Traces of Paganism in
Scotland. Relics of the Celtic Church; ‘Deserts.’ Survival of Roman
Catholicism in West Highlands and Islands. Influence of the Protestant
clergy. Highland ministers. Lowland ministers. Diets of catechising.
Street preachers.
The social history of
Scotland has been intimately linked with the successive ecclesiastical
polities which have held sway in the country. Nowhere can the external
and visible records of these polities be more clearly seen than among
the Western Isles, for there the political revolutions have been less
violent, though not less complete, than in other parts of the country,
and the effacement of the memorials of the past has been brought about,
more perhaps by the quiet influence of time, than by the ruthless hand
of man. First of all we meet with various lingering relics of Paganism;
then with abundant and often well-preserved records of the primitive
Celtic Church; next with evidence of the spread of the Roman Catholic
faith; further with the establishment of Protestantism, but without the
complete eradication of the older religion; and lastly with the doings
of the various religious sects into which the inhabitants are now
unhappily divided.
Various memorials of Paganism may be recognised, to some of which
further reference will be made in a later chapter. Of these memorials,
the numerous standing stones are the most conspicuous, whether as single
monoliths, marking the grave of some forgotten hero or dedicated to some
unknown divinity, or as groups erected doubtless for religious purposes,
like the great assemblage at Caller-nish in the Lewis. Besides these
stones, many burial mounds, resting-places of the pagan dead, have
yielded relics of the Stone and Bronze Ages. In some respects more
impressive even than these relics, are the superstitious customs which
still survive amongst us, and have probably descended uninterruptedly
from pagan times; such, for instance, as the practice of walking around
wells and other places three times from east to west, as the sun moves,
and the practice of leaving offerings at the springs which are resorted
to for curative purposes. Some of these customs were continued by the
early Celtic Church, persisted afterwards through the Roman Catholic
period, and even now, in spite of all the efforts of Protestant zeal,
they have not been wholly extirpated.
The vestiges of the early Celtic Church, by which Paganism was
superseded, are specially abundant in the Highlands. Even where all
visible memorials have long since vanished, the name of many a devoted
saint and missionary still clings to the place where he or she had a
chapel or hermitage, or where some cell was dedicated to their memory.
The names of Columba, Bridget, Oran, Donan, Fillan, Ronan, and others
are as familiar on the lips of modern Highlanders as they were on those
of their forefathers, although the historical meaning and interest of
these names may be unknown to those who use them now. When, besides the
name attached to the place, the actual building remains with which the
name was first associated in the sixth or some later century, the
interest deepens, especially where the relic stands, as so many of them
do, on some small desolate islet, placed far amid the melancholy main,
and often for weeks together difficult or impossible of approach, even
now, with the stouter boats of the present day. Such places, like those
off the west coast of Ireland, were sought for retirement from the work
and worry of the world, where the missionary devoted himself to
meditation and prayer. The numerous Deserts, Diserts, Dysarts, and
Dyserts in Ireland and Scotland are all forms of the Gaelic word Disert,
derived from the Latin Desertum, a desert or sequestered place, and mark
retreats of the early propagandists of Christianity. It fills one with
amazement and admiration to contemplate the heroism and self-devotion
which could lead these men in their frail coracles to such sea-washed
rocks, where there is often no soil to produce any vegetation, and
where, except by impounding rain, there can be no supply of fresh water.
Perhaps the most striking of these ‘deserts’ in Scotland is to be found
on the uninhabited rock known as Sula Sgeir, which rises out of the
Atlantic, about forty miles to the north of the Butt of Lewis. Though
much less imposing in height and size than the Skellig off the coast of
Kerry, it is at least four times further from the land, and must
consequently have been still more difficult to reach in primitive times.
I had a few years ago an opportunity of landing on this rock, during a
yachting cruise to the Faroe Islands. With some little difficulty, on
account of the heavy swell, I succeeded in scrambling ashore, and found
the rock to consist of gneiss, like that of the Long Island. My arrival
disturbed a numerous colony of sea-fowl. The puffins emerged from their
holes, and sat gazing at me with their whimsical wistful look. Flocks of
razorbills and guillemots, circled overhead, filling the air with their
screams, while the gannets, angry that their mates should be disturbed
from their nests, wheeled to and fro still higher, with mocking shouts
of ha! ha! ha! A dank grey sea-fog hung over the summit of the islet.
Everything was damp with mist and clammy with birds’ droppings, which in
a dry climate would gather as a deposit of guano. Loathsome pools of
rain-water and sea-spray, putrid with excrement, filled the hollows of
the naked rock, while the air was heavy with the odours of living and
dead birds. The only things of beauty in the place were the tufts of.
sea-pink that grew luxuriantly in the crannies. Some traces of recent
human occupation could be seen in the form of a few rude stone-huts
erected as shelters by the men who now and then come to take off the
gannets and their eggs, and who when there lately had left some heaps of
unused peat behind them.
