PRINCETON, N. J. % 
 
 Shelf.. 
 
 BR 782 .P37 1884 
 Paton, Robert 
 
 The Scottish church anH s^ 
 surroundings ^^ ^^^ 
 

 Ml' 
 
 W' 
 
 
THE 
 
 SCOTTISH CHURCH 
 
 AND 
 
 ITS SURROUNDINGS, 
 
 IN EARLY TIMES. 
 
 ROBERT" PATON, 
 
 MINISTER OF KIEKINNKR. 
 
 EDINBURGH: JAMES GEMMELL. 
 
 1884. 
 
/ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following sketches contain, in a more or less 
 connected form, a bird's-eye view of the rise and 
 development of Christianity in Britain, especially 
 North Britain, during the first seven centuries of our 
 era. They were first delivered to the congregation 
 and parishioners of Kirkinner, and formed a course 
 of monthly lectures in the winters of 1881-1882, 
 1882-1883. The aim the writer had in view in their 
 construction was, to exhibit in a popular form the 
 rise and progress of the Church in connection with 
 the general history of our country in these early 
 times. In carrying out this object, occasional side- 
 lights have been borrowed from the "world's broad 
 pavement," and contemporary events and movements 
 in that wider sphere have been explained and illus- 
 trated, rather than simply alluded to, that those to 
 whom such researches are unfamiliar may be the 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 better able to understand the subject, at least in a 
 general way. As the authorities founded on are 
 sufficiently indicated in the body of this work, it 
 will not be necessary to particularise here on the 
 matter further than to say that the author has adopted 
 generally the view of Skene in regarding the Picts, 
 as well as the Scots, as a Gaelic speaking people ; 
 while the use made in these pages of Fuller, charac- 
 terised by Coleridge as one who, "next to Shakes- 
 peare," excited in him " the sense and emotion of the 
 marvellous," has been simply to clothe in that writer's 
 felicitous and quaint literary style facts otherwise 
 abundantly verified. The feeling that, in our retro- 
 spect, we are too apt to stop short at the Reforma- 
 tion, and that an appearance of haste in slipping over 
 pre-E,eformation epochs has characterised some, if not 
 all, of our more elaborate treatises on Scottish Church 
 History, has in some measure determined the author 
 to indulge in. a quiet and leisurely stroll among these 
 early and unfamiliar walks. The period embraced 
 in these pages, from the earliest ages to the end of 
 the 7th century, gives us the dawn of Christianity 
 on the background of heathen darkness; the few 
 drops ushering in the shower of blessing that came 
 
P7'eface. v 
 
 to our land with the advent of Christianity, — the rise 
 and progress of the Celtic Church, first in South 
 Britain, then in the north under Columba and his 
 monks, — the progress of Culdee missionary enterprise 
 till the time of Bede, when it had reached its zenith. 
 This, which forms a distinct epoch in the evolution 
 of our Scottish Christianity, is interesting not merely 
 as a portion of our past history, but as containing 
 within it the embryo of those distinctive features 
 which, when the Reformation w^ave passed over us, 
 crystallized in the north into Presbytery, while in the 
 South Christianity emerged in Episcopalian forms. 
 
 The qualifications necessary for the treatment of 
 historical subjects are by no means universally dis- 
 tributed, and in no case can they be attained wdthout 
 a considerable expenditure of labour. To be able 
 to " transcend the special limitations of his time ; " to 
 exhibit a fullness and thoroughness of knowledge, 
 never failing at any point over the whole field ; to lift 
 the story up, and make it lucid by general points of 
 view ; to throw the wdiole into historical perspective 
 with suggestive background, are conditions which 
 require to be satisfied by the historian. 
 
 To recognise that it is possible so to manage correct 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 knowledge as to leave a strikingly incorrect impres- 
 sion ; — so to group events together in crowded chap- 
 ters that one " cannot see the wood for the trees ;" — 
 so to sink from a position of commanding survey as 
 to drag the story along in the hollow of events, and 
 treat all as on the same level, is a qualification 
 no less necessary tlian the foregoing. But the eccle- 
 siastical historian must, in addition, have a special 
 eye to the operation of the greatest force at work in 
 human affairs, and exhibit Christianity in the deep 
 sky of social evolution — in the relation of '"' organism " 
 and " environment." How far the author of the 
 following pages has failed to reach such an ideal he 
 himself is deeply conscious; but if their perusal shall 
 give the reader as much pleasure as he has experienced 
 in their construction, and stimulate to fresh interest 
 in that department of our national history in which 
 lies our true glory, he will conceive himself amply 
 rewarded. R. P. 
 
 The Manse, Kirkinner, 
 Odoha- 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter P^gh; 
 
 I. Introduction— The Druids— St. Ninian— Shrine of 
 
 St. Ninian, ..... 1 
 
 II. Druidism — Paganism — Christianity — Our Celtic 
 
 Ancestors, ..... 9 
 
 III. Tlie Darkness and the Dawn — The Roman Occupa- 
 
 tion — First British Evangelists — Boadicea, . 15 
 
 IV. Lucius, " a Nursing Father " — Christianity Extend- 
 
 ing — Persecution — The first Christian Emjaeror, 24 
 
 V. Nature Worship— Heroic Mythology — Christianity 
 and Heretical Blends — Socinianism — Sabellian- 
 ism — Arianism — Pelagianism, . . .31 
 
 YI. Caledonia " Stern and Wild" — Chaos and Darkness 
 — Saxon Invasion — Pelagian Controversy — 
 " iMleuiatic Victory " — Palladius — St. Patrick — 
 St. Ninian — Columba, . . . .43 
 
 VII. Columba — Asceticism — ^Monachism — Simeon the 
 Stylite — St. Anthony — Literary Labours of the 
 Monks, ...... CO 
 
 VIII. Life of Columba — Ireland's Golden Age — Ancient 
 Ecclesiastical Buildings — Discipline, Training, 
 and Labours of the Culdees — Columba's Evangel- 
 istic Labours — Visits St. Kentigern — his death, 74 
 
viii Contents. 
 
 Chapter Pack 
 
 IX. ]\Iedia;valism — Picts and Scots — St. Kentigern — ■ 
 
 his Austerities and Labours, . . 89 
 
 X. Early Modes of Evangelisation— Caledonia Regen- 
 erated, . . . . . .100 
 
 XI. Mohammed and Gregory I. — The Crescent and the 
 Cross — The good Missionary Pope — Augustine's 
 Mission to England — Rome and lona meet in 
 England, . . . . . .105 
 
 XII. Edwin, King of Northumberland — Christianity in 
 Conflict with Heathenism — Edwin's Conversion 
 to Christianity — The good King Oswald — Oswald 
 and Aidan — Brother Oswald, . . . 117 
 
 XIII. Rise of the Papal Power — Gregory the Great no 
 
 Papist — Presbytery and Prelacy — Heretical 
 Popes — Rome and lona — Synod of Whitbj^ . 130 
 
 XIV. Conclusion— The Abbess Hilda— The Poet Ca)d- 
 
 mon — St. Cuthbert — The Venerable Bede, . 143 
 

 THE SCOTTISH CHURCH AND 
 ITS SURROUi\DIi\GS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction : — The Druids — St. Ninian — Shrine of 
 
 St. Ninian. 
 
 fHE dawn and early development of Christianity 
 ^e^_^ in Britain, especially in the north; its general 
 and special aspects ; the forms it assumed ; and 
 the phases it passed through, is the subject of this 
 course of lectures. It is a large subject, and cannot be 
 adequately treated in this way — all that can be done 
 is to present to the reader a few of the leading fea- 
 tures which characterised the origin and progress of 
 Christianity in this land — to obtain some glimpses 
 into the early condition of our religion, out of which 
 our present condition has been formed. It is a diffi- 
 cult subject ; to walk in the dark corridors of the past, 
 where the dimmest outline of objects is sometimes all 
 that can be seen, to find one after another of the lights 
 in the path to be only of the Will-o'-the-Wisp order. 
 
The Scottish CJiurch. 
 
 Yet when we consider the importance of the subject, 
 and the interest with which it is invested, belonging 
 to that past out of which the brightest features of our 
 present have been moulded, our attempts, however 
 inadequate and imperfect, to pierce the gloom and 
 haze that envelopes it may not be altogether futile. 
 To map out and trace to their varied sources the 
 different theological currents in which Christianity 
 has at different points touched our shores. To deiine 
 the various embryo forms out of which our present 
 ecclesiastical institutions have been developed, cannot 
 in any way be fully treated. A few broad facts which 
 stand out in bold relief, which will serve as landmarks 
 to the general situation, must suffice. Paganism in its 
 Druidic form ; Christianity embodied in Celtic, Anglo- 
 Norman, and Romanised forms, are the broad, general 
 features of our religious history from the days of 
 Julius Ca3sar to the era of John Knox. How long our 
 ancestors had sat under the shadow of heathen dark- 
 ness, and through what forms of superstition they had 
 passed before the Roman power touched our shores, 
 belongs to a wild and trackless region of conjecture. 
 Imagination, that "licensed trespasser, that climbs 
 over walls and peeps in at windows," points out 
 Phoenician ships, manned by Baal worshippers, laden 
 with merchandise, sailing along the shores of the 
 Mediterranean sea, gliding past the Iberian coast, and 
 at some periods, between the time of Solomon and 
 that of the Roman Conquest of Britain, tuucliing our 
 Cornish shores, and inoculatinir the land with the 
 
The Druids. 
 
 worship of the great sun-god Baal, which, filtering in 
 the dark Celtic mind, through the lapse of time, 
 appears in the form of the Druid superstition as that 
 system was seen by Julius Cassar and Pliny. Over 
 the process of assimilation and growth, under which 
 the religion of Ahab's wife became thus transmuted, 
 an awful darkness reigns. When the Romans lift up 
 the curtain and give us a peep at what is going on 
 in this land 1800 years ago, we see Pagan priests, 
 under the shadow of the oak tree whereon the misle- 
 toe grew, invocating their gods, and, on the sixth day 
 of the moon, at the beginning of their year, offering 
 white bulls, filleted in the horns, amid many cere- 
 monies. As to what is in their heads in the shape of 
 theological belief, we are left in ignorance. For, as 
 Fuller quaintly remarks — " Those Pagan priests never 
 wrote anything, so as to procure the greater venera- 
 tion to their mysteries; men being bound to believe 
 that it was some great treasure that was locked up in 
 such great secrecy." All we know with certainty is, 
 as the learned Pliny informs us, that " they were great 
 magicians; insomuch that the very Persians, in some 
 sort, might seem to have learned their magic from the 
 Britons." If the Roman superstition ever effected an 
 entrance into this part of Britain, and coated over the 
 older Druidic system, it must have been as a mere film 
 which gave way to the slightest wear and tear. Any 
 faint traces of it that may exist are altogether over- 
 shadowed by the numerous monuments of the Druid 
 superstition that still exist. In the south of Britain 
 
The Scottish Church. 
 
 Apollo and Diana were worshipped by those who for- 
 merly were Druids. Especially was Diana a favourite 
 object of worship at a time when Britain was one 
 great hunting forest. " There is a place near St. 
 Paul's, in London," says Fuller, " called in old records 
 ' Diana's Chamber,' where, in the days of King Edward 
 I., thousands of the heads of oxen were digged up 
 which were the proper sacrifices to Diana, whose great 
 temple was built thereabout." But while in England 
 the Roman Paganism forms thus one distinct phase 
 through which religious thought passed in early times, 
 there is no reason to believe that that system in this 
 northern region ever gained sufficient influence to dis- 
 place the aboriginal superstition. In South Britain 
 they gave up one lie and accepted another in its stead 
 — they gave up the Druid lie and accepted the Roman 
 lie. But our ancestors were more Conservative in 
 their action, they stuck to the old lie till they found 
 the truth. Druidism they retained till it was finally 
 shouldered out by Christianity. Druidism was the 
 "strong man armed," but Christianity was the 
 "stronger." Before the conversion of the Picts and 
 Scots to Christianity, they seem to have been in a 
 very benighted state. All reliable accounts represent 
 them as being a very savage race, as being to a large 
 extent made up of the animal, even the wild animal, 
 element. Gildas, the earliest of our historians, speaks 
 of them as a race "who were more eager to shroud 
 their villainous faces in bushy hair than to cover their 
 bodies with decent clothing." When the first rays of 
 
S^. Ninian. 
 
 Christian light gleamed on our northern shores, 
 whither it was perhaps carried by those Roman 
 legions, that may have listened to the preaching of 
 Paul in Rome, it would seem as it' " the darkness 
 comprehended it not ; " but it is satisfactory to learn 
 that, as early as the second century, the light that 
 first broke over the mountains of Judea lighted up, 
 though in fitful flashes, our northern sky. Swathed 
 in the mists of legend and fable, we see Christianity 
 like an abnormal fact dropped into the stream of our 
 national life. 
 
