Echoes of a Spicy Book on Scotland.

Edinburgh, August 26, 1902.

The mention of St. Cuthbert's, where we heard an excellent coronation sermon by Dr. McGregor, reminds me of the prayer offered in St. Cuthbert's by the Rev. Neill McVicar, in 1745, just after the Young Pretender had won the battle of Prestonpans. A message was sent to the Edinburgh ministers, in the name of "Charles Prince Regent," desiring them to open their churches next day as usual. McVicar preached to a large congregation, many of whom were armed Highlanders, and prayed for George II., the reigning monarch, and also for Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, in the following terms, "Bless the king! Thou knowest what king I mean. May the crown sit long upon his head! As for that young man who has come among us to seek an earthly crown, we beseech thee to take him to thyself, and give him a crown of glory!"

One of our pleasant excursions, of which we have made many since coming to Edinburgh, was to the field of Prestonpans, where the Young Pretender won his delusive victory, a field made familiar to many by the vivid description in Waverley. An aged tree, now supported and braced by iron rods and wires, is pointed out as that under which the Pretender stood during part of the engagement. Under this tree, in the tall wheat, overlooking the peaceful fields and the shining sea, our photographers insisted that a picture should be taken of some of the party, weary and dusty, and I fear untidy as we were. Half a mile away, and within a few feet of the railway, stands the monument to Col. Gardiner, who was killed in this battle, and of whom Scott gives such a striking account in the first of his immortal romances.

But there I go again, instead of finishing the subject of church services. In Kate Douglas Wiggin's sparkling volume, entitled Penelope's Progress, there is an amusing description of the perplexity of a young woman from America, on noticing from her window the great crowds of people on the streets of Edinburgh on Sunday morning, her speculations as to the cause—"Do you suppose it is a fire?"—and her amazement at discovering that they were all going to church. And truly the Scotch people are great church-goers. Nothing like it is ever seen on our side of the ocean, except in the predominantly Scotch cities of Canada.

"I have never seen such attention, such concentration, as in these great congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can judge, it is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a tribute paid to eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is yielded loyally to insufferable dullness when occasion demands.

"When the text is announced, there is an indescribable rhythmic movement forward, followed by a concerted rustle of Bible leaves; not the rustle of a few Bibles in a few pious pews, but the rustle of all of them in all the pews—and there are more Bibles in an Edinburgh Presbyterian Church than one ever sees anywhere else, unless it be in the warehouses of the Bible Societies.

"The text is read twice clearly, and another rhythmical movement follows, when the books are replaced on the shelves. Then there is a delightful settling back of the entire congregation, a snuggling comfortably into corners, and a fitting of shoulders to the pews—not to sleep, however; an older generation may have done that under the strain of a two-hour 'wearifu' dreich' sermon, but these church-goers are not to be caught napping. They wear, on the contrary, a keen, expectant, critical look, which must be inexpressibly encouraging to the minister, if he has anything to say. If he has not (and this is a possibility in Edinburgh, as it is everywhere else), then I am sure it is wisdom for the beadle to lock him in (the pulpit) lest he flee when he meets those searching eyes.

"The Edinburgh sermon, though doubtless softened in outline in these later years, is still a more carefully built discourse than one ordinarily hears outside of Scotland, being constructed on conventional lines of doctrine, exposition, logical inference, and practical application. Though modern preachers do not announce the division of their subject into heads and subheads, firstlies and secondlies and finallies my brethren, there seems to be the old framework underneath the sermon, and every one recognizes it as moving silently below the surface; at least, I always fancy that as the minister finishes one point and attacks another the younger folk fix their eagle eyes on him afresh, and the whole congregation sits up straighter and listens more intently, as if making mental notes. They do not listen so much as if they were enthralled, though they often are, and have good reason to be, but as if they were to pass an examination on the subject afterwards; and I have no doubt that this is the fact.

"The prayers are many, and are divided, apparently, like those of the liturgies, into petitions, confessions, and aspirations, not forgetting the all-embracing one with which we are perfectly familiar in our native land, in which the preacher commends to the Fatherly care every animate and inanimate thing not mentioned specifically in the foregoing supplications. It was in the middle of this compendious petition, 'the lang prayer,' that rheumatic old Scotch dames used to make a practice of 'cheengin' the fit,' as they stood devoutly through it. 'When the meenister comes to the "ingatherin' o' the Gentiles," I ken weel it's time to change legs, for then the prayer is jist half dune,' said a good sermon-taster of Fife.

