followers on the island of Iona, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Lindsay, but the maister told us that he was exactly like
oor ain ministers, and that he had nae bishops in his kirk, and nane o’
the forms and ceremonies that the Papists and Prelatists hae nooadays.”

“Weel, I canna juist speak as decidedly and dogmatically as Mr. Angus
does; but I am sure o’ one thing--Columba and his Culdees used the same
kind o’ prayer book that was used at that time all over Europe, and ony
reader of church history kens that it spak’ o’ a three-fold ministry of
bishops, priests and deacons; and they used the same kind of forms for
baptisms, marriages, burials, and for the Sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper; and a’ the records that hae come down frae these Culdees show
that they kept Christmas, and Easter, and a’ the rest of the great
festivals, just as the Episcopalians do. So you see, the original form
of Christianity in this country was the same as in England.”

“Weel, but why do they ca’ the Presbyterian the ‘Auld Kirk’? Surely the
kirk which had bishops was the auldest kirk!”

“Aye, noo ye’ve hit the mark--that’s just what it is. For a lang time
the Christianity planted by St. Columba and his followers was simple and
primitive and pure, but sometime before what we call the ‘Middle Ages’
the church began to get a great deal of power, even in civil matters;
abuses crept in. The Bishop of Rome was allowed to usurp authority in
this land, which never belonged to him. In the sixteenth century the
papal power ruled everywhere--and in Scotland the corruptions in
discipline which it brought about were worse than in any other part of
the west. The bishops and clergy came actually to be held in contempt
among the people, who really tried to be religious. Then came what we
call the Protestant ‘Reformation.’ Things were so bad in Scotland that
it seemed to the reformers of no use to try and purify the old system;
they resolved to bring in a new order of things altogether; and so by an
act of parliament passed in Edinburgh in 1560 they destroyed the old
church and in its place put an entirely new church, invented by
themselves, and established by themselves. The bishops who were put down
must have been poor successors of the Apostles, for they submitted with
a feeble show of protest. For more than a hundred years those who still
clung to the old ways had to do without bishops, and it is to the credit
of many that they kept their allegiance to the ways of the Primitive
Church, as individuals and small communities, when there was so much to
tempt them to go with the crowd.”




III. The Old Aumrie


In the rural districts of Scotland, forty years ago, the parish schools
had no summer vacation; autumn was the holiday season. We schoolboys
envied the lot of the lads who had returned from college and were
enjoying all the fishing and fun of the first summer days; eagerly we
watched the ripening of the fields of oats and barley, and when Jeemes
Dewar, the village oracle, proclaimed to the worthies in smithy
assembled that Hillton would begin reaping on the following Monday, you
may be sure we spread the news like wildfire. When school prayers were
over on Wednesday morning we waited breathlessly for the announcement of
the vacation. And we were not disappointed.

“You may tell your parents that the holidays will begin on Monday, and
the closing exercise will take place on Friday of this week.”

As Mr. Angus uttered the authoritative fiat, every eye glistened and all
sorts of glorious “ploys” loomed in anticipation.

We got our holidays in autumn that we might be free to lend a helping
hand at home or in the harvest-field during the busy season. How
different are things nowadays! The twentieth-century boy must on no
account be subjected to any work during his holiday time; he needs not
only to have all his vacation for rest and amusement--he even looks to
have amusement provided for him. The boys of our day were cast in a
hardier mould. Harvest-time, while it brought to most of us lots of
hard work, brought also lots of fun. Certainly, when we returned to our
school tasks our appearance gave the impression that harvest work and
harvest fare agreed with us marvellously well.

Many an Aberdeenshire lad, eager to secure a college education, earned
enough during harvest to buy his class books and leave a few shillings
for pocket money. If he managed to get into the scholarship list his
bursary would pay matriculation and class fees; and with an occasional
box of supplies from home, he was able to get along comfortably during
the winter session.

Well, as soon as the date of closing was announced, the “buskin” of the
school was the theme of conversation. Every spare moment was given up to
that. Bands of boys scoured the woods for the nicest evergreens, which
the girls made up into wreaths and festoons; contributions of fruit and
flowers were solicited from all who had gardens, and no one was so
churlish as to refuse. Is there a Glenconan laddie who does not remember
with love and gratitude the kindly receptions given by some of the old
people--how Mrs. Blair would strip her apple trees and rose bushes that
we might have a “braw buskin”? And how old Hillton would choose out the
ripest and neatest sheaves of grain to help us in our harvest
decorations!

No one was late for school on Friday morning. Just on the stroke of
nine, prayers were said by the dominie, and we commenced the work of
adorning the classrooms. By noon everything was done and the rubbish
swept away. Boys and girls hurried home to snatch a hasty meal and don
Sunday attire for the afternoon function. By three o’clock all were in
their places in school; precisely at a quarter past the hour the parish
minister and his elders entered, and we all stood respectfully to
receive them. Prayers was offered and a Psalm or paraphrase was sung.
The minister called up the bigger pupils to say the Shorter Catechism
and answer questions on the portion of scripture history studied during
the year. (Religious knowledge formed the first and most important task
of every day when I was a boy.) The little ones, too, had a chance of
showing their acquaintance with the rudiments of the Christian faith,
even if it was only to the extent of that contained in the “Mother’s
catechism.” Then came the presentation of prizes and the reading out of
the names of Glenconan boys who had won bursaries or college honors
during the previous university session.

How the old school rang with shouts as lame Jamie Wilson stepped forward
to get the silver medal for Latin prose composition, or when Geordie
Sangster was complimented by the minister for his progress in Euclid and
presented with several handsomely bound volumes as prizes. There was no
jealousy or discontent among us, for we knew that though Mr. Angus was a
hard man he was scrupulously just.

The giving out of tasks to be learned during the holidays was always
left to the minister. Sometimes it was the Sermon on the Mount we had to
commit to memory; at other times it was a certain number of Psalms or
paraphrases, or one of the shorter Epistles. The wiseacres of today will
probably sneer at such simple ways, but I could tell of many a man who,
in his old age, thanked God and the minister that he learned those grand
passages in his youth.

A few words of fatherly advice from the good man--and to know the Rev.
Dr. Orr was to love him--then a parting benediction and the great
function was over.

A very simple state of things it was undoubtedly; yet it produced the
men and women who have made for Scotland her splendid reputation among
Christian nations.

Our harvest vacation--it was my last before I went to Sandy Jamieson’s
carpenter’s shop to learn my trade--stands out before me in bold relief.

Our mother had an uncle, William Leslie by name, who with his wife
tenanted the old farmhouse of Braeside of Darvel. Uncle William, as my
brother Ronald and I called him, was a splendid specimen of the Scottish
tenant farmer of a past day. His sterling uprightness and more than
average intelligence commanded the respect of all who knew him, while
his genial nature and his great fund of old stories caused him to be
beloved by us boys. Nothing delighted us more than a visit to Braeside,
and when my mother told us of the proposed trip we were in great glee.

On a lovely harvest morning father saw us three--mother, Ronald and me!
safely bestowed on the “Defiance” coach, and off we went to the sound of
the guard’s horn. At noon we reached the Darvel toll house, where Uncle
William sat in his shanrydan phaeton waiting to convey us the last two
miles of our journey. I need not descant on the heartiness of our
welcome, or of all that was done to make us happy. I have lived that
week over again many times since then. The farmhouse at the Braeside had
at one time been a dower-house of the Forbeses of Darvel, but for
several generations it had been occupied by our forebears. It formed two
sides of a quadrangle, the other two sides of which were stables and
farm buildings. The dwelling house was full of all sorts of odd little
apartments, and had just that mysterious something about it which awoke
in an impressionable boy a desire for the romantic and legendary.

One evening during our visit the wind was whistling shrilly in the old
wide chimneys, and we had all gathered around a blazing peat fire in the
room which Uncle William used as his study and business room. On either
side of the broad open fireplace stood two large easy chairs
upholstered in quaintly-embossed leather. They were so different from
all the other furniture that my boyish curiosity was aroused, and I
asked the old man whence they had come. My mother, who sat in one of
them, smiled at my eagerness.

“If you would like a story to while away the evening, I’ll tell you how
these chairs came to the Braeside,” said Uncle William, and of course we
were at once all attention. Generally he spoke in good colloquial
English, with a strong north-country accent, but when he waxed
enthusiastic over anything he would fall into the broad Doric Scotch.

“It was in the spring of 1746, just after Prince Charlie and his men had
been defeated at Culloden. The Duke of Cumberland’s redcoats were
scouring the country far and wide in search of the luckless Jacobites,
who fell on all sorts of devices to avoid capture. One evening, just
about bedtime, my grandfather and his wife were sitting around this very
fireplace when they heard a gentle tap on the window. At first they were
a little alarmed and did not move from their seats, but when a second
tapping was heard my grandfather, taking a candle in his hand, went to
the door opening into the front garden, and unlocked it. Two men, weary
and footsore, stood there. One, whom he at once recognized, was the
Laird of Darvel.

“‘We are in great danger, William,’ said he. ‘Can you take us in for an
hour or two? We need food and rest. This is my friend Mr. Oliphant, of
Gask, a faithful follower of our prince and a loyal member of our poor
church.’

“‘Say nae mair, sir; come in baith o’ ye; ye are welcome to onything
that William Leslie can do or gie.’

“They stepped quietly into this room, where in a very short space of
time an abundant table was spread. An earnest discussion took place as
to what had best be done to protect them from their pursuers, who, they
said, were not far away. The night was dark, so there was little chance
of annoyance before morning. In that wee room there the two noble
Jacobites slept till daybreak, while my grandfather kept careful watch.
When the first signs of daybreak began to appear my grandmother emptied
yonder aumrie of its store of cheese and oatcakes; she folded a blanket
so as to make a rug wide enough for one to lie upon, placed it far back
on the broad bottom shelf of the aumrie, while a similar arrangement
converted the upper shelf into a bed. On these two shelves the two
wanderers placed themselves, and in front of them, to screen them from
observation, she placed the provisions that had been removed. Nothing
needed to be said to any of the other members of the household, for no
one save my grandmother ever interfered with anything in this room.
Everything about the place went on as usual till breakfast time, when
one of the servant lassies came in and said that a company of soldiers
were in the courtyard.

“William Leslie at once went out and was accosted by the officer in
command.

“‘We are seeking two rebels who we have reason to believe are in hiding
here.’

“‘There’s nae rebel aboot this toon sae far as I ken, but ye are welcome
to search and see,’ said my grandfather.

“But and ben the house did these rough soldiers go, high and low and
into every nook and cranny did they peer, but all without avail. Nor
were the men who searched the stables and outhouses any more successful.
They came as they went. For many days did the poor fugitives keep in
hiding, only coming out at night when all was dark and still to stretch
their wearied and cramped limbs.

“When he had ascertained that the soldiers had left the neighborhood, my
grandfather conveyed the laird and his friend to the sea-coast by night;
arranged with a friend of Jacobite tendencies, who was the skipper of a
fishing smack, to take them on board as deck hands, and in this way they
escaped to the continent.

“Many years elapsed ere they could return to Scotland in safety, but
when Darvel did return he marked his gratitude by giving to my
grandfather a deed entitling him and his descendants for three
generations to sit rent-free in Braeside, and at the same time he sent
thae two armchairs from his ain study in Darvel House for the use and
comfort of the faithful couple in their old age.”

I had listened to the old man’s tale with breathless interest, and when
it was finished not a word was spoken by one of the little company. The
old man again broke the silence.

“Aye, Alan, laddie, this house has seen mony strange sichts. Ye maun ken
that a great number of the Jacobites were Episcopalians and, as they
persistently refused to pray for the Elector of Hanover, whom they
regarded as a usurper of the crown of Great Britain so long as there was
a single royal Stuart to claim the throne, the most tyrannical and
unjust laws were enacted against them. No more then eight Episcopalians
could assemble for worship at one time, and even then it was only
regarded as family worship.

“But for all that, mony a time did the good priest of Linshart meet his
poor persecuted people in this very room at the midnight hour. The auld
aumrie is very precious to me, for mony a time did Mr. Skinner use it
as the altar from which he dispensed the bread of life to the faithful.
Sae careful did they need to be that sentinels were posted all round the
hoose to give warning in case of a sudden visit from the emissaries of
the Government.”

“Surely there was something in their faith very precious in their eyes
to cause them to be so much in earnest.”