 Surrounded by a halo of light there stands in front 
 of the darkness, St Ninian, a man of Apostolic fervour. 
 He sees with clear-sighted vision the demands of the 
 age. In the fourth century — when the Church was 
 first established under Constantine — when St. Martin 
 of Tours (whose Christian excellence is annually 
 brought to mind at the winter term called by his 
 name) introduced monachism into the west, when the 
 Goths and Huns were swarming at the very gates of 
 the seat of Empire, just before the Roman legions 
 were called home to the defence of Italy, there was 
 established at Whithorn, by St. Ninian, the celebrated 
 Candida Casa, the first stone edifice erected in this 
 country for the worship of God. St. Ninian stands 
 before us as a hero, a God-gifted man, the apostle of 
 Scotland, as St. Patrick, his contemporary, was apostle 
 of Ireland. Though not the first to sow Christian 
 truth in the land, he was the first to sow it on a large 
 scale. He appears as a great spiritual captain, who 
 
TJie Scottish Church. 
 
 dispersed the forces of darkness by the power of 
 divine truth. He has some rough work to do, plough- 
 ing and harrowing over a hard paganised soil, but he 
 advances steadily, preaching the gospel, not here and 
 there, but over the length and breadth of the land, 
 from Whithorn in the south to the Grampians in the 
 north. The venerable Bede calls him " this most reve- 
 rend bishop and holy man of the British nation." 
 The Roman power triumphed over the southern parts 
 of Britain, where they sowed the seeds of the old 
 pagan civilisation, but St. Ninian obtained more 
 glorious triumphs when he converted the Southern 
 Picts in this country from heathen darkness to Chris- 
 tian light, and sowed the "good seed" of the word 
 broadcast over the land. The Romans left monuments 
 behind them in walls and bridges, and theatres, and 
 palaces, but in Candida Casa we have a monument 
 which speaks to the ages of a work more glorious 
 by far than that represented by all the memorials of 
 ancient Rome. It speaks of conquests won in the 
 conversion of heathen tribes wdio had resisted all the 
 efforts of the Roman arms, and who had been the 
 terror of the Britons in the south. To Whithorn, 
 then, we look for the first Christian shrine, whence 
 emanated the great light that first dispelled paganism 
 on a large scale from the land. And when, in the 
 lapse of time, St. Ninian had gone to his rest, and 
 all those apostolic men who were his coadjutors in 
 the great work had passed away, that light flickered 
 and faded there only to burst forth elsewhere in 
 
Shrine of St. Ninian. 
 
 greater effulgence. We have no direct means of ascer- 
 taining the results of St. Ninian's labours ; but if we 
 may judge from the halo of glory that tradition has 
 shed round his memory, these must have been of the 
 most satisfactory character. In the following note, 
 appended to " Murray's Literary History of Galloway," 
 we have a succinct account of the traditional aspects 
 in which his life has been enbalmed and handed down 
 to our day : — " There is not a saint in the Romish 
 Calendar whose memory was more venerated, and 
 whose tomb was oftener visited, than those of Ninian. 
 In Galloway, until this day, his name is familiar as 
 'household words,' even with the most illiterate of the 
 people. A cave on the sea coast, about two miles 
 from Whithorn, to which, amid the intervals of his 
 holy labours, he occasionally retired, is still pointed 
 out with something like superstitious awe and venera- 
 tion ; and traditions respecting his supposed miracles, 
 and his holiness, are told and cherished with a degree 
 of reverence and credulity to which almost no other 
 district can produce a parallel. Several places and 
 parishes, both in England and in Scotland, bear his 
 name. Crowds of pilgrims, for many ages, annually 
 resorted to his shrine — even some of our Scottish 
 monarchs have visited it. The Queen of James III. 
 undertook this pilgrimage in 1474 ; and in 1507 James 
 IV. made the same pilgrimage on foot, to pray for the 
 health and recovery of his Queen, who had been alarm- 
 ingly ill in child-bed ; to testify his resignation to the 
 death of his two infant children ; and to express his 
 
The Scottish Chtirch. 
 
 penitence for having rebelled against his father." In 
 the absence of contemporary accounts of the saint's 
 career in evangelising this country, we have only to 
 penetrate beneath the surface of those legends and 
 traditions in which his memory is preserved, to re- 
 cognise in him whose shrine was the attraction of 
 pilgrims from all parts for 1000 years, a prince and a 
 great man who left his mark in this country — an 
 evangelist who, with the torch of the Gospel, went 
 about among our heathen ancestors, lighting up their 
 darkness. The marvels ascribed to him by tradition 
 may well be set aside as myths ; and which, even if 
 true, are incomparably inferior to the one grand 
 miracle by which he triumphed over Heathenism in 
 our land, not by one stupendous blow, but rather by 
 inserting the thin end of the wedge of Christianity, 
 which was to prepare the way for the ultimate over- 
 throw of the Druid Superstition. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Druidism— Paganism — Christianity — Our Celtic 
 
 Ancestors. 
 
 lN my last lecture, I presented jou with a brief 
 outline of the field to be covered by these 
 sketches. I propose now to begin to fill in 
 the details, by first of all taking a bird's-eye view of 
 the conditions and environment of Christianity in 
 the early dawn of its existence in this country. As 
 an adequate knowledge of this subject can only be 
 attained by a process of diving below the surface and 
 discovering the original foundations, I shall endea- 
 vour to trace the rise and progress of Christianity in 
 this land on the background of the social and political 
 conditions in which it first appears like a rainbow in 
 the darkness. As it was during the Roman occupa- 
 tion of this country that the seeds of Christianity and 
 civilisation were sown in British soil, a passing glance 
 at the circumstances in which that power came to be 
 established in Britain w^ill first engage our attention. 
 And as the Celtic Church, the parent Church of 
 Britain, which afterwards dominated in the north for 
 500 years, did not see the light in this part of Britan 
 till after it had passed through a chequered career in 
 the south, our attention at present will be devoted 
 
lo . The Scottish Church. 
 
 more particularly to South Britain, where we see the 
 embryo of the Celtic Church exhibiting Christianity 
 at first in a vague neutrality of tint, struggling for 
 existence between the two fires of Paganism and 
 Druiclism, to be afterwards rudely shaken and w^ell- 
 nigh extinguished by the subsequent advent of Thor 
 and Woden. What may be described as the secular 
 basis of this subject, the first topic to be here treated, 
 will not be considered out of place by any competent 
 student of sociology, while the Christian, who recog- 
 nises the hand of God in the disposal of all things, 
 will, in the series of events which led up to the esta- 
 blishment of Christianity in this land, see in miniature 
 a typical illustration of those wider movements in the 
 world which prepared the way for the advent of the 
 Kedeemer. Little, indeed, would be gained by notic- 
 ing the introduction of so strange and supernatural a 
 factor as Christianity into our history, if the elements 
 in which that factor were to work did not constitute, 
 in the record, a strong foil to it by force of vivid 
 reality. What is aimed at is not merely to see Chris- 
 tianity dropped into the stream of our national exis- 
 tence ; but, along with this, to keep a steady and 
 clear-sighted eye on tlie ordinary course and com- 
 plexion of things, to behold with intense vision, the 
 efiect on that course of something which transcends 
 and transfigures it into new forms and features. It 
 is to survey the character of the soil on which the 
 seed of the Word was to be sown, to note the inter- 
 action of the aboriginal superstition and the elegant 
 
Druidism — Paganism — Christianity. 1 1 
 
 mythology of Pagan Rome ; to trace the advent of a 
 power that was destined to triumph over both in a 
 mighty spiritual conquest, in which Christianity as- 
 similated to itself all the elements of vitality in either, 
 and relegated to the lumber department of creation 
 the dross of both. In this way we shall be led to 
 trace to the vanishing point the old potent nature 
 worship of the Druids in its retreat to the West, 
 where, in the island of Anglesea, it cowered before the 
 arms of the Pagan idolaters, when Apollo sat securely 
 in what is now Westminster Abbey, and Diana was 
 worshipped at St Paul's. We shall thus appear to 
 see their dark vanishing shadows hovering for a little 
 among things not realised as yet, but which had in 
 them the promise and potency of all that has, during 
 the last 1800 years, ennobled and elevated our State. 
 We shall see, in fine, Christianity arising in its might 
 on the ruins of the old mythologies, and the whole 
 cloudland of ignorance and error melting before it in 
 the issuing radiance of Divine truth. 
 
 The island of Britain was, during the Roman occupa- 
 tion, divided into three, and, at a later period, into five 
 provinces, each with its respective metropolis. The 
 part of the island that was never thus occupied ex- 
 tended from the Forth and Clyde, in the south, to the 
 Pentland Firth, in the north. This region was called 
 Caledonia, Alban, or Pictland, and was inhabited by 
 a barbarous race of people called Picts, a colony of 
 whom also occupied Galloway in that remote age. 
 The south of the island was peopled by a number of 
 
12 The Scottish Church. 
 
 British tribes, while Ireland, then called Scotia, was 
 the home of the Scots, who, however, early began to 
 colonise the West Highlands of Scotland. The ori- 
 ginal inhabitants of these islands were the ancient 
 Gauls or Celts, a branch of the primitive Aryan race — 
 the family that had its home in central Asia at a time 
 when things seem dim in the eyes of historians, " like 
 reflected moonbeams on a distant lake." They were 
 among the first who left their parent home in the 
 East, in accordance with a general law of movement 
 which has characterised the families of men from the 
 earliest times. In the course of their migrations, these 
 swarms from the parent hive carried fire and sword, 
 confusion and desolation, everywhere. They were 
 thorns in the side of the Roman power centuries be- 
 fore Christ, at which time they had overrun all Europe 
 and Asia Minor. In the old Irish, the Highland 
 Scotch, the Manx, and the Welsh, we have survivals, 
 in aflfiliated dialects, of a language that, more than 
 2000 years ago, was spoken not only in Britain, but 
 throughout the whole of Europe, and a considerable 
 portion of Asia. At the dawn of our country's his- 
 tory, when the Romans invaded our shores, these 
 Celtic hordes were grouped in tribes, or clans, or com- 
 munities, more or less compactly organised. They 
 lived in mud tents ; they wore scarcely any clothes ; 
 they painted their bodies ; they delighted in war, 
 which they practised very freely on each other ; they 
 hunted the boar, the deer, the wolf. In canoes made 
 out of hollow trees, or in boats made out of wicker 
 
Our Celtic Ancestors. 13 
 
 work covered with skins, they navigated lake and sea. 
 In civilisation they were advanced about as far as 
 some African tribes and village communities of the 
 present day. Only in the south-east portion of the 
 island, which was colonised by the Belgse before the 
 time of Julius Csesar, was agriculture carried on. 
 Holding a high place among these ancient Britons 
 was a class of men already mentioned as ministers of 
 religion. They were named Druids. They presided 
 at sacrifices ; they instructed the young ; they ad- 
 ministered justice; they dwelt in groves, and taught 
 in caves or forests ; they offered human sacrifices. In 
 all causes, both criminal and civil, their decision was 
 final ; and if any person, however eminent, refused to 
 abide by their sentence, he was interdicted the public 
 sacrifices, and treated as an outlaw ; his society was 
 shunned, and he was denied the common rights of a 
 citizen. In short, their power was absolute ; for, 
 armed with the doctrine of metempsychosis, they 
 carried their authority as far as the fears of the 
 people. Their government was of the simplest patri- 
 archal character, a large measure of liberty, and even 
 lawlessness, occasionally disturbing the centre of 
 gravity of the particular tribes ; while what may be 
 called their international or intertribal relations were 
 not seldom characterised by broils and battles, in 
 which boundaries and landmarks were constantly 
 shifting their position, illustrating, in this respect, 
 rather the mutability of human affairs than the repose 
 and fixity of nature. Over this chaos of conflicting 
 
The Scottish CJiurch. 
 
 interests and confusion of disturbed ownership the 
 Roman power spread its net of organised government 
 and law. To trace the rise and progress of that dread 
 power that accomplished the conquest of Britain, to 
 contemplate the stealthy advances of that dominion, 
 which, beginning with a few tribes on the banks of 
 the Tiber, at length established a world-wide empire, 
 however interesting, would here be out of place. All 
 that is necessary for the purpose of these sketches is 
 to take a brief survey of the process by which our 
 country was first brought within the influence of the 
 world's civilisation, redeemed from a position in which 
 it bore the most scanty relations to the great outside 
 world, and brought, by the social influence of the 
 Roman power, to a stage of development at which its 
 position could be settled in the "file" of contemporary 
 nations. But for the Roman conquest, our country 
 nuist have continued in that state of Cimmerian dark- 
 ness in which it then was, when the torch of civilisa- 
 tion revealed a state of things here which appears 
 like the figures that glide over the field of a camera 
 obscura — not an abidino- fact in it all. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Darkness and the Dawn — The Roman Occupation — 
 First British Evangelists — Boadicea. 
 
 "'V^// E now propose to note a few of the landmarks 
 
 ^^V^ of our history at the period of the Roman 
 invasion, viewing the story as the trans- 
 parent medium through which the deeper life move- 
 ments can be traced. " Every man," it has been well 
 said, " reads nature by his own lamp." Our ancestors 
 had read nature by their own lamp long enough — 
 they required now the light of one that was brighter 
 and more powerful, and that was supplied by the 
 Roman power. The thoughts of these wild men, our 
 savage ancestors, had long been shut up with their 
 own inborn horrors, breathing choke-damp instead of 
 mountain air, when the Romans led them out of the 
 dark forest of their own imaginations to the world's 
 broad pavement — the very highways of human cul- 
 ture. Something, then, required to be done — some 
 shock of ruin to visit them, some door to be burst 
 open, some roof to be blown away, some rock to be 
 blasted, that light and air might have free access 
 to their spiritual house, without which it could 
 never grow stately. The call was clamant. The 
 Roman power came, and came not a moment too 
 
1 6 The Scottish CJinrcJi. 
 
 soon. It broke through all barriers, the legions 
 streamed in all directions through the land, their 
 thoughts could not but establish also a right of way 
 through the dark Celtic mind, leaving many a phan- 
 tom conclusion behind, as a strong-minded man forces 
 his way within the precincts of another's personality, 
 leaving his own deposits there. The Romans came ; 
 with one hand they held the sword, and with the 
 other they scattered choicest treasures in our land. 
 Wherever they went there was a silent, invisible 
 power at work, breaking down the old chaos and 
 establishing order in its stead. The living falsehood 
 that, in the shape of the Druid mythology, had long 
 walked and talked among our rude ancestors, was now 
 doomed. The time was ready for its own new birth. 
 The conscience, the intellect of the nation, was being 
 awakened ; flashes of moral electricity were passing 
 in various directions through the chaotic mass. A 
 want was being created which Roman culture could 
 not satisfy. That culture exhibited life on a higher 
 platform, and could have lifted our nation to a higher 
 level of moral conviction than it had either attained, 
 or was in the least likely to attain, of itself. Mean- 
 while some good, undefinablc as the faint influences of 
 starlight, soon began to appear from another quartei'. 
 It was not anything in Roman culture. It was some- 
 thing hidden in a deep cistern, which the Romans 
 conveyed to our shores. They were the living acque- 
 ducts by which streams of living water were brought 
 to our land fresh from the fountains of Judwa. Out 
 
The Darkness and the Dawn. 1 7 
 
 of the misery of the grimy little cellar of their dark 
 life, the heart's cry of our nation was for light, " true 
 light," and life, "life more abundantly." He who is 
 the living heart of the universe, with whom misery is 
 as the voice of prayer, heard that cry, and was mean- 
 while guiding the chariot of the Roman power, sure 
 as the flight of a comet, straight to His purpose. As 
 Mount Sinai once resounded with the thunder of a 
 visible presence, so, amid the noise and tumult and 
 terrors of war, the advent of the Redeemer was her- 
 alded to our land, where the people " that sat in dark- 
 ness "saw "great light." This tortured little world 
 of human hearts cried aloud, as it were, for a Saviour, 
 w^ith unutterable groaning, and Heaven's answer came 
 when the successors of Julius Ccesar first invaded our 
 British shores. Half a century before Christ the 
 Roman power was perceived by our ancestors arising 
 as " a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand." 
 A century later it overshadowed the whole land, from 
 the shores of Kent and Cornwall to the Firths of 
 Forth and Clyde. Before this was accomplished, 
 before the hardy Britons were subdued, the force and 
 discipline of the legions of Rome were subjected to 
 many a shock, and not a few reverses, in the field. 
 Wave after wave of Roman valour broke itself upon 
 the cliff-like obstinacy of these rude Celtic warriors, 
 who resisted the invaders at all points. But, from 
 first to last, the superiority of Roman discipline left 
 no doubt as to the event. From the time when Cas- 
 sivelaunus faced the great Ca3sar, only to be himself 
 
 B 
 
i8 The Scottish Church. 
 
 peremptorily snuffed out, and his capital in a blaze 
 i.round lum, to the defeat of Galgacus, who, with his 
 back to the Grampians and his face to the foe, fell on 
 the blood-stained field among his valiant Caledonians, 
 the history of the advances of the Roman power in 
 this land was characterised by scenes of blood and 
 strife, the forces of civilisation and barbarism in un- 
 equal conflict, the latter inevitably doomed to go to 
 the wall. 
 
