judgment shall come! And how shall he keep another man's conscience whose own is not kept? Oh, there is a fire kindled in the fury of the Lord, and it shall burn even to the nethermost hell! A place is appointed for him with everlasting burnings; the worm is prepared which dieth not; smoke, vapour, and the vehemence of storms-horror and a deep shade—the weight of chains of repentance that bind, that burn and that consume not! From which may that Fire deliver us who consumes not, but consummates; which devours not, but enlightens every man that cometh into the world! May He illuminate us to give the knowledge of salvation unto His people, who liveth and reigneth ever with the Father and the Holy Ghost, God to all ages of ages." 1 1 Quoted from Lecture by Dean Ramsay, "Pulpit Table-talk.” IN the days of David de Bernham there were, it is believed, 234 churches within the diocese of St Andrews; while throughout the whole kingdom there could not be less than 1000 ecclesiastical buildings of one kind or another. The style of these edifices would vary according to the particular period in which they had been erected and the localities in which they were situated. In Berwickshire, the Lothians, and the south of Scotland generally, probably some Anglo-Saxon edifices still existed; but the great proportion of churches in these districts would be of the Anglo-Norman type, with square tower and round-headed windows and doors. For after the Norman Conquest in 1066, Norman architects, builders, and masons found their way into England, and soon covered the whole country with their somewhat massive but beautiful designs. By this time, therefore, these persons must have done considerable work of a similar kind in the southern counties of Scotland. Indeed in this century the Anglo-Gothic, with the tops of the windows and doors pointed, would be beginning to appear in ecclesiastical buildings, although probably the Anglo-Norman or Romanesque would still prevail. In the counties north of the Forth and Clyde, on the other hand, and especially in the Highlands of Scotland, there would be many churches and chapels of a Celtic type; although, in these localities also, many instances of AngloNorman design would be found. The reader who wishes for further information on this subject will find much interesting matter in a work published by Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh, in 1861, entitled, 'Characteristics of Old Church Architecture, &c., in the Mainland and Western Islands of Scotland' (by Mr T. S. Muir). Few if any thirteenth-century ecclesiastical edifices, it is to be feared, now remain in Scotland. Those buildings which David de Bernham and William Wishart dedicated, have probably long since gone to decay. Indeed the Church of Scotland, in its long and checkered history, has perhaps, more than any other Church in Christendom, suffered not merely from the ravages of time, but from the rude hand of violence. Those ecclesiastical edifices of the middle ages-the abbeys, priories, cathedrals, parish churches, and suchlike which in former times represented outwardly the Christianity of the land and the architectural art of the period, are now in most instances nothing more than decayed and imperceptible ruins. Erected under the deepest feelings of piety and devotion, and for the noblest of purposes-and that, too, in a country celebrated for the picturesqueness of its scenery and the historic character of many of its associations— these religious houses of former centuries have now in most cases disappeared, and a few stones or naked walls only are all that are left to indicate to the traveller the spot where former generations of Scotsmen worshipped God. It is impossible even now to withhold admiration from the taste and æsthetic feeling displayed by the founders of these edifices, not only in the construction of the buildings themselves, but even in the selection of the sites. Often beside streams of great beauty, or in glens embosomed among rugged mountains, or near forests of imposing grandeur, or on the prominent cliffs of the ocean's shores, or in the quiet retreats of rural villages, the ecclesiastics of those ages planted their churches and other houses of devotion, and in most cases spared neither time, labour, nor expense to make them worthy of that Great Being in whose honour and for whose service they were specially erected. But war, internal strife, tribal commotion, thirst for plunder, as well as time itself and neglect, and other causes, singly or combined, have carried most of them away, and robbed the country of some of the richest architectural gems of medieval art. Indeed it seems to be the fate of the Church of Christ, in all ages of its history and in all countries where it has been planted, notwithstanding its beneficent designs and continued progress, to suffer at the hands of spoilers; and the Church of Scotland, at various periods of its history, has been no exception to this general law. But perhaps the most remarkable period in this respect was that which occurred at the Reformation. That great social and religious upheaving, which in the sixteenth century spread over all Europe, and which no doubt purified the Church and delivered mankind from many sore and grievous trammels, produced a literal desolation in the properties and revenues of the Scottish Church. Not only were its monastic and conventual edifices, its imposing cathedrals and beautiful parish K |