on merely by a conclave of dignified divines. The republican nature of the Presbyterian Church enlisted every one in the common cause. Every minister and every elder could speak his sentiments authoritatively in kirk-sessions and presbyteries; and from them the excitement spread to every member of the community. During the triumphs of the Covenants, during the dark days of persecution, during the conflict with patronage, every man, woman, and child felt the throbbings of the universal heart. For the space of three centuries, the Scotch have had little to speak of, little to think of, but ecclesiastical

Occurrences.

But the struggles to which we have referred were more ecclesiastical than religious, and hence Scotch piety is deeply tinctured with ecclesiasticism. It may, without much liberality, be allowed, that Christianity would have survived though Presbytery had been destroyed. Christianity is not bound up with any form of church-polity. The sternest Presbyterian will at length allow that a bishop may be a Christian. It was not, therefore, for Christianity, but merely for Presbytery, that our forefathers fought. The religious struggles of the country were entirely about church-government and church-discipline, not about the inner truths of the faith, and it is possible that too great attention to the one may withdraw the mind from the attention which it ought to bestow upon the other. There is some reason to think that this result has been exemplified in Scotland. Scotchmen certainly talk much more about church disputes than about religious duty. There is an abundance of ecclesiasticism in the country; there is perhaps a defect of spiritualism.

But it has been frequently remarked that Scotch piety is intellectual rather than devotional; and the remark is based upon truth. The peculiarity probably arises in a great measure from the prominence which is given to preaching in the Scotch Church. There are hundreds of thousands who have no means of getting their intellects exercised, or their knowledge enlarged, but the pulpit. Nightly tired with their daily toil, they have little inclination to read books, though they had them; but on the day of rest, they receive from the lips of a pious and educated man truths to speak of when they sit with their families at the fireside, and to think of when they follow their plough in the field. In the villages, coteries of keen disputants discuss at the corners of the streets during the week the subjects which were discussed in the church upon the

Sunday. The Calvinistic creed, too, is purely intellectual; the Shorter Catechism is purely intellectual; and these have done much to mould the national character. With all these means of increasing doctrinal knowledge, there is no corresponding means of drawing out devotional feeling. Till the "Aids to Devotion" were recently published, by authority of the General Assembly, there was no Book of Common Prayer which the people might read at their altar on the hearth, or when tossed on the tempestuous sea, or when sojourning in a foreign land. Hence it is that in English piety there is frequently a devotional element which is not often found in the north. But in the north there are strong religious convictions, which, if they have sometimes made Scotchmen dogmatic and narrowminded, have much more frequently made them sturdy, resolute, and conscientious, and so helped them to rise to eminence in every sphere of life, and in every quarter of the world.

While the Scotch have repudiated holidays as sinful, no people upon earth have shown a greater tendency to religious solemnities and holy convocations. The dispensation of the sacrament of the Supper in Scotland has for two hundred and forty years been surrounded with observances unknown in any other portion of Christendom. And a sacramental season now is little to what it was during the last century. For many miles round, all the churches were shut up save the one in which the sacrament was to be administered. On the Fast-Day there were three sermons; on the Saturday there were two sermons; but the Sabbath was the great day of the feast. Many thousands gathered together from every district of the country. It was nothing unusual for persons to travel twenty or thirty miles to such a gathering. It brought back the remembrances of those great festivals when every male presented himself before the Lord in Jerusalem. As no church could contain such a multitude, a preaching-tent was set up in the churchyard. The people sat upon the mounds of the graves, leant upon tombstones, reverentially stood in the outskirts of the crowd, and minister after minister proclaimed to them, under the open vault of heaven, the glad tidings of salvation. As this was going on without, the sacramental table was spread within the church, and company after company of disciples sat down to commemorate their Saviour's death. The voice of psalmody, streaming from the open windows of the sacred edifice, gave notice to those around the tent that another table was served,

the

and that another was ready to be filled. Thus the sacred services proceeded, and not unfrequently continued from ten in the morning till eight or nine at night.

Such scenes as these were much more than picturesquethey were sublime. But though not unmingled with good, they were found to lead to very serious evils. In such promiscuous assemblages, there were men and women of very varied characters, drawn together by very different motives. At a distance from home, they required to resort to the publichouse for food; and in the public-house, the custom of the country required them to drink strong drink. Men treated women, women sat and boozed with men. While there was deep solemnity in the church and the churchyard, there were not unfrequently brawls in the village; and when all was over, too many were to be seen on the roads excited by whisky, or made stupid by whisky, staggering homewards. Burns ridiculed such assemblages in his "Holy Fair ;" and though he has mingled unseasonable levity with his caustic wit, the satire did good, and now such sacramental gatherings are almost entirely unknown.