 Two episodes 'i the history of this long campaign 
 I select for a moment's consideration here, the one 
 forming a probable clue to the earliest pioneers of 
 Christianity, while the other exhibits the expiring 
 agonies of Druidism in South Britain. In the reign 
 of Claudius, Caractacus, alias Caradoc, with his 
 Britons, went out to meet the advancing Romans, 
 who had penetrated into the country of the Silures (a 
 name immortalised by Sir R. J. Murchison in connec- 
 tion with the geological formation of its rocks), a war- 
 like nation that inhabited the banks of the Severn. 
 Tacitus tells the story of the defeat of the Britons. 
 Their camp was stormed with great slaughter, though 
 not without considerable resistance. The wife and 
 daughter of Caractacus were taken prisoners to Rome. 
 The Senate was summoned together on the occasion 
 of their arrival. Many speeches were delivered, the 
 centre of interest being the invasion of Britain and 
 the capture of the British Prince, who, with his wife 
 and daughter and brothers, were made to pass before 
 the Emperor in view of the assembly. The picture 
 
The Roman Occupation. 19 
 
 drawn of the valiant chief by the pen of the Roman 
 historian is a graphic one. In the midst of that 
 august assembly, the very focus of the world's civil- 
 isation, the fountain-head of its law and administra- 
 tion, there stood the savage chief, his body almost 
 naked, and painted with figures of animals, with a 
 chain of iron about iiis neck, and another about his 
 middle, the hair of his head, hanging down in long 
 locks, covered his back and shoulders, and the hair of 
 his upper lijD, being parted on both sides, lay upon 
 his breast. His unbroken spirit, and noble demean- 
 our, when addressing Claudius, commanded the ad- 
 miration of that assembly that held in its hands the 
 destinies of the world. But while such things are 
 being enacted in the Roman Senate, another scene, 
 only a few paces distant, we may here descry. In a 
 dark vault cut out of the solid rock of the Capitoline 
 Hill, there is a dungeon, called the Mamertine prison. 
 In this dark cell many a vanquished prince had ex- 
 piated with death the crime of being the enemy of 
 Rome. Here at this time sat one who held in his 
 hands a power that was destined to change the face 
 of the world. Only a few yards of space and prison- 
 walls are between the British captives and St. Paul, 
 yet what an eternity of difference between them — the 
 one representing the old order with its dreams and 
 nightmares soon to pass away; the other the new 
 order, fresh from Heaven, to arise in its place. As 
 to Caradoc, his life is spared. He remains at Rome 
 for some time, in the highest esteem, and vanishes 
 
20 T/ie Scottish Church. 
 
 henceforth from the page of history. Not so his 
 family; for if a popular tradition condensed in the 
 Welsh Triads is to be credited, Bran, his father, after 
 seven years spent in Rome, returned, no longer a 
 heathen, but a Christian, lighting up with his radiant 
 presence the darkness that brooded over this realm. 
 On the whole, we regard this personage as shadowy. 
 He passes before us in so unsubstantial a form, with 
 such a flitting touch, that he can scarcely be said to 
 have established a right of way into the field of 
 history. Two fair competitors, however, for the 
 honour of introducing Christianity into Britain, next 
 emerge before us, and appear on the dark background 
 as angels of light, opening the eyes of our benighted 
 countrymen to the light and the glory and the " sacred 
 sweets" of the hill of Zion. Pomponia Grsecina, the 
 wife of Aulus Plautius, the first governor of Britain, 
 and one of the most distinguished of Claudius' gene- 
 rals, and Claudia, the wife of Pudens, supposed to be 
 the daughter of Caractacus, are credited with being 
 the first heralds of the Gospel in Britain, at a time 
 when St. Paul had many converts in Rome, and some 
 even in " Cresar's household." The former of tliese 
 two noble ladies, whose fair hands sowed the precious 
 seed in our Paganised soil, was soon brought to trial 
 for having embraced the " foreign superstition," as 
 Christianity was then termed by such writers as 
 Suetonius and Pliny, and, though acquitted, it is sadly 
 suggestive to read, in the pages of Tacitus, that " her 
 life was protracted through a long course of melan- 
 
First British Evangelists. 2 r 
 
 clioly years." We have already mentioned Claudia 
 as the probable daughter of Caractaeus, and the wife 
 of Pudens. This Pudens was formerly called Rufus, 
 but received the former name, it is said, on account 
 of his modesty and gentleness. In the year 60, A.D., 
 it is curious to note, St. Paul says, in his Epistle to 
 the Romans, " Salute Rufus," But, six years after- 
 wards, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, he says. 
 " Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and 
 Claudia." Of Claudia, again, it is said by Martial, 
 that master of epigram, 
 
 " From painted Britons, how was Claudia born ! 
 The fair barbarian, how do arts adorn." 
 
 Then, in reference to her marriage : — 
 
 " O Rufus ! Pudens whom I own my friend, 
 Has ta'en the foreign Claudia for his wife. 
 Propitious Hymen, light thy torch, and send 
 Long years of bliss to their united life." 
 
 Thus the Roman powder, like a huge storm-cloud 
 darkening our sky, sent out its electric flashes through 
 the gloom, and from that moment all things here were 
 launched on a sea of change, in which much of our 
 past was to be relegated to the lumber-room of 
 creation, as a waste of unreality ; while the Grand 
 Reality began to dawn out of the darkness, and the 
 germ of a slowly-developing kingdom of truth became 
 rooted in the soil. 
 
 I now advert to that episode in the campaign 
 which marks the expiring agonies of the Druid 
 superstition, in which, closely pressed by the Roman 
 power, it appears like a fugitive, which, in its wild 
 
2 2 The Scottish Church. 
 
 terror, turns corner after corner to evade its pur- 
 suers, its whole appearance being that of a thing in 
 the act of vanishing. The Druids were established in 
 the Isle of Anglesea, whither the baffled forces of the 
 Britons, chased before the victorious Romans, betook 
 themselves for refuge. Suetonius, the Roman general 
 under Nero, pushing on his conquests, resolved to 
 reduce this stronghold to his sway. The Britons, 
 nerved by despair, called to their aid both the force 
 of arms and the terrors of superstition. In that last 
 stronghold of the Druids a strange weird scene pre- 
 sents itself. The women and priests are intermingled 
 with the soldiers upon the shore ; and, running about 
 with flaming torches in their hands and tossing their 
 dishevelled hair, they struck greater terror into the 
 astonished Romans by their bowlings, cries, and exe- 
 crations, than the real danger from the armed forces 
 Avas able to inspire. But the event, as usual, was 
 with the civilised discipline of Rome. The Britons are 
 driven from their last refuge. The Druids are burned 
 in the Kres prepared by them for their enemies, and 
 their sacred groves and consecrated altars are de- 
 stroyed. While the fury of the Roman power was 
 thus discharging itself in the west, the Britons were 
 rallying their scattered forces in the east, where a 
 British Deborah, Boadicea, smarting under cruel 
 wrongs inflicted by the enemy, took the field. Under 
 the inspiration of this Celtic heroine, several settle- 
 ments of the conquerors were attacked with success^ 
 while London, already a flourishing Roman colony. 
 
Doadicea. 
 
 was reduced to ashes, its inhabitants, the Romans, and 
 all strangers, being put to the sword. This Suetonius 
 speedily avenged in a great and decisive battle, where 
 80,000 of the Britons perished, and Boadicea herself, 
 that "deceitful lioness," as the Saxon monk Gildas 
 defames her, rather than fall into the hands of the 
 enraged victor, put an end to her life by poison. Poor 
 Boadicea ! with no Claudia near, no angel form to 
 cheer thee, no light to illumine thy dark soul. The 
 old order was doomed. The sword that was to strike 
 the blow was hanging from the smiling heavens. Be- 
 side the sacred lamp of Divine truth held in front of 
 the gloom by two of the galaxy of Briton's daughters* 
 thy sisters, thou art gone down to the realm of ever- 
 lasting night ; and yet, for thee, too, though a lost 
 babe in the wood, there is a Father on high. We 
 commit thee to Him, and take farewell of thee for 
 ever, only casting one last glance behind on the 
 page of history to see in thy lot a meteoric career, 
 ending in disaster ! 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Lucius, a " Nursing Father " — Christianity Extending— 
 Persecution — The First Christian Emperor. 
 
 WF is matter of notoriety, as Fuller observes, that as 
 ^ the heathen, in searching after the original of 
 their nations, never leave soaring " till they 
 touch the clouds, and fetch their pedigree from some 
 god, so Christians think it nothing worth except they 
 relate the first planting to some Apostles." I have 
 already suggested one point of contact between 
 Christianity and Paganism in this land, in the 
 persons of Pomponia Grajcina and Claudia, two 
 British Christians who were in E,ome during the 
 Apostle Pauls first imprisonment there. The credit, 
 however, of first bringing the Gospel into Britain has 
 been claimed for St. Peter, St. Philip, Simon Zelotes. 
 Joseph of Arimathea, and especially St. Paul. On this 
 point the same quaint writer quoted above, says : — 
 " The British Church hath forgotten her own infancy^ 
 who were her first god-fathers. We see the light of 
 the Word shined here, but we see not who kindled it." 
 The conversion of King Lucius, in the latter half of 
 the second century, forms an important era in the 
 history of the Celtic Church in Britain, especially if 
 
Litems, a '' Nzirsing Father.'' 25 
 
 Nennius is to be believed when lie says that "all the 
 chiefs of the British people received baptism with him." 
 The testimony of Bede is that " Lucius, King of the 
 Britons, sent a letter to Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome^ 
 ' entreating that, by his command, he might be made 
 a Christian.' " " The reason," says Fuller, " why he 
 wrote to Rome, was because at this time the church 
 therein was (she can ask no more ; we grant no less) 
 the most eminent church in the world, shining the 
 brighter because set on the highest candlestick — the 
 imperial city." Lucius, thus desirous to " put on the 
 sweet yoke of our Saviour," and become a "nursing 
 father " to the infant church in Briton, soon obtained 
 the object of his pious request ; and " the Britons," 
 says Bede, " preserved the faith which they had re- 
 ceived, uncorrupted and entire, in peace and tran- 
 quility, until the time of the Emperor Diocletian." In 
 the " Welsh Triads " the foundation of the Church at 
 Llandaff is attributed to him ; and though the tradi- 
 tionary accounts of the period must be received with 
 great caution, it is interesting to note that under his 
 reign " lands and civil privileges " were bestowed on 
 the Christians, and that many Pagan temples were 
 converted into Christian Churches, particularly that 
 dedicated to Diana, now St. Paul's, London, and an- 
 other consecrated to Apollo, now Westminster Abbey. 
 Though, as we have already indicated, the traditional 
 accounts are "full of dross," yet they are not sum- 
 marily to be dismissed, as if they were altogether 
 dreams. " We dare not," says Fuller, " wholly deny 
 
26 TJie Scottish CImrch. 
 
 the substance of the story, though the leaven o£ 
 monkery hath much swollen and puffed up the cir- 
 cumstance thereof." 
 
 There is reason to believe that since Christianity 
 first dwelt here it has never departed hence, that, like 
 the " candle of the virtuous wife " mentioned in the 
 Book of Proverbs, "It went not out by night." 
 Though as to the personnel of those who were instru- 
 mental in first lighting up our land we know little or 
 nothing, the merest " glimmer of light " being fitfully 
 thrown on a few individuals and localities. Though 
 these, in the traditional accounts, are like "finger-posts 
 dim seen," on a moorland journey, "through gathering 
 fogs," yet as w^e have seen the lighting of the streets 
 of a town, how when the first lamp is lit it is plainly 
 seen dispelling the surrounding darkness ; but when 
 the second, third, fourth, and all the lamps are lit, 
 light meets light, ray blends with ray, until the whole 
 place is illuminated, so was it with the spread of 
 Christian light in this country in the second and third 
 centuries. At Glastonbury, Llandatf, St. Albans, 
 York, and London, the lamp of Divine Truth was 
 early lighted ; and from these centres of illumination 
 the gloom was pierced, and began to yield to the 
 power of Him who first said to the chaos and dark- 
 ness of the new-born world, " Let there be light." A 
 rapid glance at the progress made by Christianity in 
 this country up to its establishment by Constantine 
 will conclude this chapter. 
 
 Irencus, bishop of Lyons, who was but one step 
 
Christianity Extending — Persecntion. 27 
 
 removed from St. John, having been a disciple of 
 Polycarp, who was himself taught by that Apostle, 
 bears testimony to the spread of Christianity in 
 Britain in his day ; while Tertullian, of Carthage, the 
 embodiment of the highest learning of his age, speaks 
 of the Christian Church in the second century as hav- 
 ing extended to " all the boundaries of Spain, and the 
 different nations of Gaul, and 'parts of Britain inac- 
 cessible to the Romans, but subject to Christ." Origen, 
 too, whom Jerome styles " a man of immortal genius," 
 thus speaks of Christianity in Britain in his time 
 (third century): — "The power of our Lord and 
 Saviour is with those who in Britain are separated 
 from our coasts." 
 
 Though, as already hinted, we know very little of 
 those who were instrumental in founding and ex- 
 tending the Christian system in this country, whoever 
 they were, they must have been possessed of a measure 
 of faith and courage, entitling them to the rank of 
 heroes. They advanced to the work, as already ob- 
 served, between the two fires of Roman and Druid 
 opposition. Gildas, in speaking of the severities of 
 the Pagan persecution at the beginning of the fourth 
 century under Diocletian, says : — " The whole Church 
 seemed to be under execution, and, charging bravely 
 through this ill-natured and inhospitable world, 
 marched, as it were, in whole bodies to heaven." As 
 for the British Christians, he says — " Many were 
 despatched with diversity of torture, and torn limb 
 from limb in a most barbarous and cruel manner ; 
 
The Scottish ChurcJi. 
 
 that those who escaped the fury of their persecutors 
 retired to woods and deserts, and hid themselves in 
 caves, where they continued confessors till God was 
 pleased 'to bring better times to the Church.'" 
 