“Aye, laddie, so ye may say. They were upholding an apostolic ministry,
apostolic worship and apostolic sacraments which, with the teaching of
the apostolic faith had came down to them through the ages, sometimes
much disfigured by unapostolic legends and superstitions, but still
there in all their fulness.”

“Mr. Lindsay lent me a book full of bonnie poems, Uncle William, and in
ane o’ them there’s a stanza that says:

    ‘In Scotland’s altar service
    All churches must unite.’

“That’s ane o’ Bishop Coxe’s ‘Christian Ballads,’ and it’s gaun to come
true yet.”

“Is he no an American bishop, Uncle William?”

“Aye, thae words o’ his express the loving gratitude of the great
American church to the poor disestablished Scottish church for her gift
of an apostolic ministry and an apostolic form of worship. The Scottish
Episcopal church has a noble history, and although so long as there was
a Stuart left many of her members were true to the old family, they are
now most loyal subjects of the Hanover dynasty. They are doing a grand
work for God and the church, and if they will only ‘bide their time in
patience’ God will bring unity and order out of the trials and disorders
of the past.”

We sat long by the ingle nook, and the old man glowed with enthusiasm as
he gave me just the information I craved.

I was gradually gaining an insight into the cause of religious division
in Scotland, and the more I heard about the “Gentle Persuasion” the more
was I drawn to admire their constancy and devotion.




IV. The Parting of the Ways


I am sitting on a seat by the roadside at Bendochy in Manitoba, enjoying
to the full a glorious August day. Over head the sky is a great vault of
blue, without the speck of a cloud in it; in front of me the Assiniboine
is making its way round the beautiful wooded bend, which seems from my
seat as it were an island in one of our Scottish lakes; the woods around
me are alive with the chirp of grasshoppers and the song of birds; a
pert little squirrel is eyeing me very suspiciously from a hole in an
old tree. The peacefulness is most comforting. It is a veritable
paradise.

I am thinking of the days of “Auld Lang Syne,” and wondering if there
are any still to the fore of the friends and acquaintances, who had a
share in helping or hindering me, when I came to the “parting of the
ways.”

The mosquitoes are getting a little troublesome, so you will excuse me
while I gather some leaves and grass, and light a smudge.

There now, that’s all right. I’ll see if I can call to memory some of
the “characters” in the old village of long ago. Of course, the
ministers come first. There were four kirks in Glenconan.

The established Presbyterian church stood in its ancient burial-ground
on the north side of the square, quite close to the old house in which
Dean Skinner wrote “Tullochgorum”. The first minister I remember was the
Reverend Dr. Ogg, whose smile and kindly words were like a benediction
to us children. He died when I was twelve, and was succeeded by a man of
an altogether different type. Before he came to us he had been
Assistant in a large city parish, and, as we thought, rather gave
himself airs on that account. It’s true, there were few country
ministers more popular with the gentlefolks; no one was more welcome at
a garden party, and, he was a first-class tennis player. He had taken
his B.D. degree, and was generally supposed to be of a scholarly turn;
but, insofar as turning his learning to practical account was concerned,
results were meagre. When I was about fifteen years of age, I saw a good
deal of a Mr. Cowie, a man of beautiful life and wide reading. He was an
elder of the Parish church, but had distinct leanings towards Plymouth
Brethrenism. My converse with him raised the question of the Baptism of
Infants; and, for a time I was at loss to know just what to believe. I
went to Mr. Greig, the parish minister, and laid my difficulties before
him. So far from helping, he hindered me. He did not understand the
eagerness of my countrymen for the acquisition of knowledge; he treated
me as a forward child, who was inquiring into things entirely beyond his
grasp. He was too busy to go into the matter then, and told me to go
home and forget about it. I asked for bread, and he gave me a stone. My
father and mother were members of his church; but, they did not lay down
any hard and fast law to me, so long as I went to church.

For some time I wavered in my leanings. Our home was near to both the
Free and United Presbyterian Churches. Occasionally I attended the last
named, mainly because I liked to hear Mr. Haldane, the U.P. minister,
commenting on the Scripture lessons, as he read. One could not fail to
be instructed. He was a dear old man, and was beloved by everybody. His
quiet, unobtrusive, saintly life was one long uplifting sermon. You
could not be in his company without appreciating the rays of happiness
and kindliness that were all the time going forth from him. No one would
have classed him as an eloquent preacher, in the ordinary acceptation of
the term; but, he possessed a gentle persuasiveness, that had a
wonderful influence on his little flock.

For several years I most frequently attended the Free Church, of which I
became a communicant at the age of sixteen. The minister, the Reverend
William Manson, had taken a brilliant degree in classics at the
University of Aberdeen--and he had been equally proficient in Oriental
languages--during his course at the Theological Hall.

While possessed of great goodness of heart, he was by most thought to be
an ambitious man. I knew him well, and it always seemed to me that it
was not ambition as it is usually understood, but rather a consciousness
of his own intellectual power and ripe scholarship, and a feeling that
these were not finding their complete development in the quiet, old
world village, where his lot was cast. I have often thought, too, that
the General Assembly of his church did not know what they cast away,
when they chose a “Higher Critic”, in preference to him, for one of the
Divinity Professorships. It was under his fostering care that I was
first led to interest myself in religion as “the way of life,” and I
shall always retain the deepest gratitude for his wholesome influence on
my young life. He had, however, a certain dignity and aloofness, that
kept me from daring to intrude into the inner circle of his friendship.

There were several things that came into my life about this period, and
compelled me to relinquish, for a time at least, the strong desire which
I had for a college education. I resolved to learn a trade, by means of
which I hoped to earn my living, and put by a little towards college
expenses. I was indentured as an apprentice carpenter, and three very
happy years I spent at the “bench”. I never was a good tradesman, but I
learnt enough to enable me in after years to erect, partly with my own
hands, a mission church on the Red River.

Mr. Manson took notice of the fact that I seldom participated in the
ploys of the other village lads; and, when he found out that I was
making a brave effort to prepare myself for college, he constituted
himself my private tutor. For nearly two years I studied under his
direction, and made such progress that I was able to qualify for the
post of Junior English Master in a small English Grammar School.

I used to think that my inability to enter college was something of a
calamity, but, when I look back upon those days in the perspective, I am
firmly convinced that I was being guided and controlled in all this by
one wiser than I. There were many things besides classics and
mathematics which I ought to know before I made the plunge into
academical life.

Undoubtedly the experience through which I passed gave me an outlook on
life, which has been of inestimable value.

Now and then I made my way across the river to the “Chapel”, as the
Episcopal Church was called by the villagers; I learned to follow the
services in the Book of Common Prayer; but the prejudices against a
prearranged form of worship were hard to uproot, and my Scottish soul
revolted at the English accent of the clergyman. Nothing is more
repellent to my countrymen than to think of their being dominated by the
“Sassenach”; and, nothing has contributed more to the success of the
Scottish Episcopal Church than the ministration of clergy of Scottish
birth and lineage. My old friend, Mr. Lindsay, was sometimes very
caustic in his criticism of a certain young English cleric, who was in
charge of a country living at no great distance from us. “Poor laddie,”
he would say, “he seems to think oor sturdy Scotch folk are as
illiterate as the working men he had in his last English curacy. The
time has lang gane by, when oor folks were sae under the thraldom o’
priest and laird that they couldna ca’ their souls their ain. Nae man
has a greater respect for the church and the minister than oor folks
hae; but, whatever is presented to them maun appeal to their reason and
common sense, or they’ll hae nane o’t. There’s nae a man in his
congregation that canna tell him why he is an Episcopalian. He needna
think he can drive his folk as he would a herd o’ stirks.”

Mr. Lindsay was always delighted to help me, when I asked his
assistance, but, when he saw me impatient to find a way out of my
quandary, he would say, “Mind the auld Latin motto--‘Festina lente’.
Just you tak’ your time, and get a clear grasp o’ things before you set
aside the faith o’ your fathers.” I have no doubt but that I was saved
from many misgivings and serious misunderstandings, by giving heed to
the wise counsel.

I never got to be well acquainted with the rector of the Episcopal
Church, very much to my regret; but, perhaps it was just as well that I
should “dree my ain weird.”

It was about this time that Mr. Lindsay introduced me to Bishop
Wordsworth’s “Theophilus Anglicanus”, which gave me a full explanation
of the genesis, and development, and organization of the Church of
Christ. He also lent me Palmer’s Treatise on the Church, which I found
very useful, but not altogether satisfactory to my way of thinking.

I was very unwilling to say anything of my religious difficulties to my
own family; and so, when the time came for me to begin my work in
England, I left home to all outward appearances happy and contented, but
in reality groping after truth, tossing to and fro on a sea of
uncertainty and seeming contradiction.




V. Crossing the Rubicon


I have always looked upon the River Tweed as my Rubicon.

While life in the dear old home-land had for me much that was sweet and
attractive, it had yet been a “cribb’d, cabin’d, confin’d” life; my idea
of men and things had of necessity been mainly drawn from within the
narrow limits of an old world, rural district; in matters of faith and
practice my mind had come to be in a state of great unrest, bordering on
revolt.

Life on the southern side of the Tweed was broader and more generous;
the society into which I was cast had in it elements which could have
been born only of a more comprehensive outlook and a greater interchange
of thought; religion rested on a more Catholic basis.

I have already told how for some time I had been looking toward the
Rubicon; I crossed it when I crossed the Tweed. Not all at once,
however. I had been many months in England before I could have said that
my emancipation was complete.

Shall I ever forget my first day in my new home? I had arrived in
Tynecaster at an early hour on Sunday morning, and being very tired
after my long journey I went to bed at once. When I awoke the sun was
high in the heavens, and my ears were filled with the most delightful
music I had ever heard. I rose, went to my window and drew up the blind.
My room overlooked a goodly-sized park, enclosed by high stone walls. A
regiment of soldiers were on parade, and their band was playing a
stirring march. I could not understand it; did I not arrive on Sunday
morning? I could not possibly have slept for a whole day--and yet, there
was a band playing a march.

I dressed hastily and made my way to the common-room, where one solitary
man sat reading.

I bade him good-morning, told him who I was (I had seen none of the
staff on my arrival), and then, with some shame-facedness, I said:

“Excuse me troubling you, but will you please tell me what day of the
week this is?”

My companion looked up in astonishment. He imagined, I think, that I was
a little “off” in the upper story, and answered:

“Why, it’s Sunday, old man. What makes you dubious?”

“Well, I heard a band playing a march, that was all.”

“Oh, yes, the ‘Noodles’--the Yeomanry, that is, are up for their annual
training, and I suppose you heard the band playing them to church.
You’ll get accustomed to these things by and by.”

I said nothing, but thought a good deal.

What would the douce folks in bonnie Glenconan think if they knew I had
gone to a land where such doings were permitted! Why, the ministers
would denounce it from every pulpit in the district.

When I went into residence at Tynecaster Grammar School, I was but a
mere stripling, hardly out of my teens. My knowledge of classics and
English was not extensive, but it was thorough, thanks to Mr. Lindsay,
and was quite sufficient to warrant me essaying to prepare a class of
boys for the local examinations held annually by the universities. At
first I felt somewhat diffident about giving instruction in the history
and contents of the Book of Common Prayer--a necessary subject in the
Locals; but ere very long my diffidence had vanished. I made good use in
the evenings of the opportunities for study afforded by the Church
Institute Library and Reading-room, and I attended the lectures on
Church history given in that institution. You can readily understand
what a boon such a place was to me.

Tynecaster was near enough to Scotland to prevent my feeling in an alien
land, as I had expected. The broad Northumbrian dialect bore a strong
resemblance to my own northern tongue, and the ways of the people were
in many respects more Scotch than English.

I had to run the gauntlet of the traditional practical jokes that were
wont to be perpetrated on teachers who hailed from “the land of cakes”;
however, as Mr. Lindsay had prepared me for this, I passed through the
ordeal, and was voted, “Not a bad sort of fellow for a Scottie.”

There were lots of Scotch folks in Tynecaster, but very few of these
were Churchmen, and so I did not get much from them in the way of
sympathy. Scotsmen in England are said to be very clannish, and to stand
by one another in fair day and foul; my experience did not bear this
out. When I was first introduced as a brother Scot I got the hearty
handclasp of fellowship; but, when they came to know that I had leanings
towards “the English Kirk,” they seemed all to have become very suddenly
short-sighted, for in most cases they failed to recognize me when I met
them in the street.

