[Delivered in Baltimore, Md., before the
Presbyterian Union of that City.]
THE commemoration of the deeds of our
civil fathers is a perpetual duty. There come to us exhilaration and
inspiration and vitality of holy purpose from living with the heroes
of God who have glorified the past by their loyalty to the right.
Macaulay says, "No people who fail to take pride in the deeds of
their ancestors will ever do anything in which their posterity can
take pride." Especially is this true when their ancestors have stood
in the front ranks of human progress and, like our ancestors, have
fought and won the battles of the ages.
Honoring ancestors
should prove a large trade in the American commonwealth, and that
because we are rich in ancestors. We can truthfully claim kinship to
every line of human nobility that has done anything grand by way of
sacrifice in the uplift of the world in these last centuries. The
best of a score of the leading races of the earth focalize right
here. And this is to our national advantage. A great people is
stronger and more fertile from the variety of its component parts
and from the friendly play of the electric currents which have their
origin in the diversity that is held in friendship.
I look upon our
country as God's great loom for the interweaving of the peoples of
the earth. The noble men and noble women from the different races of
the Old World are the threads of silk and of silver and of gold, and
the fabric woven is the American Republic, beautiful with its holy
freedom, its constitutional rights, and its magnificent and
elevating institutions, both civil and religious. The fabric of our
national civilization, which is distinctively American, is complex,
and the credit for its beauty and strength and value should be as
manifold as its contributing constituents are multifold. There
should be honest recognition and praise given all around. Let the
Pilgrim be praised where the Pilgrim should be praised; let the
Puritan be praised where the Puritan should be praised let the
Hollander be praised where the Hollander should be praised ; and let
the Scotch and their descendants be praised where the Scotch and
their descendants should be praised. Let the highest type of manhood
built into the construction of our civic personality be admired, no
matter from what race it has come. The only restriction I would lay
down is this: choose only the best manhood to honor, because the
type of manhood which you honor is the type of manhood which you
will inevitably seek to perpetuate. Admire only the best and
choicest threads in the fabric. Up to this point in our national
history we have not been impartial in our admiration of our
ancestors. New England has created a monopoly here. The
large-talking Yankee, true to his pedigree, has talked himself into
a largeness out of all proportion with the facts. Hitherto he has
written the history of the country, and he has so put himself into
history that there has been little room there for others. He has not
done justice to the Hollander; he has not done justice to the
Huguenot; he has not done justice to the Scot. All of these were
first- class believers in human liberty and not one whit behind
either Pilgrim or Puritan in the sacrifices which they made for our
Republic. The eyes of the public are being opened, and the result is
there is an honest and a popular demand that American history be
rewritten from alpha to omega, and that the uncredited heroes be
enthroned in the midst of their lawful rewards, and that every
omitted chapter be inserted in full. My fellow-men, American history
has yet to be written. The Yankee has yet to hold fellowship on the
historic page with the men of other races from whom he received his
best ideas and who led hi in up to the alpine heights of
republicanism in colonial days. He must yet lift his hat with
respect to both the Dutchman and the Scotchman. It is our duty to
reach a full and all view of our American nationality.
To-night we are to
speak of the Scotch and their descendants as makers of America. They
were the first oil soil openly to advocate American independence. We
wish to do for them what the famous poet and novelist, Sir Walter
Scott, has done for the physical beauties of the landscape of
Scotia, viz., make them known. Scott has not added one particle of
beauty to a single sprig of heather he has not put a single
additional touch of color upon a single blue bell he has not created
one added glint of light on beloved lakes; he has not changed a
particle of the country concerning winch he so beautifully wrote. He
has simply looked at Mid-Lothian, Lomond, and the Trosachs with his
own eyes, has seen for himself the beauty and grandeur of nature's
handiwork in Scotia, and has told ill and poetry just what he has
seen. What Scott has done for the physical country we must do for
the noble actions of the Scotch, viz., take them ill tell them out.
Where shall I begin?