Yet this desolate, bird-haunted rock, with the heavy surf breaking all
round it and resounding from its chasms and caves, was the place chosen
by one of the Celtic saints as his * desert.’ His little rude chapel yet
remains, built of rough stones and still retaining its roof of large
flags. It measures inside about fourteen feet in length by. from six to
eight in -breadth, with an entrance doorway and one small
window-opening, beneath which the altar-stone still lies in place. There
could hardly ever have been a community here; one is puzzled to
understand how even the saint himself succeeded in reaching this barren
rock, and how he supported himself on it during his stay. He came, no
doubt, in one of the light skin-covered coracles, which could contain
but a slender stock of provisions. When these were exhausted, if the
weather forbade his return to Lewis or to the mainland, he had no fuel
on the rock to fall back upon, with which to cook any of the eggs or
birds of the islet,' and there was no edible vegetation, save the dulse
or other sea-weeds growing between tide-marks.
With the decay and dissolution of the Celtic Church, probably many of
the chapels erected by that community were forsaken and allowed to fall
into ruin. But some continued to be used, and were even enlarged or
rebuilt, when the Church of Rome established its rule over the whole
country. Architecture had meanwhile made an onward step. The buildings
erected by the emissaries of Rome presented a strong contrast to those
which they replaced, for they were solidly built with lime, in a much
more ornate style, with a freer use of sculpture and on a much larger
scale. The old church of Rodil, in Harris, for example, belonging
perhaps to the thirteenth century, is full of sculptured figures; while
the Cathedral of Iona would hold some dozens of the primitive cells.
In various parts of the country evidence may be seen that the Celtic
sculptured stones had ceased to be respected, either as religious
monuments or as works of art, when the Roman Catholic churches were
erected. At St. Andrews, for example, the old chapel of St. Regulus,
probably built between the tenth and twelfth centuries, was allowed to
remain, and it still stands, roofless indeed, but in wonderful
preservation as regards the masonry of its walls. But of the crosses
that rose above the sward around it, many of them delicately carved with
interlaced work in the true Celtic style, some were broken up and
actually used as building material for the great Cathedral which was
begun in the year 1160. Again, at St. Vigeans, in Forfarshire, a large
quantity of similar sculptured stones of the Celtic period was built
into the masonry of the twelfth-century church erected there under the
Latin hierarchy.
The Roman Catholic faith, which once prevailed universally over the
country, still maintains its place on some of the islands, particularly
Barra, Benbecula, and South Uist, and in certain districts of the
mainland. In Eigg, about half of the population is still Catholic, the
other half being divided between the Established and Free Churches. The
three clergymen, Protestant and Roman Catholic, when I first visited the
island, were excellent friends, and used to have pleasant evenings
together over their toddy and talk. The Catholic memorial chapel to the
memory of Lord Howard of Glossop was determined ‘to be erected in one of
the Catholic islands,’ and Canna was chosen as its site. The building
has been placed there, and with its high Norman tower now forms a
conspicuous landmark for leagues to east and west. But the crofter
population is gone, and with it Catholicism has disappeared from Canna,
though some five crofter families still live on the contiguous island of
Sanday.
In my peregrinations through the Catholic districts of the west of
Scotland I have often been struck with some interesting contrasts
between them and similar regions in Ireland, where Catholic and
Protestant live together. The Scottish priests have always seemed to me
a better educated class and more men of the world than their brethren in
Ireland. Students who have been trained abroad have their ideas widened
and their manners polished, as is hardly possible in the case of those
who leave their villages to be trained at Maynooth, whence they are sent
to recommence village life as parish priests. Again, there has always
appeared to me to be in the West Highlands far less of the antagonism
which in Ireland separates Catholics and Protestants. They live together
as good neighbours, and, unless you actually make enquiry, you cannot
easily discriminate between them.
No feature in the social changes which Scotland has undergone stands out
more conspicuously than the part played in these changes by the clergy
since the Reformation. This clerical influence has been both beneficial
and baneful. On the one hand, the clergy have unquestionably taken a
large share in the intellectual development of the people, and in giving
to the national character some of its most distinctive qualities. For
many generations, in face of a lukewarm or even hostile nobility and
government, they bore the burden of the parish schools, elaborating and
improving a system of instruction which made their country for a long
time the best educated community in Europe. They have held up the
example of a high moral standard, and have laboured with the most
unremitting care to train their flocks in the paths of righteousness.
On the other hand, the clergy, having from the very beginning of
Protestantism obtained control over the minds and consciences of the
people, have naturally used this powerful influence to make their
theological tenets prevail throughout the length and breadth of the
land. They early developed a spirit of intolerance and fanaticism, and
with this same spirit they succeeded in imbuing their people, repressing
the natural and joyous impulses of humanity, and establishing an
artificial and exacting code of conduct, the enforcement of which led to
an altogether hurtful clerical domination. While waging war against
older forms of superstition, they introduced new forms which added to
the terrors and the gloom of life. These transformations were longest in
reaching their climax among the Highlands and Islands, but have there
attained their most complete development, as will be further pointed out
in a later chapter. Happily, in the Lowlands for the last two hundred
years, their effects have been slowly passing away. The growth of
tolerance and enlightenment is increasingly marked both among the clergy
and the laity. But the old leaven is not even yet wholly eradicated,
though it now works within a comparatively narrow and continually
contracting sphere.