There was, however, one notable exception, an old man from Perthshire,
Tom Laidlaw by name, who kept a second-hand bookstall in the Market.
Many a happy half-holiday did I spend with him, among his literary
treasures. Brought up among the descendants of Jacobite non-jurors, he
was a staunch, devoted Churchman. I told him one day of the strange
attitude taken towards me by these brother Scots and was much amused by
his pawky reply.

“Man, Alan, I’m astonished at ye. Do ye no ken hoo the average Scot
regards the releegious opinions o’ his neebour? Orthodoxy’s _my_ doxy,
an’ heterodoxy’s _your_ doxy. He’s nae conceited, oh no; he only thinks
that his neebour’s views are richt when they agree wi’ his ain.”

We had no school chapel, and so most of the boarders attended the
neighboring Church of St. Jude, under the charge of one of the masters.
When it was my turn to perform this duty, I was at first delighted with
the well-rendered musical service; but when that ceased to have the
charm of novelty, I began to long for something to help me in my
spiritual life, which I did not get there, either in the services or the
sermons. The last named were, as a rule, nice little theological essays,
couched in beautiful English, and delivered in the well-modulated tones
characteristic of the typical young English cleric. I often wished these
highly-respectable, well-bred people in the pews around me could have
listened to one of the rugged bursts of whole-souled, impassioned
eloquence to which the Glenconan folks were accustomed, Sunday after
Sunday, from their saintly and devoted, if somewhat narrow-minded,
pastor, in the “Auld Licht Kirk.”

Do not imagine that I was captious, or oven-critical, or discontented; I
was simply in that delicate condition when one needs all the spiritual
nourishment that can be given, and I was only offered husks. Somehow or
other I could not help feeling that a crisis was imminent, and yet I
could not have diagnosed the symptoms. Everything around me was
commonplace enough; still, crises often spring from the commonplace.

One fine Saturday afternoon in autumn I was searching for fossils in a
disused quarry, and I was so absorbed in my work that I was not aware of
any one being near me till I heard a familiar voice addressing me:

“Weel, Mr. Gray, and what do ye think you are doin’?”

I turned, and saw Tom Laidlaw’s honest, pawky face looking down upon me
from the bank overhead.

“Why, Tom,” I said, “I was just trying my hand at practical geology.
But, I’ve had enough for one day; let’s have a rest and a chat.”

A few minutes, and we were seated together on a nice mossy knoll.

“Is it not wonderful, Tom, how one can read the past history of life on
the earth from the layers of dead matter buried beneath the surface?”

“Aye, it’s nae doot very wonderful; but, man, there are even mair
wonderful testimonies of the past life of the Church that have come doon
to us in things that some fowk wad call speeritual fossils. There’s the
three Creeds, that tell us of the Apostolic doctrine--the Sacraments,
that include the breaking of bread, and presuppose fellowship; and there
are the devotions of the Church, enshrined in the grand auld liturgies,
and, in these latter days, in our Book of Common Prayer, they are the
prayers; truly a wonderful collection of speeritual fossils. The world’s
been turned upside doon ower and ower again sin’ the first Christian
days; but the teaching of the Apostles--the Apostolic ministry, the
Sacraments and sacramental ordinances, and the ‘set form of words’--are
just as much in evidence today as they were nineteen hunder years ago.
Men hae tried to mak’ new speeritual formations o’ their ain, but they
are nae mair like the God-made formations of the one, holy, catholic,
Apostolic Church than a plaster o’ Paris replica is like the fossil
frond ye unearthed a wee while back oot o’ the auld quarry.”

For some time neither of us spoke. I sat staring vacantly into space,
ruminating over what I had heard; Tom was seemingly as much taken up
with filling and lighting his pipe as he had been before in giving a
theological lecture. He could see that I was giving in, that all my
supports were falling to pieces beneath me, and he resolved to complete
his work.

“Can ye no see that these things, which have stood all the wear and tear
of the ages, must be of the very essence of the Church of Christ? and,
if this be so, why should you keep back from throwing in your lot with
those who are in possession of them? I honor you, my lad, for respecting
the teaching of those who had a claim on your loyalty; but the time has
come when you must make a decision according to the dictates of your own
conscience, and no one whose opinion is worth anything will do anything
but respect you for doing so.”

Again he relapsed into the Doric. “There’s aye been a faithfu’ remnant
in auld Scotland--the ‘gentle persuasion’ as ye’ve nae doot heard folks
ca’ them, an’ ye’ll be nane the less a true Scot when ye become ane o’
that same company.”

“You, who have all your life been a Churchman, and have received the
most careful teaching in Church matters, can have no idea of the
struggle that one who has had none of these privileges has to undergo in
breaking loose from all the traditions of his family and friends.
However, I may tell you that I see my duty clear, and I mean at once to
take my stand in defence of the old faith. I shall write to my father
and mother, and tell them of my purpose, after which I shall put myself
in the hands of those who can prepare me for confirmation.”

“Glad am I to hear you say this, Alan. You will nae doot hae mony
diffeeculties; but the blessing o’ the Maister will go wi’ ye, and ye
need hae nae fear.”

A few weeks after this I received the sacred rite of the laying on of
hands from a Bishop of the old Scottish Church.

Many years have passed since then; but I have never ceased to hold in
the highest esteem the simple, homely teaching of the old bookseller;
and I have never for a moment regretted crossing the Rubicon.




VI. Settling Down


Even if a traveller spends but a day or two in Edinburgh, he may see
many things that will call forth surprise and admiration. The Castle,
the High street, with all its closes and wynds, the ancient palace of
Holyrood--indeed the whole of the Old Town--all are full of historic
interest. If he has been fortunate enough to enlist the services of one
of the authorized city guides, his interest will be greatly intensified,
for the old man will reel off, in a dignified but somewhat monotonous
voice, a farrago of historical information that will simply appal his
auditor; and, should the said auditor attempt, in the evening, to enter
in his notebook an account of all he has seen and heard, he will find
himself in a state of chaos and will give up the effort in despair.

It is no exaggeration to say that our Scottish capital is one of the
most historic cities in the world. It is no wonder that Scotsmen are
proud of it. Its natural position is wondrously picturesque; the
romantic and legendary lore that hangs, like a Scotch mist, around its
ancient courts and archways, is of the most thrilling character; the
relics of past grandeur that meet one everywhere are such as to compel
investigation and inquiry; in fact, there are so many items of interest
crowding in on the visitor’s brain that he feels that he would like to
spend a year, instead of a day or two, in the contemplation of them.

“Edina, Scotia’s darling seat,” as Scotia’s peasant-bard affectionately
terms it, indeed deserves all that has been said in its praise; but
there is another and sadder aspect under which it may be viewed, one
that is only realized by those who have spent years of residence there.
One might truly go further and say that the seamy side of the Maiden
Town is only fully understood by comparatively few of its inhabitants.

Around the base of the great rock on which stands the old fortress of
the Scottish kings, and within a very short distance of their ancient
palace, there are vast tenements in which thousands of the poor, and
miserable, and sinful, are huddled together, seemingly regardless of
decency and cleanliness and comfort.

To one of these districts I, Alan Gray, came to work as a lay reader,
previous to my ordination. The clergyman of the church to which I was
attached was in many respects a man worthy of esteem and regard. A scion
of a well-known English family, he maintained all the traditions of his
race with dignity and self-respect; he had a beautiful voice and read
the services in a manner which could not fail to attract people of
culture and refinement; and he was ever ready to give of his wealth to
relieve the needy and distressed. The congregation were almost entirely
of the moneyed classes; the poor were not encouraged to attend the
mother church, but were relegated to the care of a lay assistant, who
held evening services in the schoolroom. Occasionally, however, some of
the latter might be seen in the gallery of the church, where there were
a number of free seats. As a matter of principle, I sat in the gallery
when I was not asked to read the Lessons; and almost invariably I chose
the same pew, where I had for my neighbor a quiet, douce, middle-aged
man, whose horny hands told that he had done many a hard day’s work in
his life. On the first occasion of my noticing him, he was listening
with great intentness to the sermon. When the preacher was about to
descend from the pulpit, I could hear my companion mutter:

“Imphm, a strong smell o’ brimstone; that’ll be ane o’ his
grandfaither’s auld sermons.”

I was amused, but of course showed no sign.

Some weeks afterwards I was again in my accustomed place, and my
neighbor was in the same pew. The sermon came to a close and this time I
heard the remark:

“High and dry, an’ no a bit o’ noorishment in the whole affair; that’ll
be ane oot o’ his daddy’s auld kist.”

Again I was amused; but I was yet to be more startled. This time he
spoke even more audibly, and with a good deal of contempt:

“A perfect plash o’ gruel--naething in’t ava--fushionless stuff. That’s
ane o’ his ain.”

Naturally I was anxious to know this strange character, and you may be
sure I took the first opportunity of making his acquaintance. On my
commenting on his strange remarks, he said:

“Weel, ye see, it’s weel kent that the minister has three sets o’
sermons--a boxful o’ his grandfaither’s--ane o’ his faither’s--an’ a
wheen o’ his ain that he wrote when he was a curate doon in England.
Folk that hae sat lang in the kirk ken what batch the sermon comes
frae--it’s easy kennin’ them. He’s ower sair taen up wi’ playin’ gowff
nooadays that he has nae time for preparin’ good speeritual meat; it’s
cauld hash a’ the time.”

I asked my quaint neighbor to spend an evening with me at my rooms, and
there I got from him an account of his own strange and eventful life. He
was the illegitimate son of a rakish Scottish peer, who had not given
him his name, but had paid for his upbringing and education. Being of a
restless disposition, he ran off to sea at the age of eighteen. For
years he had led a roving life, draining the cup of worldly pleasure to
his very dregs. One day, in a drunken spree, he got his leg broken and
was removed to a hospital, where he made the acquaintance of a converted
Jew who was trying to do good work among the sailors in that port.
During the period of his convalescence he commenced the study of Hebrew
to while away the time that hung heavy on his hands, and, under the
careful instruction of his Jewish friend, he was soon able to read
portions of the Holy Scriptures in the original. After a time he gave up
the life of a sailor and settled in Edinburgh, where he attended Hebrew
and Syriac lectures at the University. At the present time he was taking
the regular arts course, with a view to graduation, and was gaining a
somewhat precarious livelihood by giving private lessons in Hebrew to
young men who were studying for the ministry.

James Macnicol was certainly a singular character, but I found him true
as steel to the Christian life he had adopted, and was anxious to do all
he could for the careless and godless around him. He was an expert
swimmer, and during the summer, one would find him occupying his
evenings in teaching a class of young lads that most useful art. He had
the impression that any occupation that would keep the young fellows
from going astray was worth trying.

“It’s the only kind of decent amusement that I am acquainted with,” he
would say, “and if I do what I can it will always help on the good work
a wee bit.”

Surely a most excellent principle, and one that might well be taken as
the basis of every Christian’s practice. The Master Himself gave it His
warm commendation when He said: “She hath done what she could.”

I was not long in enlisting the kind sympathy of my eccentric friend,
and I not only got his sympathy but his warm co-operation. When I
commenced holding services in the school on Sunday evenings, I was
somewhat discouraged to find that my congregation, which generally did
not exceed twenty in number, consisted mostly of old women and children;
not one of the many young men residing in the district put in an
appearance. I spoke to Macnicol about this and asked him what he thought
should be done to get in touch with the class referred to.

“Do many of the young men belong to the Episcopal church?” I asked him.

“The feck o’ them dinna belang to ony kirk, Mr. Gray,” he replied.
“Maist o’ them have been baptized, I suppose, for it’s wonderfu’ how the
careless an’ degraded among the parents have unconsciously retained a
belief in the efficacy of Holy Baptism. Wi’ some o’ them, nae doot, it’s
degenerated into a kind o’ superstition--still, the belief’s there and
what’s wanted is to get baith parents and children to understand a’ that
baptism involves. My advice to you wad be to let them see, in some way
or ither, that ye take an interest in their lives--in their amusements
even. Say naething aboot releegion at first, but just mak’ yersel’ their
friend and get in touch with them. Higher things will come later on.”

