THE SCOTTISH PULPIT FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT DAY. 1. INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. FOR an intelligent appreciation of the Scottish Pulpit we must have some knowledge of the Scottish character, and some acquaintance with at least the main lines of Scottish Ecclesiastical History. Between the people and the pulpit of a nation action and reaction are continuously operative. Originally a man of the people, partaking in all their national peculiarities, and educated in the midst of them, the preacher has been largely moulded by what they are; while, on the other hand, his influence tends to modify their disposition, and in all times of crisis and agitation becomes a potent factor in the settlement of affairs. The leaves put forth by a tree do at length fall from it and fertilize its roots; and the pulpit, which is very largely the fruit of a nation's life, comes ultimately to affect that life. Or, to borrow the illustration of Mr. Gladstone, the preacher receives from the people in vapor that which he gives back to them in flood, but that flood carries them away with it to enterprises which else they had never undertaken. So in entering upon our theme we must pause for a few moments to speak of the distinctive features of the Scottish people. These are not difficult to discover. Foremost among them-indeed the very vertebral column of the national character-is sturdy independence. The Scotsman insists upon the right to be, and to belong to, himself. He will let no one think for him or dictate to him. This came out in the patriotic and political struggles of the people, and also, as we shall see, in their ecclesiastical conflicts. But it is just as characteristic of the individual as it is of the nation as a whole. Their great poet has at ce expressed and strengthened it by the lyric r of the glowing song in which these words "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, Everywhere the people are jealous of any interference with the great human birthright of private judgment. The very national motto, with its distinct individuality, "Nemo me impune lacessit," is an assertion of this quality, and occasionally it has run to seed into controversies which have brought it wellnigh into ridicule. The youth who, when asked why he was going to the debating society, answered, "Oh, jist to contradic' a wee," was perhaps an exaggerated specimen, but the right to have, to maintain, and to act upon his own conviction is one which every true Scotsman would defend to the utmost. Behind this independence, as the hot-blast to the furnace, is that intensity which has become proverbial as the "præfervidum ingenium Scotorum," and which makes him terribly in earnest in everything that he does. It acts upon him as a convex lens does on the rays of the sun, focusing him upon that which he undertakes until it bursts into a flame, which may either kindle a holy enthusiasm or a destructive conflagration. Then, strangely enough, in connection with that fervor there is a persistence amounting almost to dogged stubbornness which keeps the Scotsman steadily at a thing until he has gained his end. This quality of “dourness”—to give it the vernacular name makes the true Caledonian everywhere pertinacious. He rarely, if ever, lets go that of which he has taken hold, and all that he enters upon he carries through. He has what I may call the spirit of "stick-to-it-iveness" in perfection; and that was a wise prayer which he is said to have offered on one occasion: "Lord, grant that we may be right, for thou knowest we are very decided." Happily, with this indomitable firmness there is combined a very large measure of caution, or what is commonly ridiculed as "canniness." He leaps with intensity, but he looks before he leaps. He stands like a rock, because he has first taken care to stand on a rock. The high average of intelligence in the nation consequent upon its excellent system of education enables him to see with clearness where the right lies, and so his persistence, which otherwise might have been fraught with mischief, has been mainly an immense power for good. Then there is in him a poetic sense which enables him to appreciate the ideal, and halos even common things for him with "the light which never was n sca or land." That had its bright efflo rescence and undying illustration in Robert Burns; for he was exceptional only in the fact that his genius enabled him to express the feelings which were struggling for utterance in his countrymen, and to bring into light the poetry that was already lying latent in their lives. In him it was creative, in them it is receptive; but it is in them, else they could not appreciate him as they do-wellnigh to the verge of idolatry; and they who are most conversant with the peasantry of the land will confirm me when I say that in their ordinary conversation there is not a little of that richness of simile and that spirituality of insight which we associate with poetry. Add to these a humor of a quaint, sometimes grim, and occasionally playful sort; not often boisterous, but when it is, shaking the sides with laughter; frequently sly, or, as they call it, "pawkie," and when there is need, stinging and sarcastic too. Some one has said that it requires a surgical instrument to get a joke into the head of a Scotsman, but that is a libel on the people which probably was never meant to be seriously understood; and every intelligent reader of Dean Ramsay's book will know what value to put upon the assertion. Perhaps the au |