With John Knox. And why begin with John Knox? Because the
Scotch-Americans are the sons of his faith, just as, spiritually,
Knox himself is the son of John Calvin. The political truth which
the Scotch-Americans held and for which they fought in revolutionary
times and in pre-revolutionary times was not a mushroom growth of a
single night; it was the oak of centuries. It was the result of the
unwavering fidelity which for two full centuries held sacred the
political tenets of John Knox, the apostle of liberty, who said to
the haughty queen, "If princes exceed their bounds they may be
resisted by force." In that magnificent sentiment, uttered with a
magnificent fearlessness, I hear the far-off drum-beat of the
American Revolution. Froude, the greatest of modern English
historians, declares of this bold utterance of John Knox, "It is the
creed of republics in its first hard form." This utterance of John
Knox became ingrained in the very being of all true Scotchmen, and
they believed it and asserted it and lived it. In our own age a son
of Scottish faith has said, "Government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall never perish from the earth." This
saying, received with universal applause, has been lifted into a
classic by the American people of the nineteenth century. But what
is this saying? Only the utterance of John Knox grown large.
I have referred to
John Knox as a spiritual son of John Calvin. He went straight from
Calvin's home in Geneva to Scotland when, at the call of his
countrymen, he entered Scotland to inaugurate the glorious
reformation which he carried to success. His theology was
Calvinistic, and so has been the theology of his descendants. This
gives me an opportunity to speak a passing word for Calvinism. I do
not ask you to-clay to read Calvin's "Institutes" or to study
Calvin's commentaries, but I do ask you to read Calvin as he has
written himself into history and then take the measure of Calvin. In
history John Calvin wrote Swiss Protestantism, and French
Huguenotism, and English Puritanism, and Scotch sturdiness of faith,
and New England Pilgrimisin. He put into human life a sense of
reverence, and of liberty founded on reverence, and these will last
in the world long after his " Institutes " and commentaries have
become wormeaten and have crumbled into dust. Now the point I wish
to emphasize is this: Calvin has blessed America through John Knox.
Listen to the voice of the great historians here. Buckle says,
"Wherever it has gone in France, Switzerland, Britain, America, the
Calvinistic faith has shown itself the unfailing friend of
constitutional liberty." D'Aubigné says, "Calvin was the founder of
the greatest of republics: the oppressed who went to America were
the sons of his faith." Motley says, "Holland, England, America, owe
their liberties to the Calvinists." Bancroft says, "He that will not
honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but
little of the origin of American independence. . . . The light of
his genius shattered the mask of darkness which superstition had
held for centuries before the brow of religion." These are the
voices of the authorities in history, and we can see how facts
accord with their testimony to Calvinism. Calvinism exalts as its
cardinal doctrine the absolute sovereignty of God. Let a man believe
with all his heart the absolute sovereignty of God, let him believe
that his first and last allegiance is to God as sovereign, and he
will know no such thing as fear of the face of man, king or
potentate or peasant. He will feel that in every battle for truth
and liberty "one man with God is a majority," and that victory is
sure.
That was the fate of
John Knox when he came from the presence of John Calvin and worked
out the reformation of Scotland. He began his work with the cry, "O
God, give me Scotland or I die!" and God gave him Scotland and he
lives. What was the reformation which he wrought? It consisted in
this : He exterminated from Scotland the Roman Catholic hierarchy,
that representative of monarchy, that natural enemy of
republicanism, and he exterminated it root and branch. In its place
he gave Scotland Presbyterianism pure and simple. He was the founder
of the famous Scotch kirk. Lecky, the historian, says, "The Scotch
kirk was by its constitution essentially republican It was in this
respect the very antipodes of the Anglican church and of the
Gallican branch of the Catholic Church, both of which did all they
could to consecrate despotism and strengthen its authority." Carlyle
says, " A man's religion is the chief fact with regard to him." Knox
gave Scotch- men their religion. He taught them to learn from the
Bible their rights as Christians and as citizens. He taught them
that in the New Testament there is no sacerdotal class save that
which includes all of the people: "Ye are a royal priesthood!" He
taught them from the Bible the principle of representation and the
right of choice. That certainly is Americanism as we have it to-day.
He put the Bible into the hands of the people and taught the right
of private interpretation. He introduced schools for the people and
gave them education. He established a system of schools. Thus he
laid the foundation of future Scotland and built up the institutions
which were destined to mold the character of the men about to cross
the ocean and become the makers of America. This one thing is to be
kept prominently in mind: John Knox worked largely for the church,
and through the church, and by the church. All of his institutions
centered in the kirk. In short, John Knox made and built up the
church, and the church made and built up the people. Carlyle says,
"Knox gave Scotland a resurrection from the dead. Scotch literature
and thought and industry,—James Watt, David Flume, Walter Scott,
Robert Burns, (he who wrote 'A man's a man for a' that') I find the
Reformation acting in the heart's core of every one of these
persons. Without the Reformation they would not have been." But
Carlyle was a Scotchman. A man who was not a Scotch- man says, "In
proportion to their small numbers they are the most distinguished
little people since the days of the Athenians, and the most educated
people of the modern races. All the industrial arts are at home in
Glasgow, and all the fine arts in Edinburgh, and as for literature,
it is everywhere."