As the outcome of this chat I set about organizing social evenings,
under the then popular title of “Penny Readings.” The rector’s wife gave
us an old piano, much the worse for wear, but still capable of being
used. Until we were able to purchase a set of teacups, etc., we hired a
few dozen from a friendly hardware man. I enlisted the services of some
of my fellow collegians who could sing or play a little; simple popular
programmes were drawn up; refreshments of very plain character were
brought in--and we were ready for the fray. Macnicol invited his
swimming class and told them to bring their chums. When the opening
night came the performers were there in force--but the audience, where
were they? A few of the Sunday evening congregation occupied the front
benches; the young men congregated at the door but hesitated to come in.
They were evidently afraid of being preached at. I took the chair, said
a few words by way of introduction, and then announced the first item on
our little programme. It was only a well-worn college chorus, but we
sang it lustily. Songs, readings, recitations, piano selections of
popular music, and more choruses followed in order. The old women
listened with attention; the children looked as if they were enduring
these for the sake of the tea and cakes which were to follow. By and by
a toosy head appeared at the door, then another, and another, and before
the first half-hour had gone the audience was more than doubled.

“Come in, lads,” I called out, “and take a seat. There’s lots of room.”

In they came, most of them with a sheepish or suspicious air. When
anything of an amusing nature was being read or sung their interest
quickened; they even applauded in a quiet way.

When our programme was ended I asked Macnicol to say a few words.

“Ye ken me, lads,” he began; “we’ve had lots o’ fun in the water afore
noo. But we canna be soomin’ a’ the time, and so oor frien’ Maister Gray
has arranged to hae an evenin’s fun in the school ilka week, an’ he
wants you a’ to come. We’re goin’ to hae some refreshments noo, so ye
can juist hae a crack wi’ ane anither till the young ladies hand roon’
the tea.”

At first they were too shy to take advantage of the opportunity to chat,
but ere long the hum of conversation mingled with the clatter of cups
and plates.

The ice was broken, and we never again permitted it to freeze up. It
took a good many weeks to get in touch with the young men, but quiet,
persistent effort won the day.

Before the long winter had come to an end we had introduced popular
lectures in simple colloquial phraseology; occasional magic-lantern
exhibitions were given; and now and then we spent the evenings in parlor
games of various kinds.

Some of the young fellows braved the scorn of their neighbors and came
to our Sunday evening services; these brought others, and so the work
progressed. We had many who fell away and went back to their old loafing
ways--their drinking and gambling and worse--but, in spite of many
difficulties, our pioneer work began to tell. Before long I had about a
dozen in training for confirmation, and very soon after I had been
admitted to the diaconate I presented my class to the rector, who
approved of the candidates and presented them to the bishop for the
“laying on of hands.”

The nucleus of a mission congregation, thus formed, developed under my
successors in the curacy into a large and flourishing church. In the
meantime I obtained the desire of my heart, that of being sent to the
pastorate of one of the old congregations that had lived on and
flourished through the persecutions that followed the Jacobite Rising of
1745.




VII. Drumscondie


I do not suppose that one out of every ten Scotsmen has ever heard of
Drumscondie, seeing that it is only a little bit of a place (I call it a
village; but the inhabitants thereof dignify it with the appellation of
“town”), occupying an obscure corner of what many regard as the most
obscure county on the east coast of Scotland. At the present time, it
has little about it to attract notice from the busy world around, but
this was not always the case. In the days when the stern and masterful
Douglases were lords paramount of that part of the country, when----

    “Princes and favorites long grew tame,
     And trembled at the holy name
     Of Archibald Bell-the-Cat,”

Drumscondie was a Burgh of Barony, owning allegiance to them; its Baron
Baillie, who was their appointee, held his courts there, and executed
summary judgment, when the need arose; its chapelry, dedicated to St.
John the Baptist, was an appanage of the parish church of St. Michael of
Glendouglas, the rector of which held a prebendal stall in the Cathedral
of St. Andrews.

In the eighteenth, and in the early days of the nineteenth century, the
village was a centre of the domestic hand-loom industry, and boasted of
a population of five hundred souls.

By the time that I became its rector, the weaving trade was little more
than a memory; but there were still not a few roofless cottages that
were pointed out as the weaving shops of worthies whose names were
quoted with unction by the fathers of the village. They must have been a
lively lot--these old weavers!

I can recall vividly, as if it were yesterday, a night I spent by the
bedside of old David Grant, who soon afterwards passed over to the great
majority. My wife had stayed with him during the first watch, and had
gone home, leaving her patient sleeping peacefully. I was sitting by the
peatfire reading, when a sound from the boxbed caused me to spring to my
feet. The old man had got out of bed, and was making his way to the
outer door, a stout oaken cudgel in his hand. I sprang forward to
intercept him, as I could see he was in a state of delirium; and, should
he get outside, it might mean sudden death from exposure. I managed to
get in front of him, and was about to push him backwards towards the
bed, when he raised the stick, and aimed a blow which would have felled
me had it fallen on my head. Closing in upon him I managed, after a
struggle, to get him back among the blankets where he lay panting.

“Where were you going, David?” I said.

“Could ye not leave me alane, man? I was gaun doon to Lucky Begg’s to
redd the row; there’s a fecht on among the weyvers, and they’ll kill wee
Johnnie Chisholm. He can haud his ain, if he gets fair play but there’s
aboot half a dizzen o’ them at him. What’ll folk think if I’m no there
when there’s sic ongauns?”

When David was well, and able to hold a conversation, he beguiled many
an evening for me with his reminiscences of bygone days. It was from him
that I got the bulk of my information regarding my own church when I
first settled down there.

“Wha can tell you better than me, Maister Gray? I was born here, an’
brocht up here, and, although I’ve been a bit of a rovin’ blade, I’ve
spent the maist o’ my days here. There’s the remains o’ ither three
Episcopal kirks here. Ye ken that auld dyke o’ stanes an’ clay; weel,
that was the back wa’ o’ the hoose that was used for a kirk when Maister
Petrie was the minister in the ’45; but when the Bluidy Cumberland cam’
by on his road to fecht Prince Charlie, he set fire to the auld biggin’,
and took Maister Petrie doon to Stanehyve, whaur he put him into the
jail, doon aside the harbor. There was ither twa ministers in the jail
wi’ him; and what do ye think the Episcopalians did when they wantit to
get their bairns baptized? They stood outside the jail window on a bit
o’ rock; and ane o’ the men that was a gey strong chield, held up a
fisher’s creel wi’ the bairnie in ’t, an’ the minister bapteezed it
throw the bars o’ the jail window.

“Weel, efter the awfu’ defeat at Culloden, the Episcopalians had to keep
very quiet, for you see their religion wis proscribed. Noo and then
Bishop Watson wad come roon’ in his auld gig, and haud a service in some
o’ the hooses. But he was watched sae closely by the government folk,
that he couldna even cairry his communion vessels except in a secret box
below the seat o’ the gig. Ye ken that pewter cup and plate in the press
in your vestry; that belanged to Bishop Skinner, the son o’ auld
‘Tullochgorum.’ Mony’s the time that he’s used it here when he would be
veesitin’ some o’ his freens.

“Aboot 1790 things were a wee bit quaieter, and they got anither
kirk--that’s it biggit on to the gable o’ The Home. I can mind my auld
mither takin’ me there to a service when I was a bairn. It had an
ootside stane stair that led up to the gallery. We were sittin’ in the
gallery, an’ I was putten oot ’cause I let my ball row doon on the heids
o’ the folk below.

“Syne, in the year efter Waterloo they biggit the auld kirk that is noo
a pairt o’ your parsonage. I helpit to dig the foondation o’t. Oh, man,
but the Episcopalians were prood when it was biggit! The maist o’ the
weyvers cam’ there to worship, aye, an’ they cam’ frae a’ the fishin’
toons alang the coast. Mony a time have I been sent by John Duncan, the
beadle, to see if the fishers were near at hand afore he would begin to
ring the last bell for the mornin’ service.

“Yer present kirk--oh! it was biggit about twenty years ago. Aye, it’s a
rael bonnie kirk; but, for me, I aye likit the auld ane best.”

You can easily understand how deeply interested I was in all this local
church history, and how I valued the honor of serving in such historic
ground.

Sometimes David’s reminiscences took a distinctly secular turn. He would
tell me of the old coaching days, when the four-in-hand, tooled by
Archie Hepburn, in scarlet coat and topboots, passed through the village
twice a week, and was the only regular event of importance in their
quiet lives; how, as soon as the toot of the guard’s horn was heard,
every weaver flung down his shuttle and hurried to the Douglas Arms to
get the newspapers and hear the news; and how, in Lucky Begg’s
bar-parlor, there was keen competition for the honor of entertaining the
coachman and guard.

“There was aye plenty o’ hame-brewed ale on coach days,” David would
say, “and yet ye hardly ever saw onybody the waur o’t. An’ sic a
collyshangie there would be, ilka ane tryin’ to get the news that maist
interested him. Peter Wyllie--man, what a cratur he was, aye arguin’
aboot politics;--he was terrible taen up aboot the Reform Bill, and bude
to ken the latest news aboot it. Syne there was Jamie Polson--Jamie was
an elder, and wis awfu’ keen on the Patronage question, that brocht on
the disruption o’ the free kirk in 1843. Mony a wordy war did Archie and
him hae aboot that.

“I tell you, Maister Gray, there was some stir in the toon on coach
days; and, even when the coach set oot doon the south road to Embro,
there was little mair work dune that day.”

Most of the weavers were also crofters, and farmed a few acres of land,
enough to provide them with oatmeal for the year, and a winter’s feed
for the cows that supplied the family with milk. There was a piece of
common land, called the “bogs,” and every crofter had a right to pasture
his cow there. A boy collected the cattle by the blasts of a
well-battered horn, and, driving them before him to the pastureland,
herded them there till noon. The whole band re-formed in procession and
retraced their steps to their respective byres, where buxom matrons in
“soo-backit mutches,” relieved them of their burden of milk. In the
afternoon, the same programme was gone through; and so it went on,
through the long sunny days of summer and autumn, and was only
discontinued when the snows and frosts of winter made grazing out of the
question.

To one who had spent a number of years amid the din and dust, the sins
and sorrows of city life, this return to Arcadian simplicity was very
welcome.

Seven very happy years I spent there, and many a valuable lesson did I
learn from the descendants of the loyal churchmen who had stood by their
lawful prince in his hour of need, and had given loving and devoted heed
to the godly teaching of their faithful though persecuted pastors. It
was in these days I began to realize the full import of Tertullian’s
words: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church and the more
we are mowed down the more we grow.” The older generation of churchfolks
were churchfolks from stern conviction; they would let nothing stand
between them and the Apostolic Faith. I had not been long settled in
Drumscondie when I had an opportunity of noting the soundness of the
early training that had been given to those old folks by my predecessors
of long ago. Old Sandy Barras, who had been the treasurer of the
congregation for over half a century, was nearing his end, and I called
to see him. After reading the service for the visitation of the sick, I
talked to him for a little, and in the course of conversation, I
received this bit of advice:

“Whatever ye do, Mr. Gray, teach the bairns the Collects and the Psalms.
When I was young and strong, I thocht that a’ this learnin’ by rote wis
juist nonsense--a parrot could do that. But, sir, since God has laid me
doon on a bed o’ sickness, and often I’m no able to get a bit o’ sleep
the hale nicht through, I’m mair than thankful that I can say the Psalms
an’ the Church’s prayers without a book; they’ve been a great comfort to
me.”

It was not many days before I was sent for to administer the Holy
Communion for the last time to this faithful old Churchman. I shall
never forget the scene that greeted me when I entered the room. It was
on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, and there had been a
celebration in church. We used the old Scotch Communion Office at
Drumscondie, which provides for Reservation for the Sick; and so I
wended my way through the village, carrying the Communion vessels. All
who saw me knew whither I was going, and no one spoke. When I entered
the sick chamber I felt as if I were entering a sacred place. Everything
was so spotlessly neat and clean; the dying man was slightly raised in
bed, and his eager look betokened anticipated joy and peace. A small
table, covered with an immaculately white cloth, had on it a bowl of
beautiful winter flowers. None in that household knew anything of what
is now known as “_Catholic_” ritual; but they had a grip of the
Christian verities that made them instinctively do everything “_in
decency and order_”; aye, more, they recognized the special presence of
the Divine, and no trouble was too great to give expression to the honor
which was to be theirs.

Sandy Barras was my first friend in Drumscondie; no one respected my
office more than he; and when he gave me his counsel, as he often did,
it was never in a dictatorial way, but as an aged servant of God would
advise a young brother and seek to keep him from falling into such
mistakes as are liable to spring from inexperience.

He was my first, but by no means my only staunch friend in my new
charge; of some of the others I may speak another day.