Nevertheless, even those who have least sympathy with the theological
tenets and ecclesiastical system of the Scottish clergy must needs
acknowledge that, as earnest and indefatigable workers for the spiritual
and temporal good of their flocks, as leaders in every movement for the
benefit of the community, and as fathers of families, these men deserve
the ample commendation which they have received. Their limited stipends
have allowed them but a slender share of the material comforts and
luxuries of life, and comparatively few of them have enjoyed
opportunities to ‘ augment their small peculiar,’ yet they have, as a
whole, set a noble example of self-denial, thrift, and benevolence.
Secure at least of their manses, they have contrived ‘ to live on little
with a cheerful heart,’ respected and esteemed of men. While supplying
the material wants of their people, as far as their means would allow,
they have yet been able to provide a good education for their families,
and to
Put forth their sons to
seek preferment out;
Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;
Some to discover islands far away;
Some to the studious universities.
The ‘sons of the manse’
are found filling positions of eminence in every walk of life.
With all this excellence of character and achievement, the clergy of
Scotland have maintained an individuality which has strongly marked them
as a class among the other professions of the country. This peculiarity
is well exemplified in the innumerable anecdotes which, either directly
or indirectly connected with clergymen, form so large a proportion of
what are known as ‘ Scotch Stories.' If we seek for the cause of the
prominence of the clerical element in the accepted illustrations of
Scottish humour, we shall hardly find it in any exceptional exuberance
of that quality among the reverend gentlemen themselves, taken as a
body, though many of their number have been among the most humorous and
witty of their countrymen. As they were long drawn from almost every
grade in the social scale of the kingdom, they have undoubtedly
presented an admirable average type of the national idiosyncrasies,
though they are now recruited in diminishing measure from the landed and
cultured ranks of society. Their number, their general dispersion over
the whole land, their prominence in their parishes, the influence
wielded by many of them in the church-courts and on public platforms,
and the free intercourse between them and the people, have all helped to
draw attention to them and to their sayings and doings. Moreover, since
dissent from the National Church began, the clergy have been greatly
multiplied. In each parish, where there was once only one minister,
there are now two or even more.
A Scots proverb avers that ‘ A minister’s legs should never be seen,’
meaning that he should not be met with out of the pulpit. So long as he
remains there, he stands invested with ‘such divinity as doth hedge a
king’: unassailable, uncontradictable, and wielding the authority of a
messenger from God to man. The very isolation and eminence of this
position call attention to any merely human qualities or frailties which
he may disclose in ordinary life. His parishioners, though inwardly glad
if he can shed upon them ‘ the gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,’ at the
same time delight to find him, when divested of his gown and bands,
after all, one of themselves ; and while they enjoy his humour, when he
possesses that saving grace, they are not unwilling sometimes to take
his little peculiarities as subjects for their own mirthful but not
ill-natured remarks. He may thus be like Falstaff, ‘not only witty
himself, but the cause that wit is in other men.’ Hence the clerical
stories may be divided into two kinds: those in which the humour is that
of the ministers, and those in which it is that of the people, with the
ministers as its object. In the first series, there is perhaps no
particular flavour different from that characteristic of the ordinary
middle-class Scot, though of course the many anecdotes of a professional
nature take their colour from the calling of those to whom they relate.
In the second division, however, a greater individuality may be
recognised. Whether it be from a sort of good-humoured revenge for his
incontestible superiority in the pulpit, there seems to be a proneness
to make the most of any oddities in the minister’s manners or character.
The contrast between the preacher on Sunday and the same, man during the
week—it may be absent-minded, or irascible, or making mistakes, or
getting into ludicrous situations—appeals powerfully to the Scotsman’s
sense of humour. He seizes the oddity of this contrast, expresses it in
some pithy words, and thus, . often unconsciously, launches another
‘story’ into the world. His humour, as in Swift’s definition,
Is odd, grotesque, and
wild,
Only by affectation spoiled;
’Tis never by invention got;
Men have it when they know it not.
It is in the country, and
more particularly in the remoter and less frequented parishes, that the
older type of minister has to some extent survived. We meet with him
rather in the Highlands than in the Lowlands. He cultivates his glebe,
and sometimes has also a farm on his hands. He has thus some practical
knowledge of agriculture, is often a good judge of cattle, and breeds
his own stock.