The natural sequence
of John Knox in Scotland is just what we see on the page of Scottish
history (1) The Solemn League and Covenant, literally signed with
the blood of the best sons of Scotland, the Covenanters. The
Covenanters were most potent in their influence during the period of
the colonization of New England and when the institutions of the
colonies were taking shape. (2) The Sanquhar Declaration, signed by
Richard Cameron and Donald Cargill, and the great revolution. (3)
The notable movement which resulted, in our own day, in the Free
Church of Scotland, which has given us the names of Chalmers and
Candlish and Guthrie. All of these historic movements show the
features of John Knox, in that they exalt and declare the equality
of man, liberty in religion, the value of the open Bible, the need
of a sanctified Sabbath, the power of a pure church, and the rights
of free speech, free press, free schools.
The question before
us now is, How (lid these men whom Knox made reach America? How did
they come to cast in their lot with those who became the makers of
America? At this point the history of the Scotch-Americans resembles
somewhat the history of the New England Pilgrims. The two histories
are parallel. The New England Pilgrims came to America by way of
Holland; the Scotch-Americans came to America by way of the province
of Ulster, Ireland. Only a small portion of the Scotch in the
colonial times came to the colonies directly from Scotland.
Just here comes in
the story of Ulster. In the early days of prelatic James I. the
rebellion of two of the great nobles of the province in the north of
Ireland furnished the king an excuse to confiscate their vast
domains. To hold these domains and to Populate them with men who
could hold their own successfully against the rest of Catholic
Ireland, James determined to found a colony of picked subjects. He
offered special inducements to the Scotch to make Ulster their home.
The inducements were such and the charter promised so favorable that
large numbers responded. Of these James took his pick. This colony
received its charter April 16, 1605. The Scotch in their new home of
Ulster were joined by many of God's noblemen, who were one with them
in religious thinking and in a holy life, who came from the English
Puritans and from the French Huguenots. This mixture modified and
improved in some regard the Puritan Scotch stock. To-day this people
are known by the name of Scotch-Irish. The name is a misnomer. It
would lead us to believe that the Scotch of the colony of Ulster
intermarried with the Irish, and that this people, therefore, is a
people of mixed blood. But this is not the case. The name
Scotch-Irish, which has its origin in purely geographical reasons,
is ethnologically incorrect. The Ulster people to this day are
Scotch through and through and out and out. There is no
intermarriage; there is no union of the Scotch and the Irish races.
The name Scotch-Irish is not used in the Emerald Isle, and in the
interest of historical correctness I argue that it should not be
used anywhere. In the Emerald Isle, by Irish and Scotch alike, these
people are called Ulstermen, and that is their name.
I do not need to tell
you what a country these colonists of 1605 made out of Ulster and
the surrounding territory. They took with them all that John Knox
gave them, and the result was prosperity on all lines. But the
colonists were not allowed to pursue the even tenor of their way.
They were oppressed, just as the American colonists were, by
prelatic, Episcopalian England. First, England, by the passage of
oppressive measures, took from Ulster its woolen trade. This was
like a stroke of paralysis. It caused the first great exodus of the
Scotch colonists to America. A second and a larger exodus was caused
by the scandalous advancement of the rents of the farms and by a
taxation on the improvements caused by the industry of the people.
The first outrage made an attack on commerce and manufacture; the
second outrage was an attack on the agriculture of the colony. For
fifty long years, from 1720 to 1770, the people, abused and then
ejected from their farms and homesteads, which they and their
fathers had made what they were, poured in streams of twelve
thousand a year into America. So great was the inpour that when we
come to the times of the American Revolution the Scotch formed
almost, if not altogether, one third of the entire population of the
American colonies.
And where did they go
in America? They formed no colonies of their own. Where did they go?
Some of them went to
New England and settled in Boston and in Worcester, and some
threaded their way up into Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont.