VIII. An Auld-Farrant Laddie


I was quite a stranger in my new parish when I first made the
acquaintance of James Morton, one of the brightest and most original
characters it has ever been my fortune to meet. He was then but a boy of
sixteen, but, somehow or other, one never thought of him as a boy; there
was an indescribable something about him which called up to one’s mind
the oft-quoted text from the Book of Wisdom: “He being made perfect in a
short time hath fulfilled a long time.”

A little matter of parochial business led me to pay a visit to the House
of Glendouglas, and, the weather being fine and the roads in good shape,
I set out to make the journey on foot. I had left the main road which
led over the Cairn, and was passing along the magnificent beech avenue
that formed the approach to the mansion-house, when I came upon a party
of two who had taken up their position at a point from which could be
obtained an excellent view of the house and its surroundings. In an
invalid’s wheel-chair was seated a lad of striking appearance, young and
yet having an air of maturity that compelled attention. He was engaged
in making a water-color sketch of the scene before him, occasionally
making a remark to a tall, sweet-faced woman, who leant over the back of
the carriage, and whom I rightly surmised to be his mother. I had
noticed her in church at the early Communion service on the previous
Sunday, and had been struck by her quiet and unassuming, but reverent,
demeanor. Raising my hat, I wished them a good morning.

“I know you are Church folks, and I’m sorry that I have not been able to
call upon you as yet; ere long I hope to get over the whole parish. I do
not need to tell you who I am, but, may I ask to whom I am speaking?”

The young lad turned his head and respectfully saluted me, blushing as
he did (and it was only when the blood mantled into his cheeks that one
thought of him as a boy); his mother dropped a courtesy, with a grace
that told its own tale, and replied:

“I am Mrs. Morton, sir, and this is my eldest son, Jamie. He is not very
strong, but he dearly loves, when it is at all possible, to get out of
doors, and do a little sketching.”

Her accent was distinctly Scotch, but I could easily perceive that she
was a woman of education and refinement; and, while there was just a
breath of pathos in her speech, there was at the same time a note of
dignity and independence that warned me to be very guarded in what I had
to say.

I glanced at the sketch, and even my _dilettante_ knowledge of the
canons of art could tell that here was an undeveloped genius, who only
needed a master’s guidance to produce really good work.

“Has your son had any lessons, Mrs. Morton?” I said.

“No, sir, I am sorry to say, we have not been able to arrange for that
as yet. My husband died three years ago, and I’ve been so much taken up
with providing a home for my little flock, that lessons have been out of
the question. My boy has been unable to move about like other bairns,
which has not lessened the difficulty. But he’s a very sensible lad, Mr.
Gray; he knows that it’s God’s will he should be as he is, and he’s
quite content. Some day, no doubt, all will be light.”

It was not what she said, but the manner of saying it, which told me
that I was speaking to one whose faith was a real, living principle,
and who recognized the loving hand of the Father of Love, even in the
heavy affliction laid upon her. I was touched by what I heard, and
resolved to take an early opportunity of improving my acquaintance with
the artist and his mother. At present, my engagement called for my
moving on, so I shook hands warmly with both, and went on my way to the
“big house.” As I neared it, and noted the sweet sylvan peacefulness of
the surroundings, I could understand the evident pleasure afforded to
the young artist by the scene. Here was an excellent specimen of
Scottish castellated architecture, with round towers and high-pitched
roofs, the white “harled” walls showing up in marked contrast to the
lovely green ivy that in many places clung to them, and in the
foreground a verdant lawn studded with trees that had seen centuries of
growth--one in particular, a copper-colored beech, lending to the
picture a bright tint that was very charming. It was easy to understand
such a scene appealing to all that was romantic and artistic in the
boy’s mind.

On the Sunday following I was delighted to hear the wheels of the
invalid-chair passing up the nave of the church just before the
commencement of evening service, and still more so to note the keen,
intelligent eyes of my young friend looking up into my face as I stood
in the pulpit. It is very hard sometimes to explain the cause of one’s
confidence; but, somehow or other, I felt I had come into touch with one
who would understand me, and who, in his own way, would be a source of
encouragement to me. How fully this was realized I only knew when I was
called upon to say good-by--for a time--“till the day break and the
shadows flee away.”

A day or two afterwards I paid my first visit to Jamie’s home. Mrs.
Morton herself opened the door in response to my knock, and ushered me
into her modest sitting-room. It was a quaint old-fashioned room, with
open rafters black with age. Near the big open fireplace Jamie sat in
his easy-chair reading. I was introduced to the other members of the
little household, and a chair was given to me in the family circle. At
first my artist was shy and did not say much; but when I told him of
visits I had paid to the National Gallery and the exhibition of the
Royal Scottish Academy, in Edinburgh, his eyes sparkled again, and he
could not help exclaiming:

“I wonder, mother, if I’ll ever be able to gang and see them. My! that
would be grand.”

My eye happening to light on a beautiful old corner cupboard, through
the glass door of which I could see a fine tea set of china, decorated
with grotesque dragons in a lovely shade of green, I remarked on the
uncommon character of the design. Jamie seemed pleased with my notice of
them, and said:

“I suppose thae draigons are intended to represent the deevil. Is it no
funny, sir, what queer notions fowk hae o’ Auld Nick? I aften read
Burns’ Address to the Deil’; an’ Dr. Gerrard, that was here afore you,
lent me a copy o’ ‘Faust.’ Syne, Milton has his idea o’ Satan in
‘Paradise Lost,’ and Scott has a heap to say on demonology in the
Waverley novels. I’ve thocht a lot aboot it, and my opinion is that he
has a’ sorts o’ gifts an’ graces, or else he wouldna be able to get fowk
to pay ony attention to him. I think the deevil, if he has ony shape
ava, is a handsome chield. What do you think?”

I tried to explain my ideas on the subject and quoted the passage from
St. Paul, which speaks of Satan as among men in the guise of an angel of
light. We chatted away cosily for a considerable time, Mrs. Morton
putting the closure on the subject by saying that she would give us a
cup of afternoon tea, which would speedily exorcise the demon from the
old china. Many a chat did we have afterwards on similar subjects, and
many a delicious cup of tea did we have out of the cups with the green
dragons upon them.

Not long after this Mr. Prior, an English artist, came to stay for a
time in my parish; a mutual friend brought the two artists together, and
the elder assumed a brotherly tutelage of the younger. Inaccuracies in
drawing were corrected, and much valuable instruction was given in
technical detail. Jamie was grateful for the help given him; but he
never became an imitator of the style of his friend. In spite of much
that would be termed crude, there was a bold dash about his own work,
which was far more in keeping with the rugged character of the
landscapes that he tried to reproduce. He had imbibed, with all the
fervor of his poetic temperament, the spirit that breathed in the hills
and dales of his own land; his firs were _Scotch_ firs; his streams were
not gentle English brooks, but brawling _Scotch_ “burns,” leaping over
granite boulders; his clumps of fern and braesides of heather made one
recall Aytoun’s “Killie-crankie” in the “Burial-march of Dundee.” It was
very amusing to hear Jamie criticise his friend’s work. He could be very
sarcastic when he liked, but there was no sting in his sarcasm.

“They mak’ fine pictures for a young lady’s scrap-book, or for Christmas
cairds to send doon to England, whawr the fowk want a’ thing dune in
their ain wye, but, losh me, there’s nae Scotsman wad ever tak’ them for
pictures o’ this country. He’s ower particular aboot getting ilka blade
of grass o’ the richt shape. Ye can lay them doon on the table an’ look
at them through a magnifyin’ gless, and they’ll look rael bonnie; but
hang them upon the wa’, and they dinna gie ye ony idea o’ the hale thing
as ye see’t in nature.”

There was a great deal of truth in what Jamie said, and there was not a
grain of bumptiousness in him when he said it. He was not satisfied with
his own work, and longed for the time to come when he would be able to
take a course of study in Edinburgh. At last it came. Through the
kindness of friends arrangements were made for his going to the Life
School in the National Gallery, and his mother and he set out for the
great metropolis, leaving the other children at home in charge of their
grandparent. For two seasons he studied hard, and made wonderful
progress in spite of the serious difficulties that had to be overcome.
Every day a strong man had to take him in his arms and carry him up the
long stone stairs leading to the gallery; he was then placed in his
chair, from which he could not move unless with his mother’s aid. But he
was brim full of enthusiasm, and his patience and perseverance were
amply rewarded.

His homecoming was hastened by the sickness of the sister next to him in
age. She also had been an invalid for years, and had required a great
deal of care. Her weakness, however, had not been without good fruit;
her faith was strengthened, and her disposition, naturally sweet and
placid, had an added sweetness and calmness, which endeared her to all
who knew her. She was endowed with the same artistic taste as her
brother, although not in the same degree. During the second winter of
Jamie’s absence from home she contracted a severe cold, which developed
into pneumonia. Everything that could be done was done, but she had no
rallying powers. We sent for Mrs. Morton, who at once returned home,
leaving Jamie in Edinburgh in the care of his younger brother. In two
days it was evident that she could not, humanly speaking, recover, and I
set out for Edinburgh to bring home the two brothers. What a sad journey
that was! On the way home I tried to be as cheerful as possible, and to
prepare both lads for what I felt to be the inevitable. Very little was
said, but it was easy to see that Jamie was deeply moved, and that he
realized upon how slender a thread his own life hung. By some
misunderstanding on the part of the railway officials there was no order
given to stop the train at our station. Here was a dilemma! I alighted
at the nearest station at which the train was scheduled to stop, carried
my poor boy into the waiting-room, and then set out to procure a closed
carriage to convey us over the last seven miles of our weary journey. It
was a bitterly cold night, and I was greatly alarmed lest Jamie should
catch cold. Not a word of complaint escaped from him, not the least
token of impatience, although I could see that his heart was full to
bursting. Late at night the carriage drew up at the door; the poor
mother came out to greet us; she did not require to speak--the set look
of distraction in her face told us the sad news. We were too late by
some hours. For a time both Jamie and his mother shrank within
themselves, as if they would bar an outsider from the sacred privacy of
their grief; true to their Scotch nature, they did not wear their hearts
upon their sleeves “for daws to peck at.” But Father Time is a great
consoler, and Jamie and I resumed our companionship as of old. My weekly
visit to him was eagerly looked forward to by both of us. When I was
feeling in the “dumps” Jamie’s quaint drolleries would act like a charm,
and restore my wonted cheerfulness. Often when he was out in his
wheel-chair he would hear all sorts of humorous things, which he never
failed to retail to me in his own inimitable way, not infrequently
illustrating the same with a few deft strokes of his pencil. The simple
villagers little thought that they were being analyzed, and all their
weaknesses and peculiarities cartooned, mentally if not actually, by one
of themselves.

“I had a visit frae auld Joseph Shand the day,” he said to me on one
occasion. “Naething will suit the puir bodie but I maun paint his
picture. I tellt him that I was gey busy juist noo, but I would see what
I could do later on. What do you think he said, sir?--‘If I were to come
round the nicht, efter I’ve gotten ma supper, you could put on the first
coat o’ paint, and syne it would be dry for the second coat the morn’s
nicht.’ Poor auld Joseph, he thinks that a portrait is paintit like a
barn door. He has been oot o’ sorts lately, so I speired what was the
maitter wi’ him. ‘Weel, man,’ he said, ‘I saw the doctor on Monday when
he was owerby, an’ he said it was a stomach tribble. Ye see there’s twa
kinds o’t; there’s disgeestion an’ indisgeestion, an’ the deil a bit o’
me minds whilk o’ them’s the maitter wi’ me.’”

Another day I found him simply bubbling over with merriment over an
encounter he had had with the Free Kirk minister. The minister, in the
course of conversation with him, had made some slighting remarks anent
the Episcopal Church, as being full of empty forms.

“Man,” said Jamie, pretending not to understand what he meant, “ye’re
wrang there; oor kirk has nae empty forms. The ither Sunday nicht we had
the maist o’ the young folks frae the Free Kirk there, as weel as oor
ain; we’ve nae empty forms noo.”

As I have already said, Jamie was an auld-farrant laddie, bright
intellectually and spiritually; brimful of humor, and yet yearning with
all the force of his intense nature to see right into the heart of
things; content to endure great weakness of body, in the full belief
that one day he would leave all his infirmities behind him, and stand
without a single flaw in the presence of his Master. It is many years
now since he shook off the trammels of earth, but, when I meet him again
I shall know him, and shall be glad.