 St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, is the birth-place of 
 Britain's proto-martyr. His story is touching. While 
 still a Pagan he gave shelter to a Christian minister, 
 whom he found in a state of destitution, pursued by 
 the fierce idolaters, on account of his religion. In 
 this way Alban came under the influence of the 
 Gospel, and he became a Christian. And when the 
 guest whom he sheltered was traced, and the Roman 
 soldiers appeared on the scene to apprehend him, 
 Alban arrayed himself in the robes of his Christian 
 teacher, and was seized by the oSicers and carried 
 before the governor. On being asked his name, he 
 said — " My name is Alban, and I worship the onl y 
 true and living God, who created all things." And 
 when the Magistrate urged him to sacrifice to the 
 gods of Rome, he answered — "The sacrifices you ofler 
 are made to devils ; neither can they help the needy, 
 or grant the petitions of their votaries. I am a 
 Christian." On this the governor was so enraged, 
 that he ordered him innnediately to be beheaded. 
 The place where he sufiered was on a hill overlooking 
 the spot then occupied by the ancient Verulam. 
 
 " Thus was Alban tried, 
 England's first martyr, whom no threats could shake ; 
 Self-offered victim, for his friend he died, 
 And for the faith — nor shall his name forsake 
 Tliat hill — whose flowery platform seems to rise 
 lly nature decked for holiest sacritice." 
 
The First Christian Emperor. 29 
 
 Thus beautiful is Wordsworth's tribute to one of 
 Britain's noblest sons — her first martyr. 
 
 After the death of Diocletian the Church had a 
 breathing time from persecution. The father of Con- 
 stantine, according to the testimony of Eusebius, 
 " preserved such religious people as were under his 
 command without any hurt or harm." And this 
 happy state of things was made universal when Con- 
 stantine, born in Britain, and of a British mother, 
 attained to the Imperial throne. He " first turned the 
 tide in the whole world, and not only quenched the 
 fire, but even overturned the furnace of persecution, 
 and enfranchised Christianity throughout the Roman 
 empire." Then it was that " the faithful Christians, 
 who, during the time of danger, had hidden them- 
 selves in woods, deserts, and secret caves, appearing 
 in public, rebuilt the churches that had been levelled 
 to the ground ; and all the Church's sons rejoiced, as 
 it were, in the fostering bosom of a mother." And 
 whereas none were found to softly rock the infant 
 Church, or sing sweet lullabies by its cradle, now it 
 comes forth in majesty, the joy of all the land, and is 
 lifted to honour in the Roman State ; so that, as it 
 has been quaintly said, " The Gospel, formerly a 
 forester, now became a citizen ; and, leaving the woods 
 wherein it wandered, hills and holes where it hid 
 itself before, dwelt quietly in populous places." The 
 panegyrist of Constantino, Eumenius Rhetor, thus 
 speaks in an oration addressed to that emperor, — " 
 fortunata et nunc omnibus beatior terris Britanniquae 
 
The Scottish Church. 
 
 Constantinum Coesarem vidisti " — " 0, liappy Britain, 
 and blessed above all other lands, which didst first 
 behold Constantine Csesar." Without committing our- 
 selves to any extravagant laudation of this, the first 
 Christian emperor that ruled over the empire, it may 
 suffice here to be remembered that one of his first 
 acts, when he succeeded to the Imperial throne, was 
 to put an end to the persecution of the Christians ; 
 and that one of the earliest efforts put forth by the 
 Church, then first established by him, was to purge 
 itself from Arianism. 
 
CHAPTER y. 
 
 Natuke Worship — Heroic Mythology — Christianity and 
 Heretical Blends — Socinianism — Sabellianism — Arianism 
 — Pelagianisii. 
 
 tN my last sketch I endeavoured to trace the 
 foundations of the Celtic Church in Britain. In 
 order to do this I gave a rapid survey of the dawn 
 and early development of Christianity in Britain up 
 to the date of its establishment under Constantine. I 
 now propose to call a halt in the historical narrative, 
 and from the standpoint of philosophy, to bestow a 
 passing glance at the general situation — to penetrate 
 beneath the veil of historic fact, and stand for a little 
 in front of ultimate principles ; to lay bare before the 
 mind's eye those forces that were in operation in the 
 rise and development of the aboriginal superstition ; 
 to trace the influences of the Pagan mythology in 
 modifying that system of nature worship ; to map out 
 the various theological and philosophical currents 
 whose united stream determined the coarse of Chris- 
 tian thought in early times. Only thus can w^e hope 
 to arrive at an intelligible conception of Christianity 
 in its relation to human thought, and see the picture 
 with its appropriate background, the organism and its 
 environment. In this M'av also shall we detect the 
 
The Scottish Church. 
 
 presence and influence of those infecting elements 
 which, from the malaria of human speculation, early 
 diffused their poison in the system of Divine truth, 
 and sent Christianity to bed under various forms of 
 disease called heresies. As we look back on that far 
 distant " distracted cloudy imbroglio " of Paganism in 
 which our ancestors were enveloped, it seems more 
 like a cloudland than a continent of firm land and facts. 
 Yet in that far-off " confused rumour of Pagan ages," 
 we shall hear, if we turn to it with affectionate ear- 
 nestness, some feeble echo of truth ; something leading 
 us up to the belief that there was a kind of fact at the 
 heart of it. To the first Pagan thinker, simple, open 
 as a child, yet with the depth and strength of a man, 
 nature in all its departments was a great mystery. It 
 had as yet no name. The infinite variety of sights, 
 sounds, shapes, and motions, which we now collectively 
 call the Universe, was not as yet veiled under any 
 formula. " It stood naked, flashing in on him there, 
 beautiful, awful, unspeakable." " Canopus," says Car- 
 ]yle, "shining down over the desert, with its blue 
 diamond brightness, would pierce into the heart of the 
 wild Ishmaelitish man whom it was guiding through 
 the solitary waste there. To his wild heart, with all 
 feelings in it, with no speech for any feeling, it might 
 seem a little eye, that Canopus, glancing out on him 
 from the great deep Eternity; revealing the inner 
 splendour to him. Cannot we understand how these 
 men ivorshi2')ped Canopus ; became what we call 
 Sabcans, worshipping the stars ? Such is to me the 
 
Nature Worship. t^^ 
 
 secret of all forms of Paganism. Worship is transcen- 
 dent wonder. . . To these primaeval men, all things, and 
 everything they saw exist beside them, were an 
 emblem of the Godlike, of some God. The science of 
 their thoughts on religion consisted in a recognition 
 of the forces of nature as Godlike, stupendous, per- 
 sonal agencies — as gods and demons. Carrying such 
 thoughts and feelings with them when they left their 
 original home in the east, time and circumstances 
 moulded them into new forms and features, they 
 entered into new combinations, they were modified by 
 interaction with special varieties of the original forms. 
 Their attitude to nature remained the same ; but, in 
 a downward movement, their thoughts gravitated 
 towards its weird-like aspects. The mountain storm, 
 the thunder-cloud, the dark hostile powers of nature 
 established a grim tyranny over the minds of the 
 ancient Britons. Out of the dark interior of their 
 thoughts spectral forms crept forth ; and with these 
 they populated nature. That region of a man's nature 
 which has to do with the unknown was in their case 
 lighted up with lurid smoke-flame, a scene of terror 
 reflecting nature as an army of hostile powers, watch- 
 ing for man's ruin. In the dark forests whence at 
 nightfall crept forth the wolf and the fox ; in every 
 " cranny and doghole " of nature, demons were ready 
 to spring forth for the destruction of man. Of the 
 quaint memorials of this devil worship in which our 
 barbarian ancestors were enslaved, we have an ac- 
 count by Gildas, who says that the pictures of those 
 
34 TJie Scottish Church. 
 
 devils worshipped by the Britons remained in his day' 
 within and without the decayed walls of their cities, 
 "drawn with deformed faces (no doubt done to tlie 
 life according to their terrible apparitions), so that 
 such ugly shapes did not woo, but frighten people 
 into adoration of them," But the Romans brought 
 their own gods with them when they invaded this 
 land, and the rude old myths of a degenerate Druidism 
 were not strong enough to stand against the classical 
 mythology. Sprung from the same old root, this 
 form of religion, vmder the influence of an incipient 
 liero-worship, the " grand modifjang element in that 
 ancient system of thought," has given birth to Jupiter 
 the great father whose realm is the upper sky ; Apollo, 
 identified with the sun ; Juno, who pervades the 
 nether atmosphere, and so forth. In the Oriental 
 system nature stands as the emblem of God ; religion 
 is the poetical interpretation of the universe. In the 
 Roman system, which assimilated that of the Greeks, 
 there is the conception of man as a predominant ele- 
 ment. If nature be a symbol of God, man is a higher 
 emblem still. What the "golden-mouthed" St. Chry- 
 sostome said in reference to the Shekinah or ark of 
 testimony, the visible revelation of God among the 
 Hebrews, contains a deeply significant and eternal 
 truth. He says, " The true Shekinah is man ! " "And 
 truly this is no vain phrase," says Carlyle, "it is even 
 so. The essence of our being, the mystery in us that 
 calls itself ' I ' — ah, what words have we for such 
 thinfrs ? — is a breath of Heaven ; the Highest Being 
 
Heroic Mythology. 35 
 
 reveals himself in man, ... is not that the germ of 
 Christianity itself ? The greatest of all heroes is one 
 — whom we do not name here ! Let sacred silence," 
 he characteristically adds, " meditate that sacred mat- 
 ter." When we go far enough back in our historical 
 investigations, we at length reach a region in which 
 fact and fable are so blended, a kind of debateable 
 land on which the mists and fogs of time so rest, that 
 it is impossible to separate the one from the other, 
 the fact from the fable, the nucleus of truth from the 
 accretions of error. This land is peopled by what are 
 called in the classical literature of antiquity heroes, 
 concerning whom it may often be matter of doubt 
 whether they are gods come down to men, or men 
 who have, by the popular imagination, been elevated 
 into gods. And this interaction of Eastern and West- 
 ern thought that entered into the early formation of 
 Greek mythology and Roman Paganism, may have 
 taken up and assimilated in its growth the pervading 
 element of Judaism — the Messianic idea — which, by 
 tradition, finding its way to the Greek mind, accen- 
 tuated, and fixed more clearly the lines in which the 
 development of the heroic mythology proceeded. The 
 parent stream of Oriental thought, with its nature 
 worship, had thus far its tributary streams ; first, the 
 conception of man as the emblem of God, from the 
 west (Greeks and Romans), then the Messianic idea, 
 the essential feature of which is " Emanuel, God 
 with us," from the Hebrews. Through various 
 ciianges and modifications had the old mythology 
 
36 The Scottish Church. 
 
 passed when Britain was in the fast grip of the 
 Roman power ; but these three elements, in their in- 
 teraction and combination, formed the great dynamic 
 force in the religious life of our ancestors when Chris- 
 tianity was introduced into our island. Its historical 
 aspect, its outward expression and embodiment, be- 
 longs to a region of conjecture — a region where we 
 have not even probability as a guide — a morass of 
 uncertainty, where all footing yields; but when we 
 contemplate it from the standpoint of philosophy, we 
 seem to get a glimpse of the soul or fact which con- 
 stituted its essential characteristic, and which, though 
 merged in the world's broad stream of thought, was 
 not without its own local colouring. When the pure 
 rays of Christian light fell on this mingled stream of 
 paganised thought, they were refracted as light is 
 when transmitted through media of varying density, 
 and the heresies that emerged tell the story in an 
 objective way of the interaction of religious thought 
 which a subji^ctive forecast of the situation would 
 seem to have pointed out as the natural residtant of 
 the forces in operation. Seen in this light, the Arian 
 and Pelagian heresies, which early appeared in this 
 country, will seem as the natural growth of what was 
 already in the soil. Oi-icntal theosophy, Greek philo- 
 sophy, especially that of Plato, and the Jewish Cabala, 
 were blended in a general system of thought, which, 
 emanating from the schools of Alexandria, extended 
 in all directions, touching Christian thought at dif- 
 ferent points, and mingling with the Christian doc- 
 
Christianity and Heretical Blends. 3 7 
 
 tiines in varying proportions. This system was called 
 Gnosticism, and embraced various shades of religious 
 thought according to the various proportions in which 
 the distinctively Christian elements entered into the 
 combination with those which were purely Pagan. 
 Thus among the early Gnostics there were those who 
 were almost altogether Pagan, others who were al- 
 most altogether Christian, with every intermediate 
 shade between the two. 
 
 The heresies that emerged in the early development 
 of Christianity had reference generally to the founder 
 of the Christian system, the doctrines of the Divine 
 grace, and the providence of God. They included 
 schools of thought, known as Socinianism, Sabel- 
 lianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, and Manicheism, etc, 
 etc. The first three systems in the above enumera- 
 tion, and which were the offspring of Gnosticism, had 
 reference to the person of our Lord and the doctrine 
 of the Trinity. Pelagianism, which reflected the 
 Greek idea of self-development, was in sharp contrast 
 with the Calvinistic view of grace, otherwise called 
 the Evangelical School of Christian thought; while 
 Manicheism, imported from Persia, consisted in a com- 
 bination of the dual conception of the system of 
 Zoroaster with that of the Divine unity and sove- 
 reignty as embodied in Christianit}'. At the back of 
 Phenomena, and the origin of things, Manes, or Mani- 
 cheus, saw the good God and the bad devil. He 
 agreed with the orthodox in referring the good in the 
 world to God the bad to the devil ; but whereas in 
 
^S The Scottish Church. 
 
 the orthodox Christian system the devil is subordinate 
 to God, in the system of Manieheus, both powers hohl 
 co-ordinate jurisdiction. This system is the result of 
 human thought in its attitude to the imiverse as 
 presenting a struggle detween light and darkness, and 
 good and evil ; it is the solution arrived at by ont; 
 section of the human race of that dark problem which 
 has engaged the minds of men in all ages, the exist- 
 ence and origin of evil. It is that form of the solar 
 myth that has found expression in the system of the 
 Magi; and it is just possible that the sunrise an<l 
 sunset, the daily return of day and night, the battle 
 between light and darkness, the whole solar drama in 
 all its details, that is acted every day, every month, 
 every year, in heaven and in earth, was one great ger- 
 minal principle in that ancient aboriginal superstition 
 of Britain, in which, as we have seen, devil worshij) 
 and magic were conspicuous elements. Though this 
 .system of Manieheus does not seem, in early Chris- 
 tian times, to have established for itself in Britain 
 a " local haliitation and a name," its spirit has tinged 
 the thoughts of all men in all ages, from the time 
 that Job and his friends looked out upon the universe, 
 and were perplexed by the ajipearances of suti'ering 
 and moral evil that met their gaze, until now, when 
 men see in development and evolution streaks of light 
 breaking through the darkness of this problem. It 
 has permeated the atmosphere both of belief and 
 unbelief in all ages. If John Stuart Mill discovered 
 spots in the s\ui, points at which Divine power fails. 
 
Manicheism — Socbiianism — Sabellimtism. 39 
 
 goodness retires from the field, and the Deity is 
 forced to struggle, we get a glimpse in this way of 
 the relation in which the system of Manes stands to 
 the universe. And when the artist talks of nature, 
 the philosopher of law, and unskilled theologians of 
 the devil, we have an example, in different depart- 
 ments, of a survival of the ancient Persian mode of 
 thought, in which we have a dual government of the 
 world, and in which God tends to become more and 
 more a remote and misty phantom. 
 