Twenty thousand settled along the Atlantic coast from the Charles
River up to the Kennebec. Froude holds that in Boston. it was they
who gave the name to Bunker Hill. There are Scotch Covenanter
churches to-day in Maine and Vermont and Massachusetts, and there
are Presbyterian churches in New Hampshire. In 1754 the Presbyterian
congregation of Londonderry, N. H., numbered over seven hundred
communicants. Although comparatively but a few of the vast Scotch
exodus settled in New England, yet those who did have made their
record and have told on American life. They took with them into New
England the things John Knox gave them: the kirk, and the school,
and the civil creed of equal rights, and the sanctified Sabbath, and
the inherent dignity of man.
It was from the New
England Scotch that George Washington got Henry Knox, a member of
his cabinet, and the first Secretary of War in the American
Republic. When the Revolution broke out it was the Scotch who fought
the battle of Bennington. General Stark and his "Green Mountain
boys" were Scotch. The Scotch of Maine gave to the country Matthew
Thornton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In
latter days the New England Scotch gave to journalism Horace
Greeley, the father of modern journalism, and to science Professor
Asa Gray, one of Harvard's leading professors.
But the greater part
of the enormous Scotch exodus poured into the Middle and the
Southern colonies. They literally took possession of Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia, with its Independence Hall, was their city, just as
Boston, with its Faneuii Flail, was the city of the Puritans. They
hold Philadelphia to this day. It was to Pennsylvania the Rev. Fran-cis
Makemie came, the first Presbyterian minister in America of whose
history we have any knowledge. He was the man who was imprisoned in
New York for preaching in his independent way, and he was the man
who formed the first American presbytery. We find the Scotch also in
New Jersey. A large company of them came to New Jersey, we are told,
under the prompting of "William Penn. As New Jersey was one of the
leading battle-fields of the Revolution, the Scotch, who had become
very strong there, were among Washington's chief supporters. New
Jersey gave to the army the Rev. James Caldwell, the chaplain of the
First Brigade, whose history is given in full in the " Life and
Letters of Elias Boudinot," He was more than chaplain ; he was at
one time also the assistant commissary-general. Washington esteemed
his service as invaluable. He was well-nigh ubiquitous. The British
burned down his manse and murdered his wife before the eyes of his
children, and they tried also to burn the children in the flames of
the manse. His children were saved only by a hairbreadth escape.
Lafayette took one of his motherless boys and adopted him and gave
him the love and opportunity of his princely home. George Washington
subscribed twenty-five guineas out of his own private funds for the
support of the other children. Mr. Caldwell fell by the hand of an
assassin. On one occasion it is told of him that, seeing one of the
companies slacking their fire for want of wadding, he rushed into
the Presbyterian church near by, and gathering an armful of Watts's
hymn-books he distributed them along the line, with the order, "Now
put Watts into them, boys." With a cheer the soldiers rammed the
charges home and gave the British Watts with a will. It was the New
Jersey Scotch who founded the famous Presbyterian university,
Princeton College, the college that can outkick anything on the
continent, and that up to date.
Having located at
first on the western and southern borders of the old colonies, the
Scotch naturally pressed their way west and south. While they
founded no colonies, they did in the course Of time found new
States. They poured their thousands down into the Carolinas, North
and South. They made the States of Kentucky and Tennessee and
Alabama. They poured also into Virginia until they out-influenced
there the haughty Cavalier. They took possession of the Mississippi
valley and brought it into the Republic. Ohio, too, felt their
influence. They became so strong in our own Empire State of New York
that even our first governor, Governor Clinton, the man who has
given his name to the principal avenue of Brooklyn, was a scion of
that race.
I imagine some son of
the Scot saying, just here, "How I wish my ancestors had massed
themselves together as did the Puritans, and had formed a colony of
their own! Then they could have struck with a trip-hammer on the
anvil of time the elements making this nation. They could have made
a name for themselves in American history like that of
Massachusetts." This wish is a mistake. No matter about the name in
history. The name is coming, for the facts of early days, which are
being resurrected and glorified by modern historical research, will
build up the Scotch name and set it in a noonday splendor before the
universe. The Scotch elements were too strong and too good to be
massed; they were of the kind fitted to be scattered as a leavening
influence through the land and among the diverse peoples of the
land. Thus scattered as they were, they worked more mightily for
American liberty than they could have worked if they had been
solidified into a single colony. Here allow me to illustrate and
give concrete cases. Being Presbyterian in faith, they formed a
general synod, which met once a year. Through this synod they worked
powerfully for American liberty. They were the Sons of John Knox,
and, like Knox they used the church in the cause of freedom. In the
General Synod there were delegates from all the colonies, and they
formed a union of thought and purpose and plan. Thus the Scotch
demonstrated to America that what was possible in religious affairs
was possible in civil affairs, viz., a union of all parts of the
land, and a union by representation—a federal union.