IX. Boycotted


I often look back with longing to the simple rural life we spent in the
dear old parsonage at Drumscondie. We rose early, both summer and
winter; at eight o’clock breakfast was on the table, at one we had
dinner, and at six in the evening we assembled for that delightfully
cosy meal yclept High Tea. Then, in the winter, there was a hurry-scurry
for a little, while the table was being cleared, the dishes washed and
put away, and other domestic duties attended to; after everything was
prepared for the morning, the whole of our little household, including
Janet Spence, our faithful domestic and friend, gathered around the big
open fireplace in the nursery. Mother, daughter and maid took their
sewing, knitting or darning, and all listened while I read aloud from
one of the old favorite works of fiction, or an ancient ballad from the
days of chivalry. George Macdonald’s Alec Forbes and Robert Falconer,
Malcolm Marquis of Lossie and Dooble Sanny with his Stradivarius, Miss
Mulock’s John Halifax and Phineas Fletcher, Sir James the Rose and Sir
Patrick Spens--were very real personages, in whose doings we took the
keenest interest.

Many a happy evening did we spend in such delightful company, and much
food for thought did we gather for the busy future.

I was reading one evening the Siege of Torquilstone from Scott’s
“Ivanhoe,” when an interruption came in the shape of loud knocking at
the kitchen door. I ceased reading while Janet went to see what was the
matter. Presently the trampling of heavy boots was heard on the stairs,
my study door was opened, and then shut, and Janet returned to tell me
that three young men wished to see me. On my entering the study, one of
the visitors whom I had met once or twice before, came forward, and
introduced his companions.

“We’re a deppytation from the Mutual Improvement Society, Maister Gray,”
he said, “an’ we’ve come to ask you if you would be so good as gie us a
lecture some evenin’ soon.”

“A lecture?” I said, “why, I never gave a lecture in my life. I would
gladly be of any service to your Society, but really I fear I am of no
use in the way you mention. I don’t know what I could talk to you
about.”

There was silence for a moment, and then an idea struck me. “I’ll tell
you what I’ll do. I have for some years been trying, in my leisure time,
to find out the origin and history of some of the old Jacobite songs. I
could tell you how these songs came into being--what events in the
romance of the white cockade called them forth--and, if you like, I
would sing some of the songs.”

I could easily see from their faces that this was more than they
expected.

“That would be splendid. We’ve never had onything o’ that kind before.
We’ll lat a’ body ken aboot it, an’ the hall will be crooded.”

“Don’t say too much about it, boys,” I interposed, “because it is only
an experiment.”

We arranged the day and hour, and the deputation departed, much pleased
with the result of their visit.

I collected my notes, made a sketch of the Jacobite story from the
Revolution of 1689 down to the sad defeat at Culloden, and introduced
the most notable of the songs in their proper historical order.

The evening of the lecture arrived, and I proceeded to the place of
meeting. The building known as “The Hall,” had at one time been a Free
Kirk day school, and was still to a great extent in the hands of that
body. My chairman was an old man, very much esteemed in the
neighborhood. In politics he was an ultra-Radical; in religion he was a
Congregationalist of a very narrow type. In introducing me he said very
little, and that of a vague and general character. It was something new
for these folks to hear a parson singing old Scotch songs; some seemed
to look upon it with considerable suspicion; others showed their
enjoyment and appreciation by attending closely to my remarks, and
vociferously applauding my simple rendering of the old ballads. In his
closing remarks the chairman expressed the thanks of the audience to me
for the trouble I had taken, but said he was quite sure “if the young
Pretender were to land on these shores now, the great mass of the people
would rise and drive him back again to the ship which had brought him
hither.”

I saw I had got into a hornet’s nest, but I made no reply. This,
however, was not the end of the matter. Various chats with the young
people of the village led to my opening a night school for them, in the
Hall, on two evenings weekly, and, in the conducting of this, I took
good care that the study of Scottish history had its due share of
attention. For two winters this went on. Beyond opening our meetings
with prayer, nothing of a religious character was introduced. My class
soon included all the young men of the village; and, more out of
gratitude to me than from any other cause, the members of my class took
to attending our Sunday evening services. What our congregation gained
in numbers my Free Kirk neighbor lost, and great was his indignation.

Something must be done to stop the deplorable leakage. Ministers and
elders used their influence individually with the young men, sermon
after sermon was preached to show the delinquents the imminent danger
they were in spiritually from coquetting with Black Prelacy; but, the
results were meagre. The religion of the “Gentle Persuasion,”--that took
a real and living interest in their everyday lives, that aimed at making
their lives brighter and happier, that laid no ban on innocent and
rational pleasures, that took even their recreations under its fostering
care--appealed strongly to their common sense; and, not a few who had
been fed on the dry husks of an effete Calvinism owed their emancipation
from its thraldom, directly or indirectly, to our village night school.

But the Free Kirk Session was not to yield its hold without a further
effort. By fair means or foul, my evening school must be stopped.

At the beginning of my third winter, I went to the “Provost” to arrange
for the use of the Hall, and was told that the trustees had resolved,
contrary to all precedent, to charge me the same fee as they charged any
travelling concert company for every night I used it. At first, I was
dumbfounded. The charge was prohibitive. I went home in despair, to take
counsel with my women-folks. Advice and comfort came, and from a source
whence I never expected it.

Janet, who bore no particular good-will to the Frees, came to the
rescue.

“Ye needna tribble yersel’ about that poor ablich o’ a minister bodie
an’ his elders. There’s plenty o’ room for a’ the laddies in my kitchen.
We’ll get some o’ them to gie’s a haund, and we’ll cairry oot the things
that wad be in the wye, an’ aifter the class is ower, we can easy pit
them a’ back again.”

“But, Janet,” I said, “that’ll mean a lot of work twice every week.”

“Never ye min’ that, we’re nae gaun to hae the good wark stoppit for a
wee bit extra wark.”

And so it was arranged. The class was summoned to a meeting in the
parsonage kitchen, the new scheme was broached, and every one promised
to help. One or two came half an hour earlier on class nights to get
things in order; several of them always stayed behind to restore things
to their wonted order; and the work went on, with more success than
ever. Persecution in a good cause is always productive of good. Even
some of the old folks, who at first were suspicious of anything of the
nature of innovation, expressed their sympathy in no uncertain language.

Davie Paterson, the postman, on his journey round the Brae side, gave a
most amusing account of the whole affair to the Brae dominie, who in
turn retailed it to me.

“That free kirk futtrit thocht he was gaun to pit an end to Maister
Gray’s nicht schule, but, Lord, man, he got sair begowkit. The parsonage
kitchie on a schule nicht is a sicht for sair e’en. I gaed roon ae
evenin’ to hae a word wi’ the minister, an’ got a luik in. Muckle Jamie
Todd, that used to be either blebbin’ an’ drinkin’ at the inn in the
forenichts, or fechtin, was in the neuk, wi’ the meal barrel for a dask,
an’ wis learnin’ gigonometry, or lan’ measurin’, or something o’ that
kind, an’ he wis that eident that he never saw me. The minister himsel’
had a muckle blackboard set up on the dresser, an’ wis giein’ the lave a
lesson in gography. They were a’ as busy as bonnet makkers. Thae Frees
may say what they like, the toon folk are maistly a’ wi’ Maister Gray.
You would think it was Sunday on the schule nichts--the hale place is as
quaiet as pussy. If he’s nae daein’ ony gude, he’s keepin’ a lot o’ them
oot o’ mischief.”

But the boycotting brought even better results than these I have
indicated. A neighboring laird who had for years been an ardent
follower of Kingsley, and a strong Christian Socialist, came to the
front with counsel and material help which ended in our being able to
convert our disused church into a hall for classes and social
gatherings. We opened it on three nights a week as a reading and
recreation room; by and by it was duly enrolled as a school under the
South Kensington Science and Art Department; classes in chemistry,
physiography and agriculture were commenced and carried on with great
success; popular lectures were given on all kinds of useful subjects,
and today there are of our young men not a few in various parts of the
world whose ability to perform the important work committed to them was
largely due, in the first instance, to the narrow-minded policy which
caused the Frees to boycott the “Gentle Persuasion.”




X. The Auld Provost


Tammas Brown, ex-provost of the ancient burgh of Drumscondie, held a
most unique position in the little commonwealth. For many years he had
filled the civic chair; his tenure of the office was still proudly
remembered, and his opinions quoted, by the burgesses of the “toon.” It
was he who bore the cost of restoring the steeple which for over a
century had carried the bell that rung the “curfew.” The “auld provost,”
as he was called, was a notable man in the community. While he never now
interfered openly in civic affairs, he was kept well posted as to all
the doings of the “Cooncil,” and it was well known that to attempt any
scheme which did not have his approval was to court certain failure.

His successor was a “hairmless, haverin’ bodie,” not overstocked with
prudence, and certainly not over-burdened with wisdom; and, had there
not been sometimes the unseen influence of Tammas Brown at work, things
would not have gone as smoothly as they did.

Speaking of Willie Dundas, the provost in my day, I am reminded of an
amusing incident that well illustrated his crass ignorance and
self-conceit. He had gone to spend a day or two in his native village of
Friockheim, about twenty miles from Drumscondie. On his return he was
met at the railway station by a member of the “Toon Cooncil,” and the
two men walked home together, discussing current events. During his
absence there had been a solar eclipse, which caused quite a commotion
among the villagers.

“Aye, Provost, an’ did you see the eclipse?” said the Cooncillor.

The great man was amazed at the question, and replied in a tone that was
meant to crush the questioner:

“Man, Donald, I wonder at ye speerin’ sic a thing; hoo cud I see the
eclipse, an’ me at Friockheim?”

Nothing so uplifted Willie as to have to preside at any public meeting
in the Toon Hall. For a day or two previously he would be in such a
state of excitement that any work in his shop, short of a coffin to be
made, was entirely out of the question. Several times a day he would
have to “gang doon the toon on business,” which meant on each occasion
one or two bottles of ale, with cronies, at the inn; and it generally
happened that by the time he came to mount the platform, he was prepared
to make a speech that would take the palm as the most amusing item on
the programme. One Hallowe’en night a party of musical folks had given
an entertainment in the “Hall,” in aid of some contemplated local
improvements. The Provost rose to thank the visitors for their kindly
help. “Gentlemen an’ ladies,” he said, “A’m sure we’re a’ vera muckle
obleeged to the freens that’s fushen ye here the nicht. Ye’ve gien us a
concert that couldna be beaten in the big toon o’ Aiberdeen. I howp
we’ll a’ gang hame like gude bairns, an’ be thankfu’ that we leeve in
sic an enlichtened toon. There’s a heap mair I could say aboot it;
but--but--I mean--I think we’ll draw the meetin’ to a con--con close,
wi’ a verse o’ the netteral anthum. Whaur’s the precentor? Oh! ye’re
there, are ye, Rob? Just strike up--“God Save the Queen.”

Tammas Brown’s remarks on his successor were more forcible than polite.

“What in a’ the worrld gars the useless, bletherin’ cratur stand up and
mak’ a fule of hissel’ an’ the Toon Cooncil? He fair bates a’. Gin I
had a neep (turnip)--big eneuch, I could mak’ a better man oot o’t wi’
my knife.”

Tammas was an Episcopalian of a type that is fast passing away, more’s
the pity. In his young days he had received his religious training under
a succession of clergy who had imbibed freely of the teaching of the
great Oxford Revival. Church doctrine was set forth with no uncertain
sound; but, there was no attempt at anything of the nature of
ceremonial. The services in St. John’s were plain but reverent. There
was no chanting of the Psalms--priest and people read them antiphonally,
Tammas leading the people’s part in clear stentorian tones. He had a
perfect horror of anything that savored of ritualism.

During my first winter there the heating arrangements of the church were
not of a very satisfactory kind, and on several occasions we were nearly
frozen out. I had contracted a severe cold in my head, and to protect my
bald pate had taken to wearing a small silk skull-cap. For several
Sundays no notice was taken of this; but one day the storm burst. I was
taking off my surplice in the vestry when the door opened and Tammas
stood before me. His face was severe; my greeting fell unheeded. He
pointed to the cap, and said sternly:

“We want nane o’ thae Popish things here, Maister Gray. Thae bannets may
do a’ vera weel among the puir craturs in Edinbro that ken nae better,
but they’ll no do here.”

I assured him that our own Bishop himself wore one; but that argument
was worse than useless.

“What kens he about the auld sufferin’ Scottish Church? He’s only an
Englishman. We’re no oonder the English Church, although we’re in
communion wi’ her. We have a history that gangs as far back as hers,
an’ we’re no to get the fashion set by a wheen mim-moothed bits o’
curates that introduce a’ kinds o’ trumpery to please idle weemonfolk.”