"The organ is finding its way rapidly into the Scottish kirks (how can the shade of John Knox endure a 'kist o' whistles' in good St. Giles?), but it is not used yet in some of those we attend most frequently. There is a certain quaint solemnity, a beautiful austerity, in the unaccompanied singing of hymns, that touches me profoundly. I am often carried very high on the waves of splendid church music, when the organ's thunder rolls 'through vaulted aisles,' and the angelic voices of a trained choir chant the aspirations of my soul for me; but when an Edinburgh congregation stands, and the precentor leads in that noble paraphrase—

there is a certain ascetic fervor in it that seems to me the perfection of worship. It may be that my Puritan ancestors are mainly responsible for this feeling, or perhaps my recently adopted Jenny Geddes is a factor in it; of course, if she were in the habit of flinging fauldstules at Deans, she was probably the friend of truth and the foe of beauty, so far as it was in her power to separate them."

Ah! yes. Jenny Geddes. Of course, we made a point of attending service frequently in St. Giles, where that redoubtable assailant of "the papists and their apists" hurled her memorable missile. I trust the story is well known to many of my readers, especially our young people, but perhaps all are not familiar with the extremely racy version of it written by the late Professor Stuart Blackie, one of the most brilliant and versatile men of the age, and given to me by a kinswoman of his, whose charming hospitality I once had the privilege of enjoying for two weeks; so I will embody that version of it in my letter.

The Song of Mistress Jenny Geddes.

Tune: "The British Grenadiers."

Of course, too, we visited St. Andrew's Church, in the newer part of the city, on the other side of the great, picturesque ravine which divides the old town from the new, because it was the scene of another epoch-making event in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland, viz., the Disruption of 1843. Unable to abolish the patronage of livings, by which certain heritors or patrons could appoint any minister they wished to a vacant pastorate, without the consent of the congregation, Dr. Chalmers and his party decided to take a very bold step in order to preserve the freedom of the church. When the Assembly met in St. Andrew's Church, in the presence of a great body of spectators, while a vast throng outside awaited the result with almost breathless interest, though not really believing that any large number of the ministers would relinquish their homes and salaries for the sake of a "fantastic principle," all expectations were surpassed when the Moderator, after reading a formal protest signed by one hundred and twenty ministers and seventy-two elders, left his place, and was followed first by Dr. Chalmers, and then by four hundred and seventy men, who marched in a body to Tanfield Hall, and there organized the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. When Lord Jeffrey was told of it an hour later, he exclaimed, "Thank God for Scotland! There is not another country on earth where such a deed could be done!" Well might the Scottish minister remind his American visitor of Lord Macaulay's remark that the Scots had made sacrifices for the sake of religious opinion for which there was no parallel in the annals of England. Many of my readers are familiar with the exceedingly impressive appearance of this Disruption Assembly, from the well-known engraving, a copy of which hangs in the Reading Room of the Spence Library, at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond.

It would never do, when speaking of church matters in Edinburgh, to omit Penelope's account of her landlady's breezy comments on the different preachers.

"It is to Mrs. McCollop that we owe our chief insight into technical church matters, although we seldom agree with her 'opeenions' after we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life, often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly indigestible 'stane.'

"She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the 'meenistry' creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is truth itself.

"'Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?' suggested Mrs. McCollop, spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. 'Wha did he hear the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A.? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there for fifteen years and mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon—off an' on!' with an emphasis showing clearly that in her estimation the times when he is 'off' outnumber those when he is 'on.'... 'Ye have na heard auld Dr. B. yet?' (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) 'He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B., forbye he's growin' maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna heed him withoot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at seventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee bit finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' and expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler, but he gi'es us fu' measure, pressed down an' rinnin' over, nae bit pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no sound, wi' his parleyvoos and his clishmaclavers!... Mr. C.?' (Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first blanket.) 'Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind ance he prayed for our Free Assembly, an' then he turned roun' an' prayed for the Established, maist in the same breath—he's a broad, leeberal mon, is Mr. C.!... Mr. D.? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' the kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he reads his sermon from the paper, an' it's an auld sayin', If a meenister canna mind [remember] his ain discoors, nae mair can the congregation be expectit to mind it.... Mr. E.? He's my ain meenister.' (She has a pillow in her mouth now, but though she is shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing on the linen slip at the same time, she is still intelligible between the jerks.) 'Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond 'oo [wool] wi' a' gude twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. Susanna kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit.' (To 'gang forrit' is to take the communion.) 'Dr. F.? I ca' him the greetin' doctor. He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an' greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecial'y of his ain congregation. He's waur syne his last wife sickened an' slippit awa'. 'T was a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat nane the less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the third Mistress F.! E'nbro could 'a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm thinkin'.