The Scotch General
Synod was a model of the coming Colonial Congress. It made it
possible. It suggested it. For fifty years this synod was the most
powerful and compact religious organization in the country. The men
in the synod, like the Scotch from Ulster, were men of the very
highest type. The ministers were men educated at Glasgow and
Edinburgh and Dublin and Harvard universities. They discussed all
questions that pertained to the interest of the country, and sent
their delegates home to all the colonies to spread their advanced
principles concerning their rights and duties.
See the results of
this. Four years before the battle of Lexington the Presbyterians of
North Carolina resisted the oppression of the British crown as
unjust. The governor of the colony treated them as outlaws, and sent
an army against them and shot them down, and took captive and hung
thirty of them. This was the first blood of the Revolution. It is
known in history as the War of the Regulators. Bancroft says of it,
"The blood of the first rebels against British oppression was first
shed among the settlers on the branches of the Cape Fear River."
This was May 16, 1771.
See the results of
this. One year before the Philadelphia Declaration of Independence
the Presbyterians of Mecklenburg, N. C., met together and Publicly
issued their declaration of independence from the rule of Britain.
Here is one sentence from that declaration: "We hereby absolve
ourselves from all allegiance to the British crown; we hereby
declare ourselves a free and independent people." The men who issued
this Mecklenburg declaration were the men on the walls of whose
homes hung the National Covenant of Scotland, which many of their
ancestors had signed. Thus you see that the famous and historic
covenant of Greyfriars Churchyard formed the rugged and solemn
background of American liberties. It can be said, without fear of
challenge, that Scotch blood flows through every principle in the
Declaration of Independence, which forms the foundation of American
freedom."
Bancroft says, in
writing of the Mecklenburg declaration, which antedated the
Philadelphia Declaration one whole year, "The first public voice for
dissolving all connection with Great Britain came not from the
Puritans of New England, nor from the Dutch of New York nor from the
planters of Virginia, but from the Scotch Presbyterians."
Wallace Bruce, a man
with a double Scotch name and a double Scotch nature, our honored
consul to Scotland, puts Bancroft's eulogy into verse, and in these
fitting words honors the event of Mecklenburg:
Manhattan and Plymouth and Jamestown
Can boast of their heritage true,
But Mecklenburg's fame is immortal
When we number the stars in the blue;
The Scotch-Irish Puritan Fathers
First drafted the words of the free,
And the speech of Virginia's Henry
Is the crown of our liberty's plea."
In 1775 the General
Presbyterian Synod, meeting in Philadelphia side by side with the
Colonial Congress, issued a pastoral letter calling on the people to
defend their rights against British usurpation. This letter was a
mighty power with the people and with Congress. You see here the
power of the Presbyterian Church and how aggressive it was. It was
ready in advance for July 4, 1776, and so were all its people
scattered through all the colonies. When that day came it was Thomas
Jefferson, a scion of the Scotch race, according to the record of
the Scotch-Irish Congress, who was the author of the Declaration of
Independence. Professor McCloskie, of Princeton, says the
Declaration of Independence, as we have it now, is in the
handwriting of the son of Scotland; it was first printed by another
Scotchman, and a third Scotchman, Captain Nixon, was the first to
read it publicly to the people.
It is in place just
at this point to speak of two men whose names will always he
connected with the American Declaration of Independence and with the
great Revolution. The first is the name of the man who first sounded
the tocsin of war in that great sentence of his, " Give me liberty
or give me death," and made the tocsin reverberate from mountain to
mountain and from lake to lake until the thirteen colonies heard the
echo and resolved to he freemen or die. I refer to Patrick Henry, of
Virginia, whose mother was a Presbyterian. Of him Webster, speaking
to Jefferson, says, "He was far before us all in maintaining the
spirit of the Revolution."