It is certain that religion at this period was being gradually purged of superstition, though it was not yet, as it probably never will be, free from all admixture of it. Witchcraft, though blotted out of the criminal code of the country, was very generally believed in by the lower orders of the people;1 but we need scarcely wonder at this, as there are districts where it is believed in still. Strange stories there are, which a short tradition has preserved, of the religious horror with which some of the peasantry regarded fanners for the winnowing of grain at their first introduction, as an instrument evidently invented by the prince of the power of the air, and as derogatory to the God who maketh the wind to blow where it listeth; 2 and these we shall readily believe when we remember the objections taken only a few years ago to the use of chloroform, as an impious attempt to relieve woman of the curse, "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth." But though many narrow notions still lingered in the country, religious rancour had happily died. The excitement created by the conquests of the Covenant, the bitterness of heart engendered by the cruelties of the "killing time," the flush of success and the pride of

1 Statistical Account, 1795, vol. xiv. p. 373.

2 Fanners were first used in Scotland about the middle of the eighteenth century, See Statistical Account, vol. viii. p. 525; vol, xvii. p. 123.

domination begotten by the Revolution, had gradually abated, and for long there had been nothing to ruffle the religious mind but the contests about patronage, which were necessarily local and temporary. So great was the contrast with the past, that many have looked upon this age as bound up in the cerements of spiritual death.

At the close of last century and the beginning of this, intemperance was painfully prevalent among the middle and upper classes of society. When a gentleman gave a dinner to his friends, it was thought he was lacking in hospitality if he did not press the bottle upon his guests till they were fairly drunk. Some of the clergy were unfortunately carried away with the convivial spirit of the times, and amidst bacchanalian merriment forgot their sacred character. Profane swearing was equally common. Almost every sentence was garnished with an oath, and to swear roundly and well was considered the mark of a gentleman.1 In these respects society has prodigiously improved. Fashion has fortunately set her face against both intemperance and profanity. No gentleman may now enter a drawing-room with a flushed face and unsteady step, or utter an oath in any company whatever. But unfortunately these vices, when driven from the abodes of fashion, have found a shelter in the haunts of poverty. The statistics which seem to prove Scotland to be one of the most immoral, and one of the most intemperate nations of Europe, should make us refrain from being the first to cast a stone at our grandfathers.

The discipline of the Church had relaxed a little of its ancient severity, but still it was more severe than it is now. Sackcloth had been laid aside; but still the penitents required to stand up in the church, and bear a rebuke from the pulpit, amid the simpering and blushes of the congregation. Such scenes did infinite damage to morals. Young girls went home from church with their native modesty debauched by what they had heard and seen; young men went home to laugh at the confusion of the frail delinquent, and the awful gravity of the clerical censor. In some cases this painful penance was commuted to a fine, which went to the funds for the poor; and in Edinburgh the increase of immorality between 1763 and 1783 was shown by the revenue from this source having risen

1 Amongst a host of authorities the reader may be referred to Lord Cockburn's Memorials.

from £154 to £600.1 But Roman critics were not slack to say that this was no better than buying an indulgence-the old substitution of pay for penance.

There was a species of Church discipline-called privy censures-then prevalent, in which presbyteries sat in judgment upon themselves. Brother after brother was questioned in regard to the management of his parish; and then being asked to retire, the remanent brethren pronounced their sentence of approval or condemnation upon him. It is very evident, however, that in most cases this had become a mere form. The questions, the answers, the judgment, were all stereotyped; and occur with unvarying certainty in the presbyteries' minutes. Such privy censures are now more honoured in the breach than the observance.2

During the century a change had gradually come over the order of public worship. Though the Westminster Directory was not re-enacted by the Scottish parliament after the Revolution, it was regarded by the Presbyterians as still the law of their Church.3 According to its instructions, the minister began the church-service by prayer. Yet it is certain, that long 1 Stevenson's Chronicles of Edinburgh, pp. 219-23.

2 The following is the almost unvarying form of minute in the Records of the Presbytery of Auchterarder about 1740:-"This diet being for prayer and privy censures, several members prayed, all had the ordinary questions proposed to them, which they answering satisfactorily, are removed per vices for censure; and nothing being found censurable about them, they are approven of, exhorted to continue their diligence, and desired to encourage themselves in the Lord." Occasionally there were what were called visitations of parishes, when elders, heritors, and heads of families were called, and invited to inform against their minister and each other.

3 See Collections, &c., by Walter Steuart of Pardovan, book ii, title i. Steuart says "The congregation being assembled, the minister, after solemn calling on them to the worshipping of the great name of God, is to begin with prayer. The public worship being begun, the people are wholly to attend on it, forbearing to read anything, except what the minister is then reading or citing; much more are they to abstain from all private whisperings, conferences, salutations, or doing reverence to any person present, or coming in, as also from all gazing, sleeping, or other indecent behaviour."

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Pardovan warns the people against any private devotions in church. All," says he, are to enter the assembly in a grave and seemly manner, to take their seats or places without adoration, or bowing themselves toward one place or other. If any through necessity be hindered from being present at the beginning, they ought not, when they come into the congregation, to betake themselves to their private devotions, but reverently compose themselves to join with the assembly in that ordinance of God which is then in hand."