 A few words regarding the other heresies in the 
 above enumeration will conclude this sketch. As to 
 the person of the Founder of Christianity, four theories 
 may be held. He may be regarded as really human, 
 but not divine ; 2, really divine, but not human ; 3, 
 neither human nor divine ; or 4, both human and 
 divine. These, the only possible theories on the sub- 
 ject, have, strange to say, all actually been maintained 
 in the Church in the process of its development. The 
 first of these views, that which affirms the human 
 nature of Jesus, but denies His divinity, was held by 
 a small sect of Jewish converts called the Ebionites, 
 who flourished in the first century. According to 
 the testimony of Eusebius, Theodotus was the first 
 who taught the simple humanity of Christ — the 
 doctrine of modern Unitarians. The second view, 
 according to which the divinity of Christ is asserted, 
 and His humanity denied, was held in the second 
 century by Praxeas, and in the third century by 
 Noetus and Sabellius. The term Sabellianism in- 
 
40 The Scottish CJinrch. 
 
 eludes this view in a larger conception in which the 
 Trinity is regarded as not consisting of three persons, 
 but of one person in three aspects. Swedenborgianism 
 is the modern representative of this view. Between 
 these two extremes religious thought oscillated, and 
 before the Nicene Council, gravitated, in great volume, 
 towards that system which, from the name of its 
 founder, is called Arianism. According to this view 
 Jesus is not human, nor divine, but a being, sui 
 generis, intermediate between God and man, the most 
 exalted of the creatures, but still only a creature. 
 This view, which represents the Christian conscious- 
 ness in a nebulous condition, before the system of 
 Christian doctrine emerged in clear and distinct form, 
 was condemned, as already stated, by the Council of 
 Nicea A.D. 32.5, and the orthodox view affirmed. 
 Hitherto the Church in Britain continued sound and 
 orthodox, and was in no degree tainted with heresy. 
 But towards the latter half of the fourth century, " the 
 gangrene of the Arian heresy began to spread itself 
 into this island." " Naturalists," says Fuller, "dispute 
 how wolves had their first being in Britain, it being 
 improbable that merchants would bring any such 
 noxious vermin over in their ships, and impossible 
 that of themselves they should swim over the sea, . . 
 . . . but here the query may be propounded, how 
 these heretics (mystical 'wolves not sparing the 
 flocks,' Acts 20-29) first entered into this island. 
 And indeed, we meet neither with their names nor 
 manner of transportation hither, but only with the 
 
ATianism — Pelagianism. 4 1 
 
 cursed fruits of their labours." Then follows an ob- 
 servation of our author, conceived in the true spirit 
 of the friends of Job, that "immediately after this 
 kingdom was infected with Arianism, the Pagan Picts 
 and Scots out of the north made a general and despe- 
 rate invasion of it ; it being just with God, when His 
 vineyard beginneth to bring forth wild grapes, then 
 to let loose the wild boar, to take his full and free 
 repast upon it." While the Arian heresy was thus an 
 importation, Pelagianism — so called from Pelagius, tlie 
 classical form in which the name of its founder has 
 been handed down — was a native of the soil. The 
 author of this system was said to be a monk of 
 Bangor, called Morgan, which, in Welsh, signifies "near 
 the sea;" "and well had it been for the Christian 
 world," says the same quaint writer already quoted, 
 "if he had been nearer the sea, and served therein as 
 the Egyptians served the Hebrew males." This heresy 
 represents the interaction of Greek thought with re- 
 vealed truth. In it Greek thought is free from the 
 Oriental element except in regard to its ascetic ten- 
 dency. The ethics of self-development is the essential 
 characteristic of the system of Pelagius. In it the 
 gospel of self-help neutralised the doctrines of the 
 Divine grace. The consequences of Adam's fall did not 
 overlap his own nature. No taint was thus communi- 
 cated to the moral powers of man. Infants come into 
 the world occupying the same position as Adam did 
 before the fall; they are baptised, not to be freed 
 from sin, but thereby to be adopted into the Kingdom 
 
42 TJie Scottish C/mrch. 
 
 of God. Adam died, not by reason of sin, but by the 
 condition of nature. In this system the doctrine of 
 depravity is reduced to a minimum, and conversion is 
 transformed into development. The disease of sin and 
 its remedy alike recede into the background. A me- 
 morable circumstance related in this connection is that 
 the " same day whereon Palagius was born in Britain, 
 St. Augustine, his great antagonist, was also born in 
 Africa ; Divine Providence so disposing it that the 
 poison and the antidote should be twins in a manner, 
 in respect of the same time." While this heresy has 
 never been held by any distinct and separate com- 
 munity of professing Christians in the sense of being 
 the Shibboleth of a sect, it has been a fruitful source 
 of controversy in all ages of the Church, entering, 
 as it has done, as an element into many various 
 and even diverse schools of Christian thought, so that, 
 according to Fuller, simply to recount the learned 
 works which have been written on this subject "would 
 amount to a volume fitter for a porter's back to bear 
 than a scholar's brains to peruse." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Caledonia "stern and wild" — Chaos and Darkness — 
 Saxon Invasion — Pelagian Controversy — " Alleluiatic 
 Victory " — Palladius — St. Patrick — St. Ninian — St. 
 Columba. 
 
 fHE present sketch will include a period of up- 
 ^^^ wards of two centuries, dating from the Council 
 of Nicea, A.D, 325, to the arrival of St. Columba 
 at lona, about the year a.d. 503. On the background 
 of our political history this interval is filled up with 
 striking transformations, in which we see the great 
 bell of time ringing out the Romans, and ringing in 
 the Saxons, and so producing a complete metamor- 
 phosis in the land. The Picts and Scots, the scourge 
 and terror of the Britons of the South, we see brought 
 under the benign influences of Christianity. St. Pat- 
 rick in Ireland ; St. Ninian and St. Columba and St. 
 Kentigern or Mungo in Scotland, light up with streaks 
 of golden brightness the "age and body" of their 
 times; dispelling the surrounding darkness, and send- 
 ing a trail of light down through the ages. We see 
 the regret with which the Britons part with their 
 masters the Romans, and the fierce struggle with 
 which, for more than a century, the land was con- 
 vulsed by her Saxon invaders. In connection with 
 the main road along which the history of the Church 
 
44 ^/^^' ScottisJi CJiurch. 
 
 proceeds, there are many romantic byepaths wliicli lie 
 invitingly open, which, however, must not be suffered 
 to tempt us to stray beyond the smallest limits in 
 tracts that are purely secular. The exploits of Arthur 
 — the twelve pitched battles in which he defeated the 
 Pagan Saxons, with all the halo of romance that sur- 
 rounds the " Knights of the Round Table," we must 
 not bestow a thought upon, except to say of the 
 Monks who have so over-embellished this subject, that 
 " the very truths which they have written of him are 
 discredited, because found in company with so many 
 lies." During this period the history of the Church 
 in Britain is involved in some obscurity. In the space 
 of 200 years, there is but little of solid history. 
 A few quasi facts lost in a wilderness of padding 
 is the aspect of things presented to us in the dust 
 heap whence our materials are unearthed. "But," as 
 Fuller quaintly says, "as I find little, so I will feign 
 nothing, time being better spent in silence than in 
 lying." What we can discern very clearly is, that 
 during this time the Church was outwardly afflicted 
 by Picts, Scots, and Saxons, and inwardly harassed by 
 the Arian and Pelagian heresies. The decisive defeat 
 sustained by Galgacus at the foot of the Grampians in 
 the year 84 A.D. placed Britain in the fast grip of the 
 Roman power, Julius Agricola, by whom this was 
 accomplished, knowing tlie fierce and indomitable 
 character of the Picts and Scots in the North, fixed 
 a chain of garrisons between the Firths of Cl^'de and 
 Forth, the better to secure the Roman Province of the 
 
Caledonia, ''Stern and Wild.'' 45 
 
 south from the incursions of these wild barbarians. 
 A wall was afterwards erected along the line of the 
 forts by Antoninus Pius, which, with one previously 
 built by Adrian, between the Tyne and the Solway, 
 enclosed the Roman province of Valentia. Thus the 
 rights of savage freedom were contracted to the 
 narrow limits of Caledonia; at least, so the Romans 
 imagined. These rude ancestors of ours, how^ever 
 " stern and wild " as their native land, refused to be 
 crammed up in the north in that way, and like a 
 wild beast ever ready to burst its chains, were a per- 
 petual menace to their southern neighbours. The 
 Dutch dykes have been found capable of keeping out 
 the sea, but the wild impetuosity of these savage Cale- 
 donians could not be checked by a " scientific frontier!" 
 Ever and anon they burst forth from their fastnesses 
 in the north, spreading terror and dismay everywhere 
 from the wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent. 
 During the Roman occupation, indeed, these incur- 
 sions were checked as the tide is by the cliffs on the 
 beach, but on the withdrawal of that power the South 
 Britons w^ere helpless to resist their encroachments, 
 wdiich were as surging weaves beating on a flat and 
 defenceless shore. For though the Romans left the 
 country well provided for its defence, they were with- 
 out the spirit or power of resistance ; so that when 
 the keels of the Roman vessels quitted the British 
 strand, and both nations felt that the parting was 
 final, the cliffs and shores of Britain were as thickly 
 crowded by mourners for the departure of the Romans, 
 
46 The Scottish Church. 
 
 as they had been nearly five centuries before by despe- 
 rate opponents of their first landing. When we lift 
 the veil at this point, and take a glance at the situa- 
 tion of affairs in South Britain after the retirement of 
 the Romans, we see under a " dim," but by no means 
 a " religious light," various independent and rival 
 communities formed — nearly 200 kinglings sometimes 
 united in their jealousies of some paramount tyrant, 
 but more frequently raging among themselves. Thus 
 we find " The Lioness of Devonshire " encountering a 
 " Lion's whelp," and the "Bear- Baiter" humbling be- 
 fore his regal brother " The great Bull Dog ! " This 
 is the scene that presents itself to us when they were 
 let alone by their neighbours ; but a darker aspect is 
 observed when we contemplate them after the preda- 
 tory exploits of the Picts and Scots, when famine and 
 death, the attendants of war, were so rife that there 
 were " scarcely living enough to bury the dead." In 
 their extremity British ambassadors are despatched to 
 Rome "in a mournful manner, with their garments 
 rent, and sand on their heads," humbly imploring that 
 they would not permit so ancient a province to become 
 a prey and a scorn to barbarians. Their prayer was 
 heard. The Romans came to their assistance now for 
 the second time since their departure ; but told them 
 plainly that in the future they must help themselves, 
 as no more aid from Rome need be expected. The 
 truth was that the old empire was in the throes of 
 dissolution. "The new Babylon, rival of the old, 
 swelled out like her with her successes, and triumph- 
 
Chaos and Da^'kness in Britain. 47 
 
 in(T in her pleasures and riches, was about to encounter 
 as great a fall." Alaric the Goth, Attila the Hun, 
 Genseric the Vandal, found it like a huge weight on 
 the top of an inclined plane, ready to go down with 
 the slightest push. Nobody could hold out a hand 
 to avert the judgment that was about to fall on that 
 great power, the mistress and tyrant of the world. 
 " The plain truth," says Fuller, " is that the Roman 
 Empire, now grown ruinous, could not repair its out- 
 rooms, and was fain to let them fall down, to maintain 
 the rest; and, like the fencers receiving a blow on 
 their leg to save their head, exposed the remote 
 countries of Spain, France, and Britain, to the spoil of 
 Pagans, to secure the seat of Empire." Another piti- 
 ful appeal is made to Rome on a fresh invasion of the 
 Picts and Scots, but this time in vain. The appeal 
 was clamant, but the Romans had more than enough 
 to do at home. The appeal, addressed to the Consul 
 iEtius, thus proceeds : — " To iEtius, thrice consul, the 
 Groanes of the Brittaines." "The Barbarians drive us 
 back to the sea — the sea again putteth us back upon 
 the Barbarians ; thus, between two kinds of death, we 
 are either slaughtered or drowned, etc." After the 
 failure of this melancholy appeal, the Britons were 
 reduced to the utmost despair, by intelligence that 
 the Scots, who had always retired within their own 
 northern confines, after pillaging and destroying at 
 their pleasure, were now assembling a large army for 
 the purpose of extirpating the natives, and settling 
 great numbers of their own people in Britain. What 
 
/\S The Scottish Church. 
 
 was to be done ? Their leaders were assembled to- 
 f^ether in serious consultation as to how the impending 
 ruin was to be averted. Roman aid failed them ; self- 
 help found no place in their counsels, when at length 
 Vortigern, a British king, a man of considerable influ- 
 ence among his countrymen, doomed himself to a fatal 
 celebrity by being the first to suggest the " destructive 
 project," which brought the "Dragons of Germany" 
 (as the bards called the Saxons) as friends and allies 
 into Britain. Over they came in response to the 
 invitation of the Britons, first in three great ships 
 under Hengist and Horsa, their leaders. The island 
 of Thanet in Kent, their landing-place, became their 
 first possession; "but," says Fuller, " following after- 
 wards in such swarms that quickly they grew formid- 
 able to him that invited them over, of guests turning 
 sojourners, then inmates, and lastly landlords, till they 
 had dispossessed the Britons of the best part of the 
 island." 
 
 With the fall of the empire we see a new departure 
 in the evolution of events in the rise of modern states ; 
 and as the shores of Wigtown Bay form an inlet to the 
 Atlantic, so the Saxon invasion of Britain was a con- 
 tribution from the main stream of progress, of which 
 tlie Saxon Heptarchy was the symbol and expression. 
 While such commotions agitated the State, the de- 
 cline of the Church was perhaps inevitable. For, as 
 Fuller quaintly observes, " He who expects a flourish- 
 ing Church in a failing counnonwealth, let him try 
 whether one side of his face can smile, when the 
 
SaxoJi Invasion. 49 
 
 other is pinched." The fact is, the life of the Church 
 is a drama in which great inward modifications ac- 
 company outward changes. The sanguinary devasta- 
 tion, first by the Picts and Scots, and afterwards by 
 the Saxons, in the first half of the fifth century, re- 
 duced the British Church to the greatest straits. The 
 aim of the Saxons, whose help had been invoked to 
 beat back the Picts and Scots, was nothing else than 
 the subjugation of the ancient inhabitants of Britain 
 under their dominion. For 130 years, during which 
 the war lasted, the Church continued to shrink before 
 the intruders within the remote fastnesses of Wales 
 and Cornwall. Britain became involved, from east to 
 west, in rapine and slaughter ; her cruel masters turned 
 their ruthless hands against every person and thing 
 that had a religious character, destroyed every Church 
 they could reach, and slew the Christians at the very 
 altar ; the ministers were hunted down like wild beasts, 
 and either perished miserably or sought refuge in ex- 
 patriation. With the race of the ancient inhabitants 
 disappeared the refinements of society introduced by 
 the Romans. To the worship of the true God suc- 
 ceeded the impure rites of Woden ; and the barbarism 
 and ignorance of the north of Germany were trans- 
 planted into the most flourishing provinces of Britain. 
 Yet, in the overshadowing darkness, quite a brilliant 
 galaxy of luminaries appear, among whom we descry 
 Dubricius, with his academj' in Monmouthshire, a seat 
 of piety and learning, where many disciples were 
 taught the elements of human and divine learning. 
 