The second is the
name of that Presbyterian minister whose voice it was that brought
the Congress finally and irrevocably to sign the great instrument,
the Declaration. I refer to the venerable Dr. Witherspoon, President
of Princeton College, who was at the time a member of the
Continental Congress. We are told that the Congress was hesitating.
The country was looking on. Three million hearts were violently
throbbing in intense anxiety, waiting for the old bell on
Independence Hall to ring. It was an hour that marked the grandest
epoch in human history." What a scene was there! On the table in the
presence of that able body of statesmen lay the charter of human
freedom in clear-cut utterances, flinging defiance in the face of
oppression. It was an hour in which strong men trembled. There was a
painful silence. In the midst of that silence Dr. Witherspoon, a
lineal descendant of John Knox, rose and uttered these thrilling
words: "To hesitate at this moment is to consent to our own slavery.
That notable instrument upon your table, which insures immortality
to its author, should be subscribed this very morning by every pen
in this house. He that will not respond to its accent and strain
every nerve to carry into effect its provisions is unworthy the name
of freeman. Whatever I have of property, of reputation, is staked on
the issue of this contest, and although these gray hairs must soon
descend into the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather that they
descend hither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this
crisis the sacred cause of my country." That was the voice of John
Knox in Independence Hall. And that voice prevailed. The Declaration
was signed, the liberty bell of Independence Hall rang out, and the
foundation of the American government was securely laid. Fourteen of
the sons of Scotland signed this Declaration.
From the signing of
the Declaration of Independence American history grandly enlarges,
and the Sons of the Scotch race are seen in nearly every high place.
Their generals led in the great battles of the Revolution: General
Wayne at Stony Point, and General Campbell at Kings Mountain, and
General Montgomery at Quebec. When the great American Constitution
was framed their wisdom prevailed there. Madison is claimed by more
than one member of the late Scotch-Irish Congress as a scion of this
race. He is known as the father of the American Constitution.
Lincoln also, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, is
claimed, and his lineage is traced back to the Scotch who settled in
Kentucky. Seven governors out of the thirteen original States were
Scotch. Then come their Presidents of the United States, Jefferson,
Jackson, Monroe, James Knox Polk, Madison, Taylor, Buchanan,
Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Arthur, Harrison, and Cleveland.
My friends, as I give
the history of this magnificent Scotch race in its relation to
American life, I am heartily glad that I have the good fortune to
have the Scotch for my theme to-night, and not the Pilgrims, and not
the Puritans, and not the Hollanders; for when the Scotch have
claimed the first battle for our liberty; and the first blood shed;
and the first declaration of independence publicly issued; and the
privilege of naming Bunker Hill; and Davy Crockett, the most
picturesque of American characters, the wizard of the woods; and
Patrick Henry, the resistless orator of the Revolution; and the
peerless Poe, the illustrious poet; and Commodore Perry, the
illustrious naval officer; and Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration
of Independence; and Witherspoon, whose voice charmed America into
accepting it; and Madison, the father of the American Constitution,
which Gladstone pronounces the greatest instrument ever penned in a
given time; and Abraham Lincoln, with his Emancipation Proclamation,
America's greatest glory; and Ulysses S. Grant, the man who carried
the Civil War to its grand and proper close; and Robert Fulton, the
father of steamboat navigation, which has so wonderfully enlarged
commerce; and the phenomenal Morse, who with his telegraph has
linked all parts of the world in instantaneous touch, and helped on
the brotherhood of man; and McCormick, the inventor of the American
reaper, which has multiplied indefinitely the forces of American
agriculture and Andrew Jackson, the hero of the War of 1812; and
Winfield Scott, the hero of the Mexican War—when the Scotch have
claimed all these great men and all these noble things, what is left
for the oilier makers of America to claim and exult over?