Here was a storm in a teacup. I saw it was no use discussing the
question, so I quietly replied:

“Well, well, Provost, I’ll be very glad to follow the example of godly
Bishop Jolly, who wore a full-bottomed wig. How do you think that would
suit you?”

He was too serious about the matter to take a joke, so I put the cap in
my pocket, and assured him that I would not permit such a trivial thing
to give him any worry and here the matter ended.

For a clergyman to wear a straw hat or anything except the orthodox
clerical head-gear was to him almost sacrilege; indeed, any change from
the conservative fashions of his youth met with his strongest censure.
It took me a considerable time to sound his depths, and understand his
idiosyncrasies; but when I at last succeeded in getting into touch with
him, I learnt to esteem him highly.

The first glimpse I got of his real inwardness was on the occasion of a
visit which he and I paid to Glasgow to attend the annual meeting of the
Church council. It was his first visit to the west, and I did my best to
make it a pleasant one. I took him through the grand old Gothic
cathedral and pointed out its beauties as best I could. It was a
wonderful revelation to the old man. He said very little until we were
just about to leave the building. One last look he must have; and, as he
stood in the centre of the nave and gazed up at the finely moulded
arches and the lovely tracery of the windows, he exclaimed in a voice
quivering with emotion.

“No man need ever tell me that this place was biggit for cauld
Presbyterian worship. Na, na, the men that biggit this worshipped God in
the beauty of holiness. Aye, Maister Gray, thae forebears o’ ours had a
wonnerful grip o’ the Faith, an’ they’ve left their belief in the walls,
an’ roof, and even in the foondation o’ this grand biggin’. It’s a
pairfit pictur’ o the speeritual temple that the Maister wants us to
raise. The foondation taks the form o’ the cross, to teach us that oor
real life maun be based on sacrifice; there’s the sacred number
three--teepical o’ the Trinity--in the three aisles leadin’ up to the
altar; an’ syne, there’s the nave--that’s the Church Militant--an’ the
choir--that’s the Church in Paradise--an’ the sanctuary--that’s the
Church Triumphant. There’s a heap mair, if a bodie only took time to
find it oot. Lang, lang syne, I mind on the dean tellin’ us aboot a’
this in a sermon; but I never had ony idea before hoo it could a’ be set
furth. I wad na hae missed this graund sicht for onything.”

How short-sighted I had been in my estimate of the “auld provost!”

I could hardly believe that the simple countryman who stood before me,
his face aglow with enthusiasm, pointing out with a keenness of
perception that was wonderful the beautiful teachings of Gothic art, was
the man whom I had hitherto supposed to be devoid of emotion. To say
that I was thunderstruck but feebly expresses my feelings. Now I knew
him as I had never known him before. Now I knew that under the reserve
of his cold, austere outer shell there was a depth of devotional feeling
to which he rarely gave vent in words.

Had he lived in the days of the Nonjurors, when it was a crime in
Scotland to be an Episcopalian, he would have been one of the staunchest
of the “faithful remnant.” Of his own personal religion he would have
said little; but, when necessity arose, he would have been ready with a
reason for the faith that was in him.

Now I could see that the “auld provost” was one of those who kept the
precious things of the spiritual life locked up in the sacred repository
of his heart, and who with Lady Nairne, the poetess, felt that “religion
ought to be a walking and not a talking concern.”

The vestry of St. John’s, in whose hands lay the management of the
temporal affairs of the parish, consisted at this time of four members,
with myself as chairman. All the four were men worthy of note.

The “auld provost,” of whom I have been speaking, was secretary and
treasurer.

The Honorable James Stewart, the laird of Strathfinlas, was of Scottish
birth and upbringing, but a graduate of the English University of
Cambridge. Succeeding to the estate after he had passed middle life, he
had set himself to carry out the principles of Christian Socialism,
which he had learned at the feet of Kingsley, Maurice and Fawcett. His
neighbor lairds smiled at his enthusiasm, and looked on him as a
harmless faddist; but he went on his way, and very soon gained the
esteem and affection of the tenantry, as well as the retainers on his
lovely demesne.

Andrew Blair had been for many years a successful railway contractor,
but even in his busiest times had never ceased to maintain a warm
interest in all that concerned the best welfare of the ancient Scottish
Church. Now that he had taken to the quiet life of a farmer his interest
in church affairs was intensified.

Adam Skene was a tradesman in the village of Dunluther, on the southern
side of the cairn. His flowing beard of snowy white marked him out as
one of the fathers of the congregation; but, in spite of advancing age,
it was something of very grave import which would keep him at home on
the weekly day of rest. Staff in hand, he trudged the seven miles of
hill road, Sunday after Sunday, in order that he might worship with the
brethren of his father’s faith.

Many an earnest discussion did these four worthies have in the dear old
parsonage at the quarterly meetings of the vestry. Seldom was there
anything of the nature of friction, although sometimes I had to exercise
some tact to keep the provost and Andrew Blair from misunderstanding the
somewhat novel ideas put forth by the laird.

When I proposed a weekly celebration of the Holy Communion at an early
hour, Mr. Stewart warmly supported me. Adam Skene, who was always
willing to be led by those better educated than himself, raised no
objection. Andrew Blair had sent his sons to one of the schools of the
Woodardian foundation, where they had received careful instruction in
sacramental life, and so he knew somewhat of the stirring among the
Church’s dry bones. He was at least willing to hear all that could be
said in favor of the proposed innovation.

The provost alone was in opposition. He listened while the others
expressed their approval--and, then, in awe-inspiring tones, he gave his
verdict:

“I’m no sayin’, Maister Gray, but what ye mean weel in what ye propose,
but, for my part, I think ye’d better leave things as they are. I wadna
mind noo an’ then, on the greater feasts, maybe, haein’ what ye ca’ an
early celebration, but tak’ ye care lest ye mak’ sacred things ower
common. When the auld dean was preparin’ me for my first Saycrament, he
spak’ a heap aboot oor preparation for the ordinance, an’ I would just
be feared that your new plan micht lead some o’s, speecially the young
fowk, to gang forrit oonprepared. I dinna doot that what ye say aboot
the early Chistians is true eneuch; but, ye maun mind that there was
less risk o’ them dishonorin’ the Lord’s Body than wi’ maist o’ us. The
very persecution they had to thole frae the heathen was eneuch to keep
them richt. But nooadays we’re free frae ony interference, an’ can
worship as oor conscience tells us; an’ maybe we’re juist ready eneuch
to tak’ things easy. For ma pairt I’ll e’en be content wi’ the auld way
that my father had afore me.”

My youthful zeal made me inclined to slight the old man’s caution. I
carried out my proposal, and, I feel sure that it was wisely done, even
if it was the cause of a little coolness, for a time. The Auld Provost
was not unreasonable, and I think he saw the good that had been
effected.




XI. The Major


The good folks of Drumscondie set much store by old saws and proverbs.
They certainly adhered to the belief that “A green Yule maks a fat
kirkyaird”--it had so often come true in their own experience. So when
snow fell continuously for twelve hours on a stretch one Christmas Eve,
every one heaved a big sigh of relief, as if the snow spirit had, by a
touch of her wand, lifted the burden of a gloomy foreboding. Up went the
spirits of old and young; the salutations of the gossips were redolent
of good cheer; youngsters shouted with glee as they pelted one another
with snowballs; even in the church itself the infection of joy had
spread, and the church decorators sang snatches of carols as they hung
up wreaths of red-berried holly on arch and pillar and window.

Then when the gloamin’ came and all met in church for the first
Christmas vespers, their hearts went out in happy thanksgiving for the
Nativity, which had wrought such wondrous good to them and to all
mankind.

Now, there’s no doubt the gentle falling of the snow had not a little to
do with this happy state of things. Our villagers were a very simple
people, and somehow or other could not realize Christmas to be Christmas
unless it was heralded by the snow. To them Christmas was more than a
mere social feasting time. They had been trained in their young days to
follow the course of the Church’s year with reverent attention, and to
meditate on the special teaching that each season inculcated.

Oh! how they enjoyed the Church’s services at Christmastide! They were
transported, in thought, to the holy fields of Bethlehem, where they
kept watch with the humble shepherds; they heard the angelic song,
“Gloria in Excelsis Deo;” they set out to seek the newly born King; and,
when they found Him, they bent in lowly adoration. It did one good to
note their realistic appreciation of the sweet old story of the
Christchild.

The snow storm which began that year on Christmas Eve was one of the
heaviest we had experienced for many winters. Towards the end of the
year blowing commenced, and the light snow was piled in great drifts.
Traffic on the country roads was for some time suspended and railway
communication was stopped; on several lines of railway, notably those
among the hills, the stoppage was of several weeks’ duration.

My dear friend and neighbor, the Rev. Hugh Arnott, had gone, after
Christmas, to pay a long--promised visit to a country house in the
romantic Carse of Gowrie, and his home-coming was delayed on account of
the storm. Meanwhile one of his parishioners had died and would have to
be buried before he could possibly return. He telegraphed his difficulty
to me, and I agreed to take the burial service. Mr. Arnott’s church was
in the county town, but the home of the dead girl was in the little
fishing village of Carronmouth, a mile to the north. There was no church
in the village at this time, but every soul in the place was a
hereditary Episcopalian. I made my way down the hill from the railway to
the seaside, where Carronmouth stood at the base of a great overhanging
cliff; but, as it was my first visit to the place, I looked about in
some perplexity, wondering which was the house I wanted. I was soon out
of my dilemma. A cheery voice called out to me:

“This way, your reverence.”

I looked, and saw approaching me a youngish man of middle stature,
attired comfortably but plainly in a suit of dark blue, over which he
wore a heavy reefer coat buttoned up to the chin. His whole appearance
told that he was not one of the fishermen.

I followed him into one of the cottages, in which were assembled a large
gathering of silent men and women, evidently waiting for the service.
The coffin of the young girl was in the “ben” end of the house, and
there most of the women were; I retired to the “but” end, where the men
were, to put on my surplice; and as I was getting ready I could not help
observing that in the horny hand of each fisherman was a well-thumbed
Prayer Book, the place turned up at the Burial Office.

I noticed also that in every face there was a look of affectionate
respect when my companion spoke, as he did to almost every individual.
He seemed to move about, and to interest himself in the arrangements, as
if the dead girl had been of his own kin; and the utmost deference was
paid to him.

While the Psalm was recited, verse about, by clergyman and people, I was
astonished, but delighted, to hear the whole company joining, in clear
earnest tones, led by my unknown friend.

When the coffin was ready to be “lifted,” one of the women put into his
hands a spotless white linen sheet, which he wrapped around the plain
deal coffin and on which he laid a wreath of sweet winter flowers; and,
when the procession started up the hill to the peaceful resting-place on
the top, it was he who walked immediately behind the coffin in the place
of the chief mourner.

As soon as my duty was performed I retired to the ruins of the old
church that stood in the churchyard; there I unrobed, and made ready for
a smart walk back to the station, to catch my return train. One of the
fishermen came to carry my bag, and as soon as we were well on our way,
I asked him the name of the gentleman who had so aroused my curiosity.

“Oh! the Major, you mean; I thocht a’body hereaboot kent the Major. He’s
the Laird o’ Carron, and owns the hale toon o’ Carronmooth. He bides in
yon big hoose amo’ the trees, on the tap o’ the hill. He’s an awfu’ fine
man. Aye, gin a’ the lairds were like him, you wouldna hear sae muckle
grumblin’ frae the workin’ fowk. There’s no a bairn in the place he
disna ken. Noo, there was wee Mirren that we’ve juist beeried--she was
an orphan, an’ the Major an’ his leddy never loot her want for onything
that could do her good, a’ the time she was sick. Aye, there’s nae mony
fowk like the Major!”

“Is he a wealthy man, then?”

“Na, sir; as lairds go, he’s a poor man. He disna gie himsel’ a chance
to grow rich. The rents frae the estate dinna come to a great deal, an’
he spends the feck o’ it. When he cam’ here, aifter the auld laird deed,
things were in a gey bad wye. He made nae fuss aboot it, but in his ain
quaiet style he set himsel’ to the wark o’ local improvement.

“The first big job he startit was to repair a’ the cottages, an’ to get
in a regular set o’ drains. There’s nae half the sick fowk noo that
there used to be.

