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:

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.