'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away according to his good will and pleasure,' I ventured piously, as Mrs. McCollop beat the bolster and laid it in place.

'Ou ay,' responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over the pillows in the way I particularly dislike; 'ou ay, but whiles I think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!'"

Finally, I cannot refrain from quoting Francesca's account of the peppery conversation she had with the young Scottish minister with whom she was destined to fall in love. She returned from the dinner, at which she had met him, all out of sorts:

"How did you get on with your delightful minister?" inquired Salemina.... "He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he?"

"He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable, condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!"

"Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed. "Lady Baird speaks of him as her favorite nephew, and says he is full of charm."

"He is just as full of charm as he was when I met him," returned the girl nonchalantly; "that is, he parted with none of it this evening. He was incorrigibly stiff and rude, and oh! so Scotch! I believe if one punctured him with a hat pin, oatmeal would fly into the air!"

"Doubtless you acquainted him, early in the evening, with the immeasurable advantages of our sleeping-car system, the superiority of our fast-running elevators, and the height of our buildings?" observed Salemina.

"I mentioned them," Francesca answered evasively.

"You naturally inveighed against the Scotch climate?"

"Oh! I alluded to it; but only when he had said that our hot summers must be insufferable."

"I suppose you repeated the remark you made at luncheon, that the ladies you had seen in Princes Street were excessively plain?"

"Yes, I did," she replied hotly; "but that was because he said that American girls generally looked bloodless and frail. He asked if it were really true that they ate chalk and slate pencils. Was'n't that unendurable? I answered that those were the chief solid articles of food, but that after their complexions were established, so to speak, their parents often allowed them pickles and native claret to vary the diet."

"What did he say to that?" I asked.

"'Oh!' he said, 'quite so, quite so'; that was his invariable response to all my witticisms. Then, when I told him casually that the shops looked very small and dark and stuffy here, and that there were not as many tartans and plaids in the windows as we had expected, he remarked, that as to the latter point, the American season had not opened yet! Presently, he asserted that no royal city in Europe could boast ten centuries of such glorious and stirring history as Edinburgh. I said it did not appear to be stirring much at present, and that everything in Scotland seemed a little slow to an American; that he could have no idea of push or enterprise until he visited a city like Chicago. He retorted that, happily, Edinburgh was peculiarly free from the taint of the ledger and the counting-house; that it was Weimar without a Goethe, Boston without its twang!"

"Incredible!" cried Salemina, deeply wounded in her local pride. "He never could have said 'twang' unless you had tried him beyond measure!"

"I dare say I did; he is easily tried," returned Francesca. "I asked him, sarcastically, if he had ever been in Boston. 'No,' he said, 'it is not necessary to go there! And while we are discussing these matters,' he went on, 'how is your American dyspepsia these days—have you decided what is the cause of it?'"

"'Yes, we have,' said I, as quick as a flash; 'we have always taken in more foreigners than we could assimilate!' I wanted to tell him that one Scotsman of his type would upset the national digestion anywhere, but I restrained myself."

"I am glad you did restrain yourself—once," exclaimed Salemina.

And so on, with Francesca's characterization of the Forth Bridge as the national idol, her inability to tell which way to turn a drawing of it so as to make the bridge right side up, his asking her if doughnuts resembled peanuts, and his telling her he had heard that the ministers' salaries in America were sometimes paid in pork and potatoes, his comments on international marriages, and her conclusion, as she retired that night, "I doubt if I can sleep for thinking what a pity it is that such an egotistic, bumptious, pugnacious, prejudiced, insular, bigoted person should be so handsome!"

That is an excellent little volume to give one an idea of the kind of international clashes that are continually occurring in Edinburgh nowadays. But we, being more intent upon getting into the more ancient atmosphere of Scotland, give most of our evenings to the reading aloud, in the family circle, of Rob Roy, and the like, in preparation for our proposed tour of the Highlands, while the older members of the party acquaint themselves afresh with the Heart of Midlothian, The Monastery, The Abbot, and the other works of the Wizard of the North, whose scenes are laid at or near "Edina, Scotia's darling seat."