The best example of a Highland clergyman I ever knew was the Rev. John
Mackinnon, minister of the parish of Strath, Skye, to whose hospitable
house of Kilbride I have already referred as my first home in the
island. He succeeded to the parish after his father, who had been its
minister for fifty-two years, and he was followed in turn by his eldest
son, the late Dr. Donald, so that for three generations, or more than a
hundred years, the care of the parish remained in the same family. Tall,
erect, and wiry, he might have been taken for a retired military man. A
gentleman by birth and breeding, he mingled on easy terms with the best
society in the island, while at the same time his active discharge of
his ministerial duties brought him into familiar relations with the
parishioners all over the district. So entirely had he gained their
respect and affections that, when the great Disruption, of 1843 rent the
Establishment over so much of the Highlands, he kept his flock in the
old Church. He used to boast that Strath was thus the Sebastopol of that
Church in Skye.
The old manse at Kilchrist, having become ruinous, was abandoned; and,
as none was built to replace it, Mr. Mackinnon rented the farm and house
of Kilbride. There had once been a chapel there, dedicated to St.
Bridget, and her name still clings to the spot. Behind rises the group
of the Red Hills; further over, the black serrated crests of Blaven, the
most striking of all the Skye mountains, tower up into the north-western
sky, while to the south the eye looks away down the inlet of Loch Slapin
to the open sea, out of which rise the ridges of Rum and the Scuir of
Eigg. The farm lay around the house and stretched into the low uplands
on the southern side of the valley. The farming operations at Kilbride
will be noticed in a later chapter.
In the wide Highland parishes, where roads are few and communications
must largely be kept up on foot, the minister’s wife is sometimes hardly
less important a personage than her husband, and it is to her that the
social wants oh the people are generally made known. Mrs. Mackinnon
belonged, to another family of the same clan as the minister, and was in
every way worthy of him. Tall and massive in build, with strength of
character traced on every feature of her face, and a dignity of manner
like that of a Highland chieftainess, she was born to rule in any sphere
to which she might be called. Her habitual look was perhaps somewhat
stern, with a touch of sadness, as if she had deeply realised the trials
and transitoriness of life, and had braced herself to do her duty
through it all to the end. But no Highland heart beat more warmly than
hers. She was the mother of the whole parish, and seemed to have her eye
on every cottage and cabin throughout its wide extent. To her every poor
crofter looked for, sympathy and help, and neve looked in vain. Her
clear blue eyes would at one moment fill with tears over the recital of
some tale of suffering in the district, at another they would sparkle
with glee as she listened to some of the droll narratives of her family
or her visitors. She belonged to the fanv’ly of Corriehatachan, and
among her prized relics was the coverlet under which Samuel Johnson
slept when he stayed in her grandfathers house. That house at the foot
of the huge Beinn na Cailleach has long ago disappeared; some fields of
brighter green and some low walls mark where it and its garden stood.
The younger generation at Kilbride consisted of a large family of
stalwart sons and daughters, whose careers have furnished a good
illustration of the way in which the children of the manses of Scotland
have succeeded in the world. The eldest son, as above stated, followed
his father as minister of Strath ; another became proprietor of the
Melbourne Argus; a third joined the army, served in the Crimea, and in
the later years of his life was widely known and respected as Sir
William Mackinnon, Director-General of the Army Medical Department, who
left his fortune to the Royal Society for the furtherance of scientific
research.1 Most of the family now lie with their parents under the green
turf of the old burial-ground of Kilchrist. Miss Flora, the youngest
daughter, was gathered to her rest not many months ago. The later years
of her life had been spent by her at her beautiful home of Duisdale in
Sleat, looking across the Kyle to the heights of Ben Screel and the
recesses of Loch Hourn. She was a skilled gardener and had transformed a
bare hillside into a paradise of flowers and fruit. She lent a helping
hand to every good work in the parish, managed the property with skill
and success, and knew the pedigree and history of every family in the
West Highlands. When I paid her my last visit, feeling sure it would be
the last, it was sad to see her once tall muscular frame bowed down with
illness and pain, and to find her alone, the last of her family left in
Skye.
[Dr. Norman Macleod,
writing in 1867, stated that since the beginning of the last wars of the
French Revolution the island of Skye alone had sent forth 21
lieutenant-generals and major-generals; 48 lieutenant-colonels; 600
commissioned officers; 10,000 soldiers; 4 governors of colonies; 1
governor-general; 1 adjutant-general; 1 chief baron of England; and 1
judge of the Supreme Court of Scotland. The martial tide is now but
feeble, though some additions could still be made to the list.]
In former days, before inns had multiplied in the Highlands, and
especially before the advent of the crowds of tourists, and the
inevitable modern ‘hotels,’ the manses were often the only houses, other
than those of the lairds, where travellers could find decent
accommodation. Their hospitality was often sought, and it became in the
end proverbial. Kilbride was an excellent example of this type of manse.