“Syne he fitted up ane o’ the hooses as a schuil, and got Miss Emslie
an’ her twa nieces to teach the bairns. They’re maybe nae sae weel
trained as the toon’s teachers, but they can teach readin’, an’ writin’,
an’ coontin’--an’ what’s better than a’, they see that a’ oor young folk
ken the Gospels, an’ the Catechism, an’ the Mornin’ an’ Evenin’ Prayer.

“Weel, he fand oot that there was a wheen auld fowk that werena able to
traivel to St. James’ Church, an’ so he gaed to the Bishop, an’ got a
lay reader’s license, an’ noo we hae a service in the schuil ilka Sunday
aifternoon. The Major reads the prayers, an’ gies a bit simple sermon,
an’ his leddy plays the harmonium.

“But that’s no a’ he’s done. He’s paid the hale cost o’ makin’ oor fine
wee harbor, an’ noo oor boats are safe when they’re no oot at sea.

“Aye, he’s a graund man, the Major--never thinkin’ aboot himsel’, but a’
the time plannin’ for ither fowks’ weelfare.”

I was sorry when the arrival of my train cut short this interesting
chat; but it was not long before I had an opportunity of coming into
closer contact with the Major. We met again, one afternoon, at
Glendouglas House, when we were formally introduced to one another. In
the course of conversation the subject of golf as a healthful recreation
came up.

“We have a capital golf course at Carronmouth, Mr. Gray; some day soon
you must come and spend the afternoon with me, and I will take you over
it.”

His innate modesty kept him from telling me that it also was a gift from
him to his people, and that the idea was a partial carrying out of a
scheme which he had formulated as a counterfoil to more questionable
modes of enjoyment. Needless to say, I took advantage of this kind
invitation. What a glorious afternoon that was! Our game did not amount
to much, but there was ample compensation in our pleasant intercourse.
Simply and unassumingly he told me of the primitive manners and customs
of his fisherfolks, and of their loyal devotion to the faith of their
fathers. Ignorant of many of the ways of the great world beyond them,
they were, nevertheless, endowed with an amount of traditional lore that
many with greater pretensions could not claim. One could easily see that
he was a feudal superior of a grand type; that these homely folks were
bound to him by ties of the most enduring character; that their
interests were his, and his responsibility, in regard to them, a very
sacred thing in his eyes.

I happened to mention that I intended having lantern services for my
people during Holy Week. This at once aroused his interest. Would I come
to the Carronmouth School on Good Friday evening and give his people
such a service? I was only too glad to have the privilege of assisting
him in his splendid work; and so, on the evening named, I was there. The
school was crowded with fisherfolks, and right on the front bench sat
the laird between two of the fathers of the place. With hymn, and
prayer, and picture, and meditation, the evening sped; the silence was
almost breathless--they had never experienced such a service before; and
when I threw a beautiful reproduction of Gabriel Max’s “Ecce Homo” on
the canvas the effect was marvellous. I turned to give the benediction,
but it was with difficulty I could utter a word. Laird and fisherman,
old and young, gazed awestruck on the “Man of Sorrows,” and tears were
streaming down many a rugged face.

The gentle laird rose and said: “It is all too sad and yet too sweet for
me to say anything. God bless you, sir, for coming here to-night; it is
a night we’ll remember for along time.”

The following evening saw a very different sight. All day a terrible
storm had been raging, and all the boats were out at sea. The women were
in awful anxiety, each fearing the worst for her “man” or her boys. Down
to the village in the afternoon came the Major--in sou’wester and
oilskin coat. He had a cheery word of comfort and hope for all; and he
did not return home till every boat came in. He was ready to shake hands
with every man as he came ashore, and to remind him that he must give
thanks to God for His mercy.

Years have passed away since that time; the Major’s “sweet leddy” has
gone to the rest of Paradise; he himself, in obedience to the call of
the Master, has exchanged his rank in the army of Great Britain for the
rank of a priest in the Church of God, and is devoting his life to
mission work in a large and busy centre of the fishing industry--but in
dear little Carronmouth, where he began his work for Christ, old men
love to speak of “The Major.”




XII. The Burnin’ o’ the Kirk


“Weel, man, I suppose I ought to have been wringing my hands and tearing
my hair over this business, but, somehow or other, I wasna; I never
breathed a mair fervent thanksgiving than I did on Sunday when I saw the
flames burstin’ through the auld gray slates o’ the kirk.”

“Are you sure, doctor, that ye’ didna happen--by accident, of course--to
let fa’ a burnin’ match among the rubbish in the disused chancel?”

“Whisht, man, dinna speak o’ sic a thing, for though I didna actually do
it, I wished it wi’ a’ my heart. If wishing had onything to do wi’t,
then I doot I maun plead guilty. But, come awa’ and see what’s left, and
I think ye’ll be able to understand how I feel.”

The doctor was the minister of a Presbyterian parish a few miles from
Drumscondie, and his church, which had been burnt down on the previous
Sunday by an overheated stovepipe, was the most ancient ecclesiastical
structure in the whole Howe o’ the Mearns. He and I had been friends
ever since I came into the district, and my visit on the present
occasion was for the purpose of condoling with him over his loss; but,
from the conversation already narrated, it will be seen that condolence
was hardly needed, in so far at least as the worthy doctor was
concerned.

He was in many respects a very remarkable man. Those who only knew him
in a casual kind of way regarded him as an enigma. He was loyal to the
vows he had taken as a minister of the Presbyterian Establishment; but
he held opinions concerning doctrine and Church order that savored
rather of those of the Scotch Episcopal Church as taught by men of the
type of saintly Bishop Jolly, than of the current teaching of his
Presbyterian brethren.

He had been in the same parish for nearly forty years; and as he had
never been over-burdened with parochial duties, he had been able to
indulge his taste for Church history and ecclesiology to the fullest
extent. For years he had been burrowing in local archives, and was able,
to his own satisfaction, to reconstruct mentally his own parish church
as it stood in the days of Archbishop David de Bernham, of St. Andrew’s,
by whom it was consecrated in the fourteenth century.

To me it was always a great treat to visit the old man. His scholarship
was so accurate that one could not fail to be benefited by intercourse
with him.

No sooner were we standing inside the blackened walls than he began to
wax eloquent over the beauties of the architecture that had been
disclosed by the work of the flames.

“Originally,” he said, “the church was a plain oblong, with a Norman
apse probably, in the east, and that peculiar octagonal turret
surmounting the west gable. There was no glass in these parts then; and
as the wind from the north is generally very cold, the windows were all
on the south side.

“When the need arose for a larger sanctuary and choir, yonder early
English arch and chancel took the place of the Norman apse.

“Then in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the feudal superior of
that time erected the lady chapel as a chantry, in which masses for the
repose of his soul were to be said.

“The turret at the angle between the nave and lady chapel has in it a
corkscrew stair, leading to the parvise, or priest’s room, over the
groined roof of the chapel. About a hundred and fifty years ago the
church was in need of repairs, and it was then that Puritan vandals shut
off the sanctuary with a lath and plaster wall, and transformed the nave
into the hideous, gloomy barn it was before the fire.

“Can you blame me, Gray, if in my heart I longed for a fire, or some
such disaster, to tear down the awful disfigurations?

“It is a positive joy to me to look on these bare walls.”

“I thoroughly sympathize with you, doctor; and to me the bare walls are
an object lesson of great value. Fire is a great cleanser. The
conflagration which broke out here on Sunday cleared away all that
belonged to the debased period, the age of Philistinism, but did no real
harm to the solid and beautiful masonry of the ages of faith. Now that
the vile rubbish has been removed one can see the framework of a church
that was built for the service of God, and for the cultivation of the
devotional spirit. That east window with its delicate stone tracery,
through which the rising sun casts its glorious rays upon priest and
people, reminding them of the greater sun--the sun of righteousness who
arose in the east bringing healing to the nations--the altar and aumbry
and piscina telling of reverence and order in the celebration of the
Eucharist--in fact there is everything now to indicate a church of a
truly primitive type.”

“Aye, Gray, and so is it ever in regard to the spiritual life. When we
look around in the Christian Church to-day we see truth disfigured and
mutilated and obscured by opinions that are entirely of human devising.
When the days of trial come, as come they must--the Church of God will
have to hold her own against the powers of evil; then all that is
primitive and apostolic will stand scatheless amid the fierce fires of
tribulation, and will come forth--like the three children from the
burning fiery furnace--with no trace of the fire upon it, while all that
is purely of human creation will crumble to ashes.”

“Wouldn’t it be grand, doctor, if this old church of St. Ternan could be
restored as it was in pre-Reformation days, without any of the foreign
accretions that roused the indignation of the truly spiritually-minded?”

“If God spares me, Gray, I mean to make this the work of my declining
years.”

The old man kept his vow faithfully. He set to work at once to arouse
the interest of the heritors, upon whom lay the burden of maintening the
fabric of the church; and, before two years had passed I had the
pleasure of again visiting him and of seeing a beautiful restoration of
a typical Scottish church of mediaeval days. The altar stood in the
east--only it was not called an altar, but a communion table. The
font--a lovely replica in marble of an ancient one--was in its proper
place. The pulpit no longer barred the way to the sanctuary, but stood
at the north side, between the chancel arch and the wall of the nave.
Over the doorway leading from the chancel to the vestry there were three
niches in which at one time figures of saints had stood; even these the
doctor filled by three statuettes of the Blessed Saviour with St. Peter
and St. Paul--copies in miniature of Thorwaldsen’s famous group.

What was of even greater importance, there was inaugurated a far more
orderly and reverent worship than before; an organ was installed, and
the old walls resounded with a devotional service which, if not all
that could be desired, was at all events a distinct advance towards the
worship of the best days of the Christian Church.

For a long time I was unable to understand the Doctor’s position. He was
so thoroughly Catholic in sentiment that it was hard to see why he
remained where he was. I could not believe that a man of his spotless
integrity would hold to a religious body, with the majority of whom he
seemed so entirely at variance, simply and solely because it gave him a
comfortable living.

One day we were sitting together in his study, and in the course of
conversation I managed to draw him out without in any way reflecting on
him personally.

“It has always been my opinion,” he said, “that all reformation should
proceed from within, if it is to be effective. The reforms wrought in
Scotland in the fifteenth and subsequent centuries were altogether too
revolutionary and iconoclastic. If the spiritually-minded of those days
had only been guided by the example of Savonarola, who reformed without
breaking the unity of the Body, things would have been altogether
different in Scotland to-day. There is a large and growing school of
thought in the Presbyterian Established Church of Scotland, that is
longing, and praying, and working for a return to primitive ideals, and
to that school I belong. Were I to throw in my lot with the Historic
Church--the Body that truly ‘continues in the Apostles’ doctrine and
fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers,’ I would
undoubtedly gain many spiritual privileges for myself. But what about
the flock committed to my care? I believe it is my duty to stay where I
am, and to teach the Faith as fully as it can be taught from the
formularies to which I have vowed allegiance. The proselytising of
individuals will never bring about corporate unity. I think that God
will not allow my sacrifice to go unrewarded, but will in His own way
make up to me what I deprive myself of by staying where I am.”

The good old man was so sincere in all that he said that I felt it would
be wrong to enter into an argument which probably would have done no
good.

That he was fully aware of his own position I learned from a remark made
by him some months later.

The lord of the manor was a hereditary Episcopalian, but for many years
had never entered a church for worship. I found him an exceedingly kind
man, ever ready and willing to do kind deeds, to give liberally for any
good cause, and to befriend any who stood in need of help; but I could
not get him to talk of spiritual things. He died, and I was asked to
read the Burial Service over his body when it was laid in the vault
beneath the old lady chapel. The service over, a little group stood
talking in the graveyard, before setting out for their several homes.
One of the old baron’s comrades made the somewhat flippant remark:

“Well, it’s a long time since his lordship was in the company of so many
clergy.”

Quick as thought the doctor replied: “There was only one clergyman here,
Colonel.”

“What do you mean, doctor? I saw at least half a dozen ministers at the
funeral.”

“Aye--ministers--but that is a different thing altogether. Mr. Gray was
the only cleric present here to-day.”

It was as if a bomb had fallen in their midst.

“Well, what do you call yourself, doctor?”

The old man smiled as he replied:

“I am only an elder in the congregation--a teaching elder doubtless,
but only an elder. Mr. Gray has Apostolic orders, which I lack.”

An elder he remained; but surely if ever any one outside the unity of
the historic faith deserved it, he deserved to be reckoned one of the
Gentle Persuasion.





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