50 The Scottish Church. 
 
 St. David, uncle to King Arthur, and, lilce his nephew, 
 lost in a dreamland of legend; St. Petrock of Corn- 
 wall, the " cornucopia of saints," whose parishes carry 
 sanctity in their names ; St. Kentigern, otherwise 
 called St. Mungo, the famous Bishop of Ellwye in 
 North Wales, and patron saint of Glasgow, besides 
 many other men, may be mentioned as handing down 
 the sacred tradition, even in those times of darkness 
 and tumult. "But," as Fuller observes, "a national 
 church, being a large room, it is hard to count all the 
 candles God lighted therein." 
 
 We have se^n that the troubles of the State were 
 such as to necessitate the aid of strangers. The 
 Britons were unable to cope with the Picts and Scots 
 by themselves, but sought aid first from the Pomans, 
 and, when that power failed them, from the Saxons. 
 Strange to say, a similar impotence unnerved the 
 Church when subjected to the troubles of heresy. 
 The scholarship of its ministers seems to have halted 
 a little behind the wonders of antiquity. The Arian 
 heresy, as was before noted, was proscribed at the 
 Council of Nicea, a.d. 32.5. It was between the years 
 420 and 430 that the British Church was infected 
 with Pelagianism ; and the orthodox clergy, being 
 unable to stem its progress, sent to Gaul, desiring 
 assistance. In a full synod of the Galilean Church, it 
 was determined that Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, 
 and Lupus, bishop of Troyes, should be sent to Britain 
 to confute the heretics. These holy men wera pre- 
 vented for some time from approaching the shores of 
 
Pelagian Controversy. 51 
 
 Britain by a dreadful tempest, but at lenijth they 
 made their destined port in fair weather, when they 
 found the beach crowded with friends ready to wel- 
 come them. A meeting was immediately appointed 
 by the British clergy for public disputation with the 
 Pelagians at VeruUmi, now St. Albans. The Pela- 
 gians, according to the testimony of Bede, came to the 
 council in great pomp, and advocated their cause with 
 most inflated rhetoric; but Germanus and Lupus, 
 when it was their turn to reply, so overwhelmed them 
 with arguments and authorities that they were com- 
 pletely silenced, and the whole assembly triumphed in 
 their discomfiture. About this time the Pagan Picts, 
 with some straggling Saxons (who had come over to 
 pillage on their own account before they were united 
 under Hengist and Horsa), having attacked the 
 Britons, the latter implored the assistance of Ger- 
 manus and Lupus, who immediately complied with 
 their request, and repaired to their camp. In these 
 days of " Salvation Armies " it may be interesting to 
 relate an episode which is unique in Church history, 
 and which is entitled the " Alleluiatic victory." The 
 narrative is that of Constantius of Lyons, the bio- 
 grapher of St. Germanus, and who wrote while 
 several persons were alive who had been acquainted 
 with that prelate. " The sacred days of Lent were at 
 hand, which the presence of the divines, Germanus 
 and Lupus, rendered more solemn, insomuch that those 
 instructed by their daily preaching, flocked eagerly 
 to the grace of baptism, for the great multitude of 
 
52 The Scottish CJmrch. 
 
 the array M'as desirous of the water of the laver of 
 salvation. A church formed of interwoven branches 
 of trees is prepared against the day of the resurrection 
 of our Lord, and though the expedition was encamped 
 in the field, is fitted up like that of a city. The army, 
 wet with baptism, advances. The people are fervent 
 in faith, and, neglecting the protection of arms, they 
 await the assistance of the Deity. In the meantime 
 this plan of proceeding, or state of the camp, is re- 
 ported to the enemy, who, anticipating a victory over 
 an unarmed multitude, hasten with alacrity. But 
 their approach is discovered by the scouts, and when, 
 after concluding the solemnities of Easter, the greater 
 part of the army, fresh from their baptism, were pre- 
 paring to take up arms and give battle, Germanus 
 offers himself as the leader of the war." Then follows 
 an exaggerated description of the route of the enemy, 
 upon whose approach Germanus assembled the British 
 troops in a hollow dale in Flintshire, surrounded with 
 hills, with instructions that, at a signal given, they 
 should all shout Halleluiah three times, which was 
 faithfully obeyed. The Pagans were surprised with 
 the suddenness and loudness of the sound, which was 
 much multiplied by the advantage of the echo, where- 
 liy their fear brought in a false list of their enemies' 
 innnbcr ; and, rather trusting their cars than their 
 eyes, they reckoned their foes by the increase of the 
 noise rebounded unto them ; and then, allowing two 
 hands for every mouth, how vast was their army ! 
 But, besides the concavltj of the valley improving the 
 
'' Alleluiatic Victory' 53 
 
 sound, " God sent a hollowness," says Fuller, " into the 
 hearts of the Pagans ; so that their apprehensions 
 added to their ears, and cowardice often resounded 
 the same shout in their breasts, till, beaten with the 
 reverberation thereof, without striking a stroke, they 
 confusedly ran away; and many were drowned for 
 speed in the river Alen, lately the Christians' font, 
 now the Pagans' grave. Thus a bloodless victory was 
 gotten, without sword drawn, consisting of no fight, 
 but a fright, and a flight ; and that Hallelujah, the 
 song of the saints after conquest achieved (Rev, xix. 
 1) was here the forerunner and procurer of victory ; 
 so good a grace it is, to be said both before and after 
 a battle." In these commotions the Celtic Church 
 was chased before the Saxon invaders, out of South 
 Britain. "Religion now-a-days," says Fuller, "played 
 least in sight, hiding itself in holes ; and the face of 
 the Church was so blubbered with tears, that she may 
 seem almost to have wept her eyes out, having lost 
 her seers and principal pastors ; " but in Ireland, under 
 the labours of St. Patrick, as we shall presently see, 
 it flourished and extended itself in all directions. 
 
 A very dim figure is trotted out of obscurity, and 
 made to flit across the page of history at this point. 
 In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we read: "A.D. 430. 
 This year, Palladius the Bishop was sent to the Scots 
 by Pope Celestinus, that he might confirm their faith." 
 He is also mentioned by Bede, Nennius, and others. 
 A difficulty arises here as to his destination, whether 
 it was Ireland, the land of the Scots, or the coast of 
 
54 The Scottish Church. 
 
 Aro^yll, where was a small colony of Scots, — probably 
 both. According to Nennius, he seems to have en- 
 countered stormy weather when he tried to effect a 
 a landing in Ireland ; or, having settled there, not to 
 have attained any great measure of success, and to 
 have sought and found a new sphere of labour among 
 the Picts. Tradition traces hira to Fordoun, in the 
 Mearns, where he was buried. The remains of a chapel 
 dedicated to him are still pointed out in the churchyard 
 of that parish. It, too, was the resort of pilgrims in 
 mediaeval times, from all parts of the country. 
 
 But a more substantial figure now emerges before 
 our eyes, the famous St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ire- 
 land. Born most probably at Kilpatrick, on the 
 Clyde, when he was sixteen years of age he was 
 taken captive by some Irish pirates, and brought 
 to Ireland. After six years he efiected his escape and 
 returned to his own country. But M'hat he had seen 
 in Ireland filled him with an intense desire to be 
 employed as a Christian missionary there. To pre- 
 jiare himself for this purpose he passed into France, 
 and spent some time under the tuition of his uncle, 
 St. Martin of Tours. His original name is said to 
 have been Succath, Patricius being the Roman appel- 
 lative by which he was known. His name, Succath, 
 is perpetuated in the district as the title of a property 
 there. In the year 431 he went to Rome, whence he 
 was sent by the Pope of the day, Celestine, to preach in 
 Ireland, in which he succeeded Paladius. In his time a 
 mighty change came over the face of Ireland. Religion 
 
S/. Patrick — St. N'inian. 55 
 
 nourished and spread into all parts. The threescore 
 lives and ten which are said to have been written of 
 this eminent saint doubtless contain much that sober 
 piety cannot receive as authentic history. According 
 to the accounts of his biographers, he went up and 
 down the whole of Ireland, preaching the Gospel and 
 founding churches. After 20 years labour, during 
 which he founded 305 churches, and baptised with 
 his own hands 12,000 persons, besides ordaining many 
 priests, he fixed his seat at Armagh, about A.D. 454, 
 and died at a place called Saul, near Downpatrick, 
 where his relics were preserved down to the period 
 of the Reformation. The only authentic literary 
 remains of this saint that are now extant consist of 
 his " Confession" and a letter addressed to Coroticus, 
 who is supposed to have been a Welsh chieftain, who 
 had made a descent on the Irish coast, and had slain 
 or carried otf amidst circumstances of great cruelty, a 
 number of the Irish, many of whom were under his 
 instruction. 
 
 Having thus traced the foundations of the early 
 British or Celtic Church, we now follow the stream 
 of events in connection with its rise and development 
 in the northern part of our "Isle." St. Ninian, St. 
 Mungo, and St. Columba are leaders in the noble 
 army of those who, in the name of a higher power 
 than that of Rome, invaded the shores of our barbarian 
 ancestors and put them to the sword — the sword of 
 the Spirit — and triumphed over them by Christianity 
 and the Word of God. 
 
56 The Scottish Chtwch. 
 
 According to Bede, the Southern Picts were con- 
 verted by the preaching of St. Ninian, who was con- 
 secrated Bishop of Whithorn, in Gallowa}'. Usher 
 supposes that the sphere of his evangelistic labours 
 extended from the modern Glasgow to Stanemoro 
 Cross, on the borders of Westmoreland. It seems to 
 have exceeded these limits. Bede states that this 
 "most reverend bishop and holy man of the British 
 nation had been regularly instructed at Rome in the 
 faith and mysteries of the truth ; that his Episcopal 
 see was named after St. Martin the Bishop; that it 
 was famous for a stately Church in which he and 
 many other saints rest in the body ; and that it was 
 still in existence in his time." " The place," he 
 further says, "belongs to the province of the Berni- 
 cians, and is generally called the White House, because 
 he there built a church of stone, which was not usual 
 among the Britons." 
 
 The time and place of his birth arc doubtful, though, 
 from his connection with St. Martin of Tours, who 
 died about A.D. 400, we know that he must have 
 flourished towards the close of the fourth century. 
 His biography, written by Abbot Ailred, in the 
 twelfth century, is not to be relied on as containing 
 a faitliful portraiture of his life. The floating tradi- 
 tions in which his memory was preserved during the 
 ages which intervened between him and his biogra- 
 pher seem to have grown chiefly on the side of the 
 marvellous. A few facts are given, served up with 
 the usual sauce of the miraculous, — the onmiprcsent 
 
S/. Ninian. 57 
 
 element iii the lives of the saints. He is said to have 
 visited Kome in his youth, where also he received his 
 early education. The Pope, learning that in some 
 parts of Britain there were people who had not yet 
 received the faith, a-nd others who had only heard 
 the Gospel from heretics, armed him with a commis- 
 sion to convert his native country. On his way home 
 he visited the celebrated Martin of Tours, who was 
 then one of the leading men in the Church of Gaul. 
 By Martin, to whom he was related, he was instructed 
 in monastic discipline ; and to him, perhaps, he owed 
 some of the enthusiasm he manifested in the great 
 work to which he had been consecrated. His return 
 home w^as hailed with great joy among all to whom 
 his wonderful devotion and saintly character were 
 known. Having established his residence in Galloway, 
 this holy man began in earnest the evangelistic 
 labours which, extending from the shores of the Sol- 
 way to the southern slopes of the Grampians, resulted 
 in the conversion of the Southern Picts, thus furnish- 
 ing an additional instance of the truth of Tertul- 
 lian's triumphant assertion two centuries before, that 
 " Chrstianity reigned in regions inaccessible to the 
 Roman arms." 
 
 Assisted by masons he brought with him from 
 France, he built the Church already mentioned as 
 the first stone edifice of the kind erected in the 
 country. From its white and glistening aspect, seen 
 over the Bay of Wigtown, it was called in Latin, 
 Candida Casa. 
 
58 The Scottish CJiiwch. 
 
 Such, then, are the meagre details history has pre- 
 served regarding him who may be called the Great 
 Pioneer of the Gospel to this land. The traditional 
 aspects of his life I have already referred to in my 
 introductory lecture. These are chiefly valuable as 
 a testimony to the mark he made in his day and 
 generation ; a mark the memory of which has come 
 down the ages, and made his shrine the attraction of 
 pilgrims ; and all who have felt the strain of clinging 
 afl'ection for the scene of a country's earliest contact 
 with Christianity will be drawn to Whithorn as to 
 holy ground. 
 
 A few years after St. Patrick's consecration to the 
 work, St. Ninian, as we have already seen., carried 
 the Gospel to the Southern Picts, and about the year 
 oGo, a new departure in our country's history was to 
 be inaugurated. The instrument in producing this 
 change was St. Columba, who then left the Monastery 
 of Durrough, in Ireland, and launched forth in a 
 wicker boat with twelve of his companions, full of 
 hope and zeal for the salvation of the Western Islands 
 and the North of Britain, where Druidism still lingered. 
 In the Island of lona he established his Mission with 
 a few consecrated men of Apostolic fervour; and 
 "from the nest of Columba," says ()<U)nellus, " these 
 sacred doves took their flight into all quarters," and 
 while in others the light emitted was as that of a 
 candle, illuminating small corners of the land, St. 
 Columba appears before us as a mighty beacon, shin- 
 ing out far, for the warning and guidance and salva- 
 
S/. Co /urn da. 59 
 
 tion of men. At a time when the dark cloud was 
 settling down upon Europe, when the progress of the 
 race was, during what was called the middle or dark 
 ages, under its shadowy gloom, St. Columba stands 
 torch-bearer in front, as John de Wycliffe does at the 
 other end, with his English Testament in his hand, 
 the morninof star of the Keformation. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 St. Columba^Asceticism — Monachism — Simeon the Stylite 
 — St. Antony — Literary Labours of the Monks. 
 