Not only did it receive every summer a succession of guests who made it
their home for weeks at a time, but every visitor of note was sure of a
kindly welcome, even if he were unexpected. Astonishing is the capacity
of these plain-looking Highland houses. When the company assembles at
dinner it may seem impossible that they can all find sleeping quarters
under the same roof. Yet they are all stowed away not uncomfortably,
sleep well, and come down next morning with appetites prepared to do
full justice to a Highland breakfast.
In those Highland parishes where Gaelic is still commonly spoken, two
services are held in the churches' on Sunday, the first in that language
and the second, after a brief interval, in English. This practice was
followed in Strath. In the days of the Celtic Church, a chapel dedicated
to Christ stood in the middle of the parish and was known as Kilchrist.
On the same site, the Protestant Church was afterwards erected, and
continued to be used until towards the middle of last century. But, like
the adjacent manse, it fell into disrepair and was ultimately allowed to
become the roofless ruin which stands in the midst of the old grave-yard
of Kilchrist. Instead of rebuilding it, the, heritors, about the year
1840, resolved to erect a new church at Broadford, nearer to the chief
centre of population. For two Sundays in succession the services are
held at Broadford ; on the third Sunday they take place at a little
chapel in Strathaird, on the western side of the parish, for the benefit
of a mixed crofter and fishing community.
At the Gaelic service in the Broadford church, a prominent feature used
to be the row of picturesque red-cloaked or tartan-shawled old women,
who, sitting in front immediately below the pulpit, followed the prayers
and the sermon with the deepest attention, frequently uttering a running
commentary of sighs and groans, while now and then one could even see
tears coursing down the wrinkles into which age and peat-reek had
shrivelled their cheeks.
The Sundays at Strathaird were peculiarly impressive. The house party
from the manse —family, guests and servants—walked to the shore of the
sea-inlet of Loch Slapin, embarked there in rowing boats, and pulled
across the fjord and along the base of the cliffs on the opposite side.
No finer landscape could be found even amidst the famous scenery of
Skye,—the pink and russet-coloured cones and domes of the Red Hills, and
the dark pinnacles and crags of Blaven behind us, and the blue islands
that closed in the far distance in front.
During the long incumbency of the minister’s father, no built place of
worship existed in Strathaird. The little chapel of the early Celtic
Church, of which the memory is preserved in the name Kilmaree, had long
disappeared, and the clergyman used to preach from a recess in the
basalt crags, with a grassy slope in front on which his congregation sat
to hear him. My host, however, in the early years of his tenancy of the
parish, had succeeded in getting a small church erected wherein his
people could be sheltered in bad weather. I can recollect one of these
Sundays when the weather was absolutely perfect—a cloudless blue sky,
the sea smooth as a mirror, and the air suffused with the calm
peacefulness which seems so appropriate to a Sabbath. We were a large
but singularly quiet party, as we steered for the little bay of Kilmaree,
each wrapped up in the thoughts which the day or the scene suggested. As
we approached our landing place, we were startled by two gun-shots in
rapid succession on the hillside above us. The sound would under any
circumstances have intruded somewhat harshly into the quiet of the
landscape. But it was
Sunday, and such a thing as shooting on the Lord’s day had never been
heard of in Strath. An Englishman had rented the ground for the season,
and he and his wife were now out with their guns. The surprise and
horror with which this conduct was viewed by the minister and his family
soon found an echo through the length and breadth of the parish.
[It will be remembered
what a high opinion Johnson formed of the learning and breeding of the
West Highland clergy. There is no reason to think they have deteriorated
since his time, though possibly their learning would not now be singled
out for special eulogium.]
The sacramental season brought together to Kilbride some of the other
clergymen of Skye, whom it was always a pleasure to meet. They were a
race of earnest, hardworking, and intelligent men,1 though, having
remained in the Establishment, they would have been stigmatised by the
seceding party as ‘ Moderates ’ who had clung to their loaves and
fishes, in spite of the example of the Free Kirk. I remember being
especially struck by Mr. Macrae of Glenelg and Mr. Martin of Snizort.
With Mr. Macrae I had afterwards more intercourse. Over and above his
ministerial duties, to which he conscientiously devoted himself, his
great delight in life was to be on the sea. He had a little yacht or
cutter, on which he lived as much as he could, and which, as it passed
up and down the lochs and kyles, was as familiar as Hutcheson’s
steamers. He was never happier than when, with his two daughters, he
could entertain some friend on a cruise in these waters, and tell what
he knew about the ruins and legends of the district—the Pictish towers,
the mouldering Barracks, the traditions of 1715 and 1745, the Spanish
invasion, the battle of Glen Shiel, the naval pursuit and the battering
down of Eilean Donan Castle. Once when I was staying at Inverinate, the
minister landed there from his little vessel, and hearing that I wished
to examine a piece of the Skye shore south of Kyle Rhea, was delighted
to offer to convey me there and back next day. My host jocularly
remarked that the visit would be sooner made by land and crossing the
Kyle at the ferry, than by trusting. to the minister. The little cruise,
however, was arranged, according to Mr. Macrae’s desire, and he duly
dropped anchor in front of Inverinate next morning. We started early,
and, with a gentle south-easterly breeze and unclouded sky, made good
progress down Loch Duich. But the wind soon fell, and we crept more and
more slowly past the ruined Eilean Donan into Loch Alsh. There could not
have been a more glorious day for a lazy excursion, or a nobler
landscape to gaze upon, as hour slipped after hour. Behind us rose the
great range of the Seven Sisters of Kintail, in front were the hills of
Sleat with the Cuillins peering up behind them, all suffused with the
varying tints of the atmosphere. It was a source of keen interest to
watch how the hues of peak and crag which one had actually climbed, were
transformed in this aerial alembic, and one felt the truth of Dyer’s
beautiful lines :
Mark yon summits, soft and
fair,
Clad in colours of the air,
Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear.
