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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I said nothing, but thought a good deal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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