I wish to speak a
brief word relative to some of the striking and racial
characteristics of the Scotch— characteristics which have made them
what they are. I do not know that I can do better than simply name
these traits and illustrate each by relating a pertinent anecdote. I
notice first that the Scotch are:
1. Preeminantly
truthful
They are truthful even to the point of bluntness. When I was a boy
this story was told of Dr. Blank, a Scotch clergyman of Pittsburg,
and it illustrates my point. The doctor had just a touch of vanity
in his nature, and when a certain college gave him a D.D. his vanity
was not in the least crushed. Indeed, it led him at once to plan a
trip home, that his friends in the old country might feast their
eyes on a doctor of divinity. Once in Scotland, he called upon his
old pastor, who knew John's fondness for John. But he got no
flattery from the old pastor. He was too truthful to flatter. He
greeted the new-corner: "Well, well, John, I hear they have made you
a doctor of divinity? The new D.D. replied, "Yes, they persisted in
giving me the title, although I was the last man in the world to
deserve it." The old man, detecting the vanity in the tones of the
voice, replied in his blunt way, "Yes, yes; that's just what I
thought myself, John, when I heard it."
2. The Scotch are
men of principle, and largely given to protest.
A Scotchman is a natural nonconformist. He loves to protest against
things and institutions and customs. He must protest or die, but die
is the very last thing that a Scotchman does on earth. That he may
find an opportunity to protest he is always in search of some
principle to take hold of and advocate; he finds a principle in
everything. He will split hairs and then imagine that the points
which he has made are every one of them principles, and he will (lie
for them before he will give them up. He can even, if need be,
convert prejudices into principles and thus transfigure them. Let me
illustrate how the Scotchman reads principle into everything and in
everything acts on principle.
Probably you have
heard of the old saying that "a Scotchman never shuts the door after
him." That was true in olden times. He knows that a door will shut ;
he knows what the latch is for; he knows what good breeding is; he
knows that other people shut the door after them. He is not acting
from ignorance; he leaves the door open on principle. He has argued
the whole question out to his own satisfaction, and logically he
feels that he could not conscientiously shut the door. If you wish
you may shut it; he will not criticize you that is a matter for your
own conscience; but he cannot. Raillery cannot compel him, neither
can force. He has argued the question out. He has canvassed the
arguments in favor of shutting and the arguments in favor of leaving
the door open, and he has balanced the two, and the balance is on
the side of not shutting, and that makes it a principle with him. In
favor of shutting the door there is:
1. A. cold wind may
blow into the room. But this is not probable, for those within would
shut the door and protect themselves.
2. By shutting the
door you will keep people on the outside from hearing the
conversation carried on within. But people should not talk about
things or say things they would not want others to hear or repeat.
These are the only
arguments he can think of for shutting the door. There are more
arguments in favor of leaving it open:
1. If the door slam
in shutting it would be exceeding unpleasant, and would suggest the
idea that you were in a passion.
2. If it did not slam
it might make a creaking noise.
3. Suppose that it
makes no noise at all, the impression is conveyed that you are going
away not to return, while you have no such intention. You must not
give false impressions.
4. There are chances
that when you come back you will make a noise in opening the door,
which is an interruption to the conversation. That is bad manners.
5. By not shutting
the door you give the parties remaining behind the option of
shutting it or not, according as it may please their own fancy. This
disposition to please is an amiable disposition and should be
cultivated.
These are some of the
reasons which determined the Scotchman of old not to shut the door,
and he found a principle in every one of them. This looks like a
burlesque, hut, after all, it is infinitely better to be a man of
principle than to be a man of no principle. A man who will put
principle into a little thing like "not shutting the door,'' when he
comes to deal with the eternal verities, when he comes to stand face
to face with gigantic wrong and with political tyranny and with
unholy oppression, is there for all he is worth; the whole man is
there; and when a whole Scotchman is there, out into the open air is
flung a Mecklenburg declaration of independence, and up in the
highest court of the nation you have a Patrick Henry uttering an
oration so full of conviction that it ushers in the American
Revolution.
3. The Scotchman
has as a trait the element of persistance.
Upon his drumhead he never beats a retreat. It is liberty or death.
This story illustrates how a Scotchman will hold on and follow what
he considers to be his one line of duty. It is told of a clergyman
in the days when Knox was battling against the Roman hierarchy. His
congregation brought a charge against him before the presbytery that
he never could preach a sermon without breaking a lance with the
pope—i.e., his sermons were all the same thing: pope in the
exordium, pope in the body of the sermon, and pope in the peroration
or conclusion. Thus it was fifty-two Sabbaths of the year. His
preaching grew monotonous and the people grew weary. The presbytery
said, "We will try him: we will give him a text to preach from, and
we shall hear his sermon, and we shall see if your charge be
true—that it is popery and pope no matter what text he takes." They
gave him for a text these three proper names: "Adam, Seth, Enos."