The worthy minister, in
his capacity of experienced yachtsman, playfully indulged in the usual
whistling incantations that are supposed by the nautical imagination to
propitiate iEolus, but without success. The air became so nearly
motionless as to be able to give only an occasional sleepy flap to the
sail. But we continued to move almost imperceptibly towards our
destination, borne onward by the last efforts of the ebbing tide. By the
time we had reached the open part of Loch Alsh, however, and had come
well in sight of the coast I intended to traverse, the tide turned and
began to flow. Gradually the yacht was turned round with her prow
directed up the loch, and to our disgust we saw ourselves being
gradually carried back again. Helpless on a perfectly smooth sea, and
without a breath of wind, we had to resign ourselves to fate, and got
back opposite to Inverinate just in time for dinner.
Another Highland minister of a very different type lived on the shores
of Loch Striven —a long inlet of the sea which runs far up among the
mountains of Cowal, and opens out into the Firth of Clyde opposite to
Rothesay. He was a bachelor and somewhat of a recluse, with many
eccentricities which formed the basis of sundry anecdotes among his
colleagues. One of these reverend brethren told me that the erection of
a volunteer battery on the shore of Bute, where it looks up Loch
Striven, greatly perturbed the old minister, for the reverberation of
the firing rolled loud and long among the mountains. One morning before
he was awake, the chimney-sweeps, by arrangement with his housekeeper,
came to clean the chimneys. Part of their apparatus consisted of a
perforated iron ball through which a rope was passed, and which by its
weight dragged the rope down to the fireplace. By some mistake this ball
was dropped down the chimney of the ministers bedroom, where, striking
the grate with a loud noise, it rebounded on the floor. The rattle awoke
the reverend gentleman, who, on opening his eyes and seeing, as he
thought, a cannon-ball dancing across the room, exclaimed, ‘ Really,
this is beyond my patience; it is bad enough to be deaved with the
firing, but to have the shot actually sent into my house is more than I
can stand. I’ll get up and write to the commanding officer.’
As he had a comfortable manse and a fair stipend, various efforts were
made by the matrons of the neighbourhood to induce the minister to take
a wife, and he used innocently to recount these interviews to his
copresbyters, who took care that they should not lose anything by
repetition to the world outside. One of these interviews was thus
related to me. A lady in his parish called on him, and after praising
the manse and the garden and the glebe, expressed a fear that he must
find it a great trouble to manage his house as well as his parish. He
explained that he had an excellent housekeeper, who took great care of
him, and managed the household to his entire satisfaction. ‘ Ah, yes/
said the visitor, ‘ I’m sure Mrs. Campbell is very careful, but she
canna be the same as a wife to you. You must often be very lonely here,
all by yourself. But if you had a wife she would keep you from wearying,
and would take all the management of the house off your hands, besides
helping you with the work of the parish. Now Mr.- there’s my Isabella,
if you would but take her for your wife, she would be a perfect Abishag
to you.’ This direct and powerful appeal, however, met with no better
success than others that had gone before it. The incorrigible old divine
lived, and, I believe, died in single blessedness.
In the Lowlands the younger ministers, educated in Edinburgh or Glasgow,
and accustomed to the modernised service of the churches, and the more
distinctive ecclesiastical garb of the officiating clergy, have lost the
angularity of manner which marked older generations. I can remember,
however, a number of parish ministers who belonged to an earlier and
perhaps now extinct type. Though thoroughly earnest and devoted men,
they would be regarded at the present day as at least irreverent, and
their sayings and doings would no doubt scandalise modern eyes and ears.
One of these clergymen had a large Ayrshire parish. He was apt to forget
things, and on remembering them, to blurt them out at the most
inappropriate times. On one occasion he had begun the benediction at the
close of the service, when he suddenly stopped, exclaiming: ‘We’ve
forgot the psalm,’ which he thereupon proceeded to read out. Another
time, in the midst of one of his extempore prayers, he was asking for a
blessing on the clergyman who was to address the people in the
afternoon, when he interrupted himself to interject: ‘It’s in the laigh
Kirk, ye ken.’