 (rx'X/ ^ now follow the current of events in onr 
 
 w 
 
 northern part of the island. St. Ninian had 
 gone to his rest. The work he did was not 
 perpetuated. The Southern Picts, to whom he carried 
 the Gospel, seem to have relapsed into their original 
 condition. At least, much of his work seems to have 
 perished with him. The darkness, scattered for the 
 moment, closed in again, and apparently swallowed 
 up all. Yet, as the traditional aspects of his story- 
 show, his life and work were by no means in vain. 
 It stands out indeed, as an isle of light with a night 
 of darkness encompassing it on every side. The 
 heathen Picts he started well; put them on the right 
 road, though they seem soon to have gone out of the 
 way. But perhaps their course was not so much 
 that of a pilgrim started well and losing the way, as 
 of a river descending out of sight, only to flow on in 
 an underground channel. The soil, to vary the meta- 
 phor, was probably, in consequence of the labours 
 of St. Ninian, in a state of preparedness for the 
 good seed to be sown by another ; or, as a fire that had 
 been smouldering, and suddenly bursts forth into a 
 
S^. Colinnba. 6 1 
 
 bright shining flame at the slightest breath of wind. 
 To the north of the Grampians was a region as yet, so 
 far as seen, utterly untouched by any Christian or 
 civilising influences. Indeed, the whole of Scotland 
 north of the Forth and Clyde was a dark picture. 
 There dwelt multitudes of wild men, grouped in tribes 
 or clans, whom the Romans could neither civilise nor 
 subdue, and who were the terror of their southern 
 neighbours. Here, then, was a held for heroic Chris- 
 tian effort — to " clear the dark places and let in the 
 law ; " to cast out the devil and all his works, after so 
 long a reign, and to plant in these benighted regions 
 the standard of the cross. The " fulness of time " was 
 come, and the man was also at hand. St. Columba 
 was that man. He, with the sacred lamp of Divine 
 truth, advances to the work. Like the promise of an 
 unquenchable fountain to unquenchable thirst, he 
 suddenly emerges in our land, and stands before us 
 a man of massive influence. He has rough material 
 to work on — many difficulties to encounter. But he 
 consecrates himself to the work wath a passionate 
 sense of the Infinite. The marvellous powers of his 
 voice have been commented on — its clear sounding- 
 tones heard a mile off, floating along on the western 
 waves. His powers of organisation ; the firm grip 
 with which he held the reins of government ; the 
 reverent obedience accorded to him by the whole 
 community of which he was the head ; and the alto- 
 gether unparalleled success that waited on his labours ; 
 all bespeak him a man that fitted his age " like a 
 
62 The Scottish Church. 
 
 glove." Other labourers in similar spheres had left 
 the gloom unbroken except by a lamp burning feebly 
 here and there, but Columba's labours pierced the 
 gloom and cleared away the surrounding darkness. 
 He rises up before us, indeed, in a setting of cloud- 
 land, encumbered by a weight of traditions, in 
 which the reality, in dreamlike thinness of material, 
 loses itself in a wilderness of padding; and he 
 looks like one of the old prophets or apostles come 
 back to earth armed with supernatural powers. The 
 mediseval chroniclers, whose critical powers all scho- 
 lars will appraise at their true value, gathered up in 
 one undistinguishable heap, fact and fiction, truth and 
 error, the thing as it was, and the accretions that grew 
 around, and modified it. They took no more care, 
 some of them, what they were thinking about, than 
 if there heads were channels for any rubbish to swill 
 through that happened to be in the way. According 
 to these literary luminaries, St. Columba prophesies, 
 sees visions, performs miracles, cures inveterate di- 
 seases, accords safety to storm-tossed vessels, and even 
 walks on the sea to his island home. Nay, we are 
 told that his powers were such that " he drove demons 
 out of milk-pails, outwitted sorcerers, and gave super- 
 natural powers to domestic implements," and such 
 like. But, notwithstanding these accretions of error, 
 which have clustered round this story, the story itself 
 is, in the main, abundantly authenticated. The tree 
 is there, though the ivy twines round it. As we look 
 steadily at the subject, wreath after wreath the mist 
 
SL Cohimba. 
 
 clears away, and we see revealed in the clear sun- 
 shine, about the year 565 A.D., this most renowned of 
 early Celtic missionaries, the father of the Church of 
 Scotland, leaving the monastery of Durrough, Ireland, 
 whence he set sail in a wicker boat with his companions, 
 animated with zeal for the conversion of the Western 
 Isles and Northern shores of Scotland, and the isle of 
 lona, one of the smallest of the Hebrides group, only 
 about three miles long, and nearly a mile in breadth, 
 situated in the midst of "wide waters," becomes for 
 centuries the focus of the world's light and learning. 
 From it Christian missionaries, filled with enthusiastic 
 zeal, are despatched in all directions, carrying the 
 message of the Gospel to our benighted countrymen, 
 especially to those parts of the land that had not 
 been overtaken by earlier missionary efforts, and 
 greater works are done by these men in the conver- 
 sion of our savage ancestors to Christianity, than all 
 the marvels with which medieval legends have sur- 
 rounded the name of St. Columba. From his sea-girt 
 isle, he and his companions went as far as the Ork- 
 neys, founding monasteries everywhere, on the pattern 
 of the parent establishment, till the whole land was 
 covered with a net-work of Christian agencies and 
 civilising influences. The Celts of Scotland and Ire- 
 land, and the Angles and Saxons in the north of 
 England, alike shared the " light and blessing" that 
 streamed from this island " retreat." Nor was the fame 
 of this little island confined to Britain and Ireland, 
 but, as already hinted, at a time when a dark cloud 
 
64 The Scottish Church. 
 
 of ignorance and superstition hung over Europe, its 
 influence was felt and recognised far and wide. 
 
 The organisation of the Celtic Church thus founded 
 in our land by St. Columba, being of a monastic cha- 
 racter, a consideration of the origin, nature, and de- 
 velopment of that institution, here claims something 
 more than a mere passing notice, no less because it was 
 in the air, and pervaded universal Christendom with 
 its spirit, than because it entered into the genius of the 
 Columban Church, which dominated in Scotland for 
 centuries. The institution of Monachism was founded 
 by St. Antony, (251-350). It was organised and 
 reformed by St. Benedict, (480-543) ; and still further 
 modified and extended by St. Francis (li82-122G). 
 It was introduced into Africa by St. Antony and St. 
 Augustine. Athanasius originated it at Rome and 
 North Italy. To St. Martin of Tours, the instructor 
 and relative of St. Ninian, is attributed its introduc- 
 tion to Gaul ; while Pelagius, whose views were in a 
 former lecture commented on, is said to have intro- 
 duced it into Britain. The monks lived apart from 
 the world, under A.scetic rule. Poverty, chastity, 
 celibacy, and obedience, were their characteristics. 
 They were divided into two classes, 1st, the Cenobites, 
 who lived together under common discipline ; and, 
 2nd, the Anchorites or Hermits, who lived in solitude. 
 This system, considered as a state of religious retire- 
 ment, with its accompaniments of contemplation and 
 devotion, its ascetical and penitential practices, is not 
 peculiar to Christianity, but has been found in several 
 
Asceticism. 65 
 
 religious systems, ancient and modern, — notably in 
 that of Judaism, of which the Essenes in the time 
 of our Lord, are an example ; while in the Fakirs of 
 India, and the Lamas of Tibet, the same thing is ob- 
 served. As an institution, then, the religious life, as 
 seen in the conventual system, is to be referred to a 
 general tendency or form of Oriental thought on reli- 
 gion which is known by the name of Asceticism. This 
 word is used to denote the exercise and discipline 
 practised by the athletes or wrestlers, who had to 
 harden their bodies by exertion, and to avoid all 
 sensual and effeminating indulgences. In the schools 
 of the philosophers, especially the Stoics, the same 
 word signified the practice of mastering the desires 
 and passions, or of severe virtue. In these senses it 
 passed into the language and thought of the early 
 Christians. The exhortation of our Lord to volun- 
 tary poverty (Matt. xix. 21), and St. Paul's recom- 
 mendation of celibacy (1 Cor. vii. 37), seemed to them 
 to afford justification for the ascetic life. The lan- 
 guage of St. Paul also, in comparing the Christians to 
 wrestlers who had to contend with Satan, the world, 
 and the flesh, contributed to the same results. But 
 the philosophy of the time, which regarded matter as 
 the prolific fountain of all evil, and the emancipation 
 of mind from its bondage as the grand means of union 
 with God, had more to do with the rise of this system. 
 The Christians regarded the world in which they lived 
 — the Eoman Pagan world — as wicked and abomin- 
 able ; and they seemed to hear the voice of the 
 
66 The Scottish Church. 
 
 Master, — the "still, small voice," — amid the noise 
 and strife of prevailing iniquity, saying : " Come out 
 from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not 
 the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be 
 a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons antl 
 daughters," The Pagan w^orld was cruel, and the 
 fires of persecution it kindled reinforced the "still 
 small voice," and the Christians fled to deserts, and 
 caves, and solitary places. In the self-inflicted tortures 
 of the Yogis and Fakirs; the suicides in the sacred 
 Ganges and under the wheels of Juggernauth ; in the of- 
 fering of children in sacrifice, and the burning of widows 
 on the funeral piles of their deceased husbands, we see 
 asceticism in all its horrors. In the Buddhist super- 
 stition we see, in its contemning the world ; in its 
 inculcating a life of solitude and beggary ; mortifica- 
 tion of the body, and abstinence from all uncleanness 
 and from all exciting drinks, the aim is, to keep as 
 distant and detached as possible from this " vale of 
 sorrow." The Egyptian Therapeutae, who abstained 
 from more than one w^ife ; who exercised themselves 
 in moderate flagellations ; and whose feasts were 
 characterised by the absence of swine's flesh and the 
 presence of the dead, exhibited, on the whole, a form 
 of asceticism of a comparatively mild type, like that 
 of our modern Vegetarians and Good Templars. The 
 joyousness of Greek life was never invaded by as- 
 ceticism — though in the view of the Socratic school, 
 which represented the body as the prison of the soul, 
 we see a dim shadow of it crossinfr the field of (J reek 
 
Asceticism. 67 
 
 thought ; for Stoicism and Cynicism never really re- 
 flected the popular Greek mind, which was cast essen- 
 tially in the moulds of cheerfulness. The Jewish 
 converts to Christianity brought with them their con- 
 victions about fasting and Nazaritic observances. The 
 inculcations of celibacy on the early Christians, on the 
 ground of the expected speedy reappearance of Christ, 
 falls in with the same notion, namely, that the flesh, 
 that is, the sensuous part of our nature, is the seat of 
 sin, and must therefore, before all things, be rigorously 
 chained. The old Oriental traditions of asceticism ; 
 the spirituality of Christianity, pointing away from 
 earth to heaven; opposition to the corruption of the 
 heathen world ; the distinction made between belief 
 and knowledge, as a higher and lower stage of intel- 
 ligence leading to a corresponding distinction of a 
 higher and lower stage of virtue — all combined to 
 make the Christians of the first three centuries hold 
 aloof from the world and its ways, and favour the 
 celibate life. Virgins wore veils and mitres of purple 
 and gold to indicate that none need apply to them to 
 propose marriage, as they were wedded to the Church. 
 And to such an extent did this ascetic spirit obtain, 
 that, early in the second century, the perilous practice 
 of men and women living together under vows of con- 
 tinence was in vogue. A very violent recoil from this 
 custom was early witnessed in the rule by which the 
 sexes were separated in the conventual system, no 
 male being allowed to enter the precincts of a nun- 
 nery, and vice versa. On this point it is not a little 
 
68 The Scottish ChtLvch. 
 
 ludicrous to observe the principle carried out even in 
 regard to the lower animals, and to find, in the estab- 
 lishments on Mount Athos in Greece, a rule l)y whicli 
 all female animals were rigorously excluded from the 
 sacred precincts of the Monasteries. But during the 
 first three centuries no irrevocable vows yet bound 
 the devotees to a life-long asceticism. At first the 
 Christians thought it sufficient to absent themselves 
 from all heathen festivals and amusements ; but by 
 and by extreme views crept in connected with a 
 belief in the merit of celibac}^ of abstinence from par- 
 ticular kinds of food, of self-inflicted tortures, etc. 
 And whereas at first the solitary life was looked upon 
 as only a refuge to which they were driven by 
 persecution or prevailing ungodliness, afterwards the 
 glory of a life spent in loneliness and austerity became 
 a substitute for that of the martyr's death. The 
 hermits first left the cities for the villages and rural 
 districts, then betook themselves to the desert and 
 outlying solitudes, far from the society of men. One 
 sect of them, called Boskoi, grazed with the common 
 herds in the fields of Mesopotamia. They dwelt in 
 caves and in cages. They wore chains and iron rings, 
 and through many years maintained painful postures. 
 A somewhat startling development of asceticism is 
 seen in the Pillar Saints, a form of superstition 
 that existed in the East — principally in Syria — from 
 the oth to the 12th century. Simeon the Stylite, a 
 monk of the 5th century, stands at the head of this 
 movement. Of him we read that, for nine years, he 
 
Monachis7n — Simeon the Sty lite. 69 
 
 lived ill a monastery without ever moving from his 
 cell ; that, increasing in enthusiasm, he withdrew to a 
 place 40 miles from Antioch, where he erected a pillar 
 on the top of which, only a yard in diameter, he took 
 up his position — a position of most complete separa- 
 tion from the earth. From this he removed to several 
 others in succession, each higher than the previous 
 one, till he attained to one of 40 cubits in height. 
 On the top of those pillars he spent 37 years of his 
 life, his neck loaded with an iron chain, and his 
 lips in constant prayer ; and during his more overt 
 acts of devotion he bent his body so that his fore- 
 head touched his feet. His powers of fasting have 
 also been noted. He frequently limited himself to 
 a single meal in the week. If we are to believe the 
 traditional accounts regarding this phase of his 
 life, he fasted during the 40 days of Lent with an 
 entire abstinence from food. In consequence of 
 these austerities, his fame was such that crowds of 
 pilgrims from distant countries, even from Britain, 
 came to see him ; and many Pagans and Saracens, we 
 are told, were converted by looking up to the saint on 
 his pillar, as the Israelites were healed when they 
 looked at the serpent of brass. Of one of his disciples 
 we read that for 38 years he maintained this mode of 
 life in the more trying climate of the shores of the 
 Bosphorus, four ndles from Constantinople, where 
 sometimes he was almost blown from the top of his 
 pillar by the storms of Thrace, and for days he was 
 covered with snow and ice. The earliest form of the 
 
yo The Scottish ChtLrch. 
 