When the presbytery met there was a great congregation there, and
the minister felt that they needed sound doctrine and timely
warning. He saw a great opportunity. Solemnly he took his place in
the pulpit and announced his text, "Adam, Seth, Enos," and this was
his first sentence: "My dear brethren, these men lived in a clay
when there was no pope nor popery, and consequently they had not to
contend against the following evils," and he enumerated in full and
without waste of time all the evils of Romanism.
You smile at that
man, but I tell you that we need just such a son of John Knox at
this very moment in America. The Roman hierarchy is in our midst
insidiously at work trying to weaken and to defeat the object of one
of our noblest Amercan institutions, the free public schools,
manned, conducted, and supported by the state. It is these schools
of ours, supported and conducted by the state, that unify the
children of all classes and of all nationalities, and that take out
of the cradle and out of childhood all sectarian prejudices and
religious hatred and strife, and make all from the very start of
life American through and through. This means a solid, intelligent
American future. Rome has stepped upon the scene and has made a
public demand that our public-school funds shall be divided; that
is, that part of the taxes raised from the people shall be given to
the Roman Church to be used for sectarian purposes. The Roman Church
is pitted against the American state, and the issue is fairly on. We
need a stalwart son of John Knox who knows the hierarchy through and
through to tell Rome through Mr. Satolli that the American people
mean to educate their own citizens, and that they are going to keep
the schools of the Republic just as their fathers founded them. Sons
of John Knox, tell that to Rome not only fifty-two Sabbaths every
year, but tell that to Rome every day the whole year round.
I have been speaking
to you of your duty of protest against the machinations of a corrupt
church; let me now in closing say one word to you concerning your
duty to the pure evangelical Christian church. My word grows out of
this history of the freemen of Scotland as it touches American
national life. John Knox, who gave Scotland its national power and
character, was in loyal relation with the true church of Jesus
Christ. Through the church of pure doctrine and equal
representation, the church which honored the Sabbath and the open
Bible and the rights of the individual man, he worked his great
work; that is, through the church in which every one had the liberty
of private judgment lie molded public sentiment, and by the fearless
and free discussion of the truth in this church lie freed man's mind
from superstition and welded his countrymen together to act as one
man against the usurpations of oppression, civil and ecclesiastical.
He has taught us that a pure, holy, untrammeled, independent church
is a mighty safeguard of the liberties and rights of a people; that
it means the suppression of all hurtful evil and vice and tyranny.
It is the enlightener of the nation and its educator in holy
principles and moralities which perpetuate national liberty and
life. Ill light of his teachings let us learn our duty of loyalty
just here. There is no way in which we can so bless our country as
by giving it a pure, free-thoughted, Bible-loving church of Jesus
Christ. Such a church is a power which will make citizens of brain
and character and holy devotion to the rights of mankind. Such a
church will be a power on any question when it asserts itself on the
right side. It can send its protest through the land like a
thunderbolt. It can lead. Church of John Knox rooted to-day in
American soil, I greet you as such a power, and assure you that you
have still a patriotic mission in this Republic which you have
helped to build. You are equipped to-day for work as you have never
before been equipped; enter that work with hope and consecration.
Guard the liberties which you have purchased with your blood. Guard
the institutions which incarnate the best thought and life of the
American fathers.
You remember what
Angelo said to one of his pupils, Donatello, who asked him to come
and look at his figure of St. George on the outside of a church at
Florence. "The great sculptor looked at it with admiration and
surprise. Every limb was perfect, every outline complete, the face
lighted with almost human intelligence, the brow uplifted, and the
foot forward as if it would step into life. As Donatello waited for
Angelo's decision the great sculptor looked at the statue, slowly
lifted his hand, and said, 'Now march.'' 'That was the grandest
possible encomiumn he could give to the figure of St. George in
marble. That is God's word to the church of John Knox in America
to-day: "I have given thee opportunity
I have given thee royal men; I have given thee freedom of thought; I
have given thee knowledge; I have given thee numbers; I have given
thee My day and My Book; I have given thee the inspiring promises.
Now march. Battle for Me; honor Me; keep My day holy; keep My truth
uncorrupted; and, above all, guard and serve My nation, which I have
refined by the fires of conflict and revolution. Lead America to
higher and better things. Make it the refuge of the oppressed. Make
it the land of Beulah—a land married unto the Lord." |