One evening the same clergyman was dining with a pleasant party at a
laird’s house about a mile from the village, when it flashed across his
mind that he ought to have been at that moment performing a baptism in
the house of one of the villagers. Hastily asking to be excused for a
little, as he had forgotten an engagement, and with the assurance that
he would soon be back, he started off. It was past nine o’clock before
he reached the village and knocked at the door of his parishioner. There
was no answer for a time, and after a second and more vigorous knock,
the window overhead was opened, and a voice demanded who was there.
‘It’s me, Mrs. Maclellan. I’m very sorry, indeed, to have forgotten
about the baptism. But it’s not too late yet.’ ‘O minister, we’re in
bed, and a’ the fowk are awa’. We canna hae the baptism noo.’ ‘Never
mind the folk, Mrs. Maclellan; is the bairn here?’ ‘Ow ay, the bairn’s
hfcre, sure eneuch.’ ‘Weel, that will do, and so you maun let me in, and
we’ll hae the baptism after all.’ The husband had meanwhile pulled some
clothes on, and with his wife came downstairs to let in their minister.
The ‘ tea-things,’ which the good woman had prepared with great care for
her little festival, had been carried back to the kitchen, whither the
husband had gone for a lamp. The woman appeared with the child, and
begged that they would come into her parlour. But the minister, assuring
her that the room made no difference, proceeded with the ceremony in the
kitchen. When the moment came for sprinkling the baby, he dipped his
hand into the first basin he saw. ‘O stop, stop Mr , that’s the water I
washed up the tea-cups and saucers in.’ ‘It will do as well as any
other,’ he said, and continued his prayer to the end of the short
service. As soon as it was over, he started back to the laird’s, and
rejoined the party after an absence of about an hour.
To this baptismal experience another may be added, where the rite was
celebrated in the face of great natural obstacles. Dr. Hanna relates
that a Highland minister once went to baptise a child in the house of
one of his parishioners, near which ran a small burn or river. When he
came to the stream it was so swollen with recent rains that he could not
ford it in order to reach the house. In these circumstances he told the
father, who was awaiting him on the opposite bank, to bring the child
down to the burn-side. Furnished with a wooden scoop, the clergyman
stood on the one side of the water, and the father, holding the infant
as far out in his arms as he could, placed himself on the other. With
the foaming torrent between the participants, the service went on, until
the time came for sprinkling the babe, when the minister, dipping the
scoop into the water, flung its contents across at the baby’s face. His
aim, however, was not good, for he failed more than once, calling out to
the father after each new trial: ‘Weel, has’t gotten ony yet?’ When he
did succeed, the whole contents of the scoop fell on the child’s face,
whereupon the disgusted parent ejaculated, ‘ Ach, Got pless me, sir, but
ye’ve trownt ta child.’ Dr. Chalmers, in telling this story, used to
express his wonder as to what the great sticklers for form and ceremony
in the sacraments would think of such a baptism by a burn-side,
performed with a wooden scoop.
A certain parish church in Carrick, like many ecclesiastical edifices of
the time in Scotland, was not kept with scrupulous care. The windows
seemed never to be cleaned, or indeed opened, for cobwebs hung across
them,
And half-starv’d spiders prey’d on half-starv’d flies.
There was an air of dusty neglect about the interior, and likewise a
musty smell. One Sunday an elderly clergyman from another part of the
country was preaching. In the midst of his sermon a spider, suspended
from the roof at the end of its long thread, swung to and fro in front
of his face. It came against his lips and was blown vigorously away.
Again it swung back to his mouth, when, with an indignant motion of his
hands, he broke the thread and exclaimed, ‘ My friends, this is the
dirtiest kirk I ever preached in. I’m like to be pusioned wi’ speeders.’
It is recorded of an old minister in the west of Ross-shire that he
prayed for Queen Victoria, 'that God would bless her and that as now she
had grown to be an old woman, He would be pleased to make her a new
man.’
The same worthy divine is said to have once prayed ‘ that we may be
saved from the horrors of war, as depicted in the pages of the
Illustrated London News and the Graphic.’
One of the most serious functions which the Presbyterian clergymen of
Scotland had formerly 16 discharge was that of publicly examining their
congregation in their knowledge of the Christian faith. Provided with a
list of the congregation, the officiating minister in the pulpit
proceeded to call up the members to answer questions out of the Shorter
Catechism, or such other interrogatories as it might seem desirable to
ask. Nobody knew when his turn would come, or what questions would be
put to him, so that it was a time of trial and trepidation for old and
young. The custom appears to be now obsolete, but reminiscences of its
operation are still preserved.
An elderly minister was asked to take the catechising of the
congregation in a parish in the pastoral uplands of the South of
Scotland. He was warned against the danger of putting questions to a
certain shepherd, who had made himself master of more divinity than some
of his clerical contemporaries could boast, and who enjoyed nothing
better than, out of the question put to him, to engage in an argument
with the minister on some of the deepest problems of theology. The day
of the ordeal at last came, the old doctor ascended the pulpit, and
after the preliminary service put on his spectacles and unfolded the
roll of the congregation. To the utter amazement of everybody, he began
with the theological shepherd, John Scott. Up started the man, a tall,
gaunt, sunburnt figure, with his maud over his shoulder, his broad blue
bonnet on the board in front of him, and such a look of grim
determination on his face as showed how sure he felt of the issue of the
logical encounter to which he believed he had been challenged from the
pulpit. The minister, who had clearly made up his mind as to the line of
examination to be followed with this pugnacious theologian, looked at
him calmly for a few moments, and then in a gentle voice asked, ‘Wha
made you, John?’ The shepherd, prepared for questions on some of the
most difficult points of our faith, was taken aback by being asked what
every child in the parish could answer. He replied in a loud and
astonished tone, ‘Wha made me?’ ‘It was the Lord God that made you,
John,’ quietly interposed the minister. ‘Wha redeemed you, John?’ Anger
now mingled with indignation as the man shouted, ‘Wha redeemed me?’ The
old divine, still in the same mild way, reminded him 'It was the Lord
Jesus Christ that redeemed you, John,’ and then asked further, ‘Wha
sanctified you, John? Scott, now thoroughly aroused, roared out, ‘Wha
sanctified me?’ The clergyman paused, looked at him calmly, and said,
‘It was the Holy Ghost that sanctified you, John Scott, if, indeed, ye
be sanctified. Sit ye doon, my man, and learn your questions better the
next time you come to the catechising.’ The shepherd was never able to
hold his head up in the parish thereafter.
An old woman who had got sadly rusty in her Catechism was asked, ‘What
is a sacrament?’ to which she gave the following rather mixed answer, ‘A
sacrament is—an act of saving grace, whereby—a sinner out of a true
knowledge of his sins—doth rest in his grave till the resurrection.’
Dr. Hanna used to tell of a shoemaker who lamented to his minister that
he was spiritually in a bad way because he was not very sure of his
title to the kingdom of heaven, and that he was physically bad because
‘that sweep, his landlord, had given him notice to quit and he would
have nowhere to lay his bead.’ The minister could only advise him to lay
his case before the Lord. A week later the minister returned and found
the shoemaker busy and merry. ‘That was gran’ advice ye gied me,
minister,’ said the man, ‘I laid my case before the Lord, as ye tell’t
me—an’ noo the sweep’s deid.’
In connection with the regular clergy, reference may be made to the
free-lances who, as street-preachers, have long taken their place among
the influences at work for rousing the lower classes in our large towns
to a sense of their duties. These men have often displayed a
single-hearted devotion and persistence, in spite of the most callous
indifference or even active hostility on the part of their auditors. The
very homeliness of their language, which repels most educated people,
gives them a hold on those who come to listen to them, while now and
then their vehement enthusiasm rises into true eloquence. The most
remarkable of these men I have ever listened to was a noted character in
Edinburgh during the later years of the first half of last century,
named Bobbie Flockhart. He was diminutive in stature, but for this
disadvantage he endeavoured to compensate by taking care that
The apparel on his back,
Though coarse, was reverend, and though bare, was black.
Eccentric in manner and speech, he long continued to be an indefatigable
worker for the good of his fellow townsmen. He used to spend the
forenoon and afternoon of every Sunday in flitting from church to
church, listening to the sermons, of each of which he remained to hear
only a small portion. Then in the evening, not only of Sundays but of
week days, he would hold forth from a chair or barrel outside the west
gate of St. Giles, and gather round him a crowd of loafers from the High
Street, who, it is to be feared, were attracted to him rather by the
expectation of some new drollery of language, than from any interest in
the substance of his discourses. They would interrupt him now and then
with ribald remarks, but they often met with such a rebuke as turned the
laugh against them, and increased the popularity of the preacher. He was
discoursing one evening on the wickedness of the town, especially of the
district in which his audience lived, when in his enthusiasm he pointed
up in the direction of the Castle, where stands the huge historic
cannon, and exclaimed: ‘O that I could load Mons Meg wi’ Bibles, and
fire it doon every close in the High Street!’ On another occasion he was
depicting to the people the terrors of the day of judgment. ‘Ay,’ said
he, ‘some of you that mock me the day will be cornin’ up to me then and
sayin’, “Bobbie, ye’ll mind us, we aye cam’ to hear ye.” But I’ll no’
help ye. Maybe ye’ll think to cling on to my coat-tails, but I’ll cheat
ye there, for I’ll put on a jacket.’ He was fond of similes that could
bring home to the rough characters around him the truths he sought to
impress on them. He was once denouncing the careless ingratitude of man
for all the benefits conferred on him by Providence. ‘My friends,’ he
said, ‘look at the hens when they drink. There’s not ane o’ them but
lifts its heid in thankfulness, even for the water that is sae common. O
that we were a’ hens':’ |