 ascetic life was that of the hermit who lived in soli- 
 tary retirement from the world ; but in course of time 
 the devotees came to be grouped together in cells, with 
 a common sanctuary to which they might repair to 
 nourish the religious life. The little cluster of cells 
 round a common place of worship was called a Laura, 
 an institution which bridged the gap, and formed 
 the transition between the Eremitic and the Cenobitic 
 forms of Monachism, and arose out of a deep-seated 
 want of our nature which the solitary life of the 
 hermit did not satisfy. That want can only be met 
 in the public worship of God. The lonely recluse in 
 his desert cave had entered into David's experience 
 when he said : — " When I remember these things, I 
 pour out my soul in me ; for I had gone with the 
 multitude : I went with them to the House of God, 
 with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude 
 that kept holiday." Psalms xlii. 4. It was in the 
 Cenobitic, rather than the Eremitic form that Mon- 
 achism was lirst introduced into the west. As already 
 observed, St. Anthony (251-856) was its founder. He 
 found Asceticism in the air. He consolidated and 
 crowned it by the institution of the monastic system. 
 In Upper Egypt this father of Monachism was born. 
 A man of great wealth, he sold his possessions, and 
 distributed them to the poor. He withdrew himself 
 from the society of his fellows into a wilderness, where 
 he practised his austerities. Then, penetrating into 
 the far interior, he fixed his residence in an old ruin 
 on the top of a hill. Afterwards he founded the 
 
Monachism — St. Antony. 71 
 
 Monastery of Faioum, a group of separate and 
 scattered cells, near Memphis. This was the origin of 
 the Cenobite life. The persecution of the Christians 
 by Maximian, in 311 A.D., induced him to leave his 
 cell and go to Alexandria, in the hope of obtaining the 
 crown of martyrdom. Failing in this, he plunged 
 deeper into the desert, till he settled down in a place 
 about a day's journey from the Red Sea, and became 
 the mighty oracle of the Nile. In the year 855 a.d., 
 when 104 years of age, we find the venerable hermit 
 making his way to Alexandria, this time to dispute 
 with the Arian heretics. Here he meets Athanasius, 
 the great champion of orthodoxy in that heretical age. 
 Feeling his end approaching, Antony retired to his 
 desert home, where he died at the adv^anced age of 
 105 years, to become, as he well deserved, the most 
 popular Saint in the Romish Calendar. It is easy to 
 laugh at this institution; and truly, in some of its 
 aspects, the Monastic life presented quite a ludicrous 
 appearance. But it well becomes us to judge charit- 
 ably of those who thus surrendered wealth, pleasure, 
 home, and friends, at the bidding of duty and loyalty 
 to Christ. It is easy for a professing Protestant, who 
 never experienced the friction of a noble heart-sur- 
 render to God and duty, to asperse the character of 
 those who lived the ascetic life by attributing to them 
 heretical views of doctrine and selfish views of morals. 
 But let those who thus judge exhibit a similar devo- 
 tion to the cause of Christ, and then they will be 
 entitled to a hearing. Meanwhile it becomes all to 
 
72 The Soottish C/mrck. 
 
 remember that it is not the "hearers of the law," but 
 the "doers" that are justified. In the dark ages, the 
 monasteries were abodes of lioht. They were the 
 centres of secular learning and Christian culture. The 
 monks of the middle ages were perhaps the best 
 preachers that ever existed. They issued from their 
 cells, like men inspired, and, with flashes of fervid 
 eloquence, electrified their hearers. " The monasteries 
 were quiet havens amid surrounding tempests. Amid 
 the terrible insecurity of life, and the utter disregard 
 of right and wrong, which we can discern to have 
 been characteristics of Heathenism, here was compara- 
 tive security ; here were truth and righteousness." 
 But for them the treasures of antiquit5^ both sacred 
 and secular, would have perished. No man who 
 rightly estimates the value of those records in which 
 the sacred tradition has been preserved to our tin)e, 
 can refuse to recognise in that institution in which 
 the transcription of ancient manuscripts was carried 
 on and the richly-freighted raft floated down the ages, 
 one of the most beneficent, and in the providence of 
 God, one of the wisest possible arrangements. The 
 Christian who sees in the superstition of the Jews in 
 regard to the letter of Scripture a guarantee of the 
 purity of the text, will naturally be led to thank God 
 for the past existence of such superstition as led a 
 copyist of the cloister to append to his work the 
 following attestation of authenticity, a form whicli 
 was typical as fovnid in numerous manuscripts: "This 
 book, copied by M. N., fur the benefit of his soul, was 
 
Litei'ary Labojirs of the Monks. 73 
 
 finished in the year . May the Lord think upon 
 
 him ! " Every man, then, who values the Bible may 
 well rejoice that such an institution existed in times 
 when all Europe was in a state of turmoil and dis- 
 organisation. It is thus due to Monachism that we 
 are able to traverse the gulf of general ignorance that 
 separates the intelligence and civilisation of antiquity 
 from modern times, and to land on the native soil of 
 these monuments of mind, and memorials of the foun- 
 dation of our Scottisli Church. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Life of Columba — Ireland's Golden Age — Ancient Ecclesi- 
 astical Buildings — Discipline, Training, and Labours of 
 
 THE CULDEES — CoLUMBa's EVANGELISTIC LABOURS ; ViSITS St. 
 
 Kentigern ; his Death. 
 
 )TlN my last sketch I gave a bird's eye view of the 
 ^ character and work of Cokimba, and of the 
 monastic system on which his organisation was 
 founded. Among the workl's great men he is entitled 
 to no mean place. Head and shoulders above the 
 greatest of his contemporaries, he is the leading figure 
 on the canvas of the Gth century, in which he strides 
 like a colossus, as a great social fact, contributing in 
 large measure to shape the destinies of men, and to 
 form fresh channels, broad and deep, for the stream of 
 national progress to flow down the ages. An epoch 
 man like him is one of the groat bulwarks of history ; 
 a mirror in which we see reflected the age and body 
 of the time ; a clue to the inner moaning of the facts 
 of history in their relations to the past and present : 
 " As I take it," says Carlyle, " universal history, the 
 history of what man has accomplished in this world 
 is at the bottom the history of the great men who 
 have worked here. They were the leaders of men, 
 these great ones ; the modellers, patt(!rns, and, in a 
 
Life of St. Coliunba. 75 
 
 wide sense, creators of whatsoever the general mass of 
 men contrived to do or to attain ; all things that we 
 see standing accomplished in the world are properly 
 the outer material result, the practical realisation and 
 embodiment of thoughts that dwelt in the great men 
 sent into the world. . . . The great man is the 
 living light-fountain wliich it is good and pleasant to 
 be near. The light which enlightens, which has en- 
 lightened the darkness of the world ; and this not as 
 a kindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary 
 shining by the gift of heaven ; a flowing light-foun- 
 tain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood 
 and heroic nobleness ; in whose radiance all souls feel 
 that it is well with them. On any terms whatsoever 
 you will not grudge to wander in such neighbourhood 
 for a while." A brief survey of the facts of Columba's 
 life must here suffice. He was born at Gartan, in the 
 County of Donegal, in the north of Ireland, on the 7th 
 of December, 521 A.D. His father, Fedhlimidh, was a 
 kinsman of more than one chief then reigning in Ire- 
 land and the west of Scotland. His mother, Eithne, 
 was also of royal descent. He studied under St. 
 Finnian at Clonard, where there was a monastery of 
 8000 monks ; a great training school of missionaries. 
 St. Finnian had twelve chief disciples, who filled the 
 land with religious settlements. Columba was one of 
 this chosen band. Among his fellow-disciples he is 
 supposed to have had St. Comgall, St. Ciaran, and St. 
 Cainnech, a triumvirate of luminaries ; and so con- 
 spicuous was his youthful devotion, even in that 
 
76 The Scottish Chiwch. 
 
 saintly company, that he received the name by which 
 he is still best known in Ireland, " Colunicille," or 
 " Columba of the Cell," hence, too, the common name 
 of the Island of lona, " I-columkill," " the Island of 
 Colum of the Cells." In 546 a.d. Columba founded 
 Derry, and six or seven j^ears afterwards Durrow, the 
 greatest of all his Irish monasteries, of which the 
 number was considerable. Of these monastic colleges 
 St. Patrick and his discij^les founded about a hundred, 
 and such was their celebrity, that, as Bede informs us, 
 the youths of Britain were sent to them for education. 
 One of the most celebrated of these monasteries was 
 at Bangor, in Down, of Avhich St. Comgall was the 
 first Abbot. This establishment is said to have con- 
 tained 3000 residents. Another, equally eminent, Avas 
 that of St. Finnian at Clonard, near the Boyne, in 
 which, as we have already noted, Columba for some 
 time studied. St. Ciaran, whose cave and chapel are 
 pointed out near Campbeltown, and whose virtues 
 have been summed up in the saying that " he never 
 told a lie, nor looked upon a woman," was also the 
 father and founder of one at Clon, upon the Shenan ; 
 while Cainnech, the saint of Kilkenny, founded a 
 monastery in the eastern corner of Fife, at a spot by 
 the sea called Rig Monadh, the royal mount, the scene 
 of the great church and monastery of St. Andrew's, 
 hence anciently called Kilrymont. In these institu- 
 tions we see the embryo of our cathedrals and 
 universities in later times. They were so many 
 colleges of learned divines wherounto the people 
 
Ireland's Golden Age. J J 
 
 usually resorted for instruction, and the Church was 
 wont continually to be supplied with able ministers. 
 No w^onder the Irish love to dwell with such enthusi- 
 astic delight upon these times, when we find them 
 sending forth such holy men as Columba, the founder 
 of lona ; Columbanus, the founder of monasteries in 
 France and Italy ; Coelius Sedulius, Aidan, Finan, 
 Gallus, and others, some of whom laboured so success- 
 fully among the Anglo Saxons in the seventh century. 
 In the beginning of the ninth century there were no 
 fewer than 7000 students in the single college of 
 Ardmagh (Armagh), notwithstanding that there were 
 three more (Cashel, Dundaleathglass, and Lismore) 
 which vied with this, besides a great many private 
 and independent training institutions in other parts 
 of the island. For, " let it be remembered," as it has 
 been well said, " that there was a time when Ireland 
 was the sanctuary of Christian truth, the school of 
 Europe, the nurse and the mother of the holiest men, 
 and the enlightener of an age of darkness. Upon 
 this period a cloud has hitherto rested, enveloping it 
 in the profoundest obscurity. Its most heroic and 
 saintly names have been dealt wath as the shadows of 
 a myth. The memory of it has been preserved in our 
 days only by a few faint allusions to it in authors of 
 more than ordinary research. No traveller visits 
 Ireland with the thought that he is treading ground 
 hallowed and ennobled as one of the brightest sanctu- 
 aries of the Church. He looks upon its bordered 
 castles and ruined abbevs, numerous as they are, con- 
 
The Scottish ChtwcJi, 
 
 temptuoiisly, as compared with the grander monu- 
 ments of England, and painfully, as associated only 
 with records of turbulence and crime. A Danish rath 
 or a Druidical stone may catch his attention for a 
 moment ; a slight question may cross his mind as to 
 the reality of a St. Patrick, or the school of St. 
 Columba ; but to look for any trace of their footsteps, 
 or any light upon their history, would seem a delusion 
 like a struggle to exhume the relics of a pre-adamite 
 nation." How bright with promise was Ireland then, 
 how sad its condition now ! How has its golden age 
 been succeeded by one of brass ? A star in the 
 literary world lately set has said : " The honesty of 
 the Greeks begins at what is the hanging point with 
 us." And to such a level has that unhappy country 
 sunk, that in crime and ignorance, in nmrder and 
 robbery, it bids fair to vie with the reputation of the 
 Greeks. It is enough to overlay all human hope and 
 enterprise with an eternal frost, to think that the 
 ground which was trodden then by Christian heroes, 
 the excellent of the earth, is now crawled over by 
 those swarms of men who preach a gospel of hatred 
 and robbery. Poor Ireland ! a brighter future, let us 
 hope, awaits her; but at present the darkness thickens; 
 the light grows less. Then Christianity was a living 
 power, quickening the heart and ennobling the life ; 
 now it is but a name, and scarcely penetrates skin 
 deep! "Most of these men," says Fuller, "seem born 
 under a travelling planet, seldom having their educa- 
 tion in the place of their nativity ; oft-times composed 
 
Ancient Ecclesiastical Buildings. 79 
 
 of Irish infancy, British breeding, and French prefer- 
 ment; taking a cowl in one country, a crozier in 
 another, and a grave in a third ; neither bred where 
 born, nor beneficed where bred, nor buried where 
 beneficed ; but wandering in several kingdoms." The 
 reason which determined Columba to leave Ireland, 
 where he bulked so largely in that age of heroes, is 
 supposed to have had a political origin. He appears 
 to have embroiled himself in the civil strifes of his 
 country. A bloody battle fought in Connaught, in 
 561 A.D., was believed to be traceable to the action of 
 Columba, who w^as forthwith excommunicated by an 
 Irish ecclesiastical Synod. The justice of the sentence 
 was indeed challenged by ecclesiastics of rank ; but 
 the die was cast. In 503 A.D., when in his 42nd year, 
 he finally took his departure from his native land, and 
 settled in the Island of lona. The first temples in 
 which Christianity was enshrined in our island were 
 of the humblest description, being built of oaken 
 planks, or of wattles, thatched with reeds, or covered 
 with sheets of lead. St. Patrick, we are told, on one 
 occasion, built a quadrangular church of moist earth, 
 because wood was not near at hand. In such rude 
 structures did our fathers worship God when the 
 Pagan gods of Rome had costly temples erected in 
 their honour. And when Roman palaces and walls 
 and aqueducts were built of solid masonry, the early 
 Christians had in Glastonbury, " the beginning and 
 fountain of all religion in England," nothing more im- 
 posing for their oratory than a wattled hut. The 
 
8o The Scottish Church. 
 
 Church of St. Ninian, as already noted, marks an 
 epoch in ecclesiastical architecture, when stone was 
 introduced to supersede the wattled walls and reed 
 roofs which characterised the buildings of that age in 
 this land, when walls of twigs wended and twisted 
 together were thought fit as well for the worship of 
 God as for the residence of kings. At Glastonbury, 
 where Christianity in Britain first had a " local habi- 
 tation and a name," we might have expected some- 
 thing better. Some of the earliest transactions of the 
 Romans took place here, and their presence here con- 
 tinued to the latest period of their occupation of this 
 country. Various traces of Roman roads may be 
 detected in different places, all pointing to the spot, 
 and many Roman coins have been turned up within 
 the old abbey enclosure, which covers 60 acres of land. 
 According to a "strong and unvarying tradition," this 
 was the scene of the first mission establishment of 
 Christianity that was planted in Britain. It was 
 accordingly styled in very early times " The Mother 
 of the Saints," and by some " The Burying-place of 
 the Saints." It became the most magnificent abbey 
 in the world, and was guarded by the most scrupulous 
 care, no man, be he prince or bishop, being permitted 
 to enter its sacred precincts without leave of the 
 Abbot, a functionary who sat among the Barons of 
 England for 000 years. And yet this scene of 
 hallowed memories and sacred associations consisted 
 of a few wattled huts surrounded by a marsh, and 
 occasionally covered with water from the tides of the 
 
The Cttldees. 
 
 Bristol Channel. We need not, therefore, be surprised 
 to find a similar rudeness of form in the structures 
 reared by Columba for his establishment at lona. The 
 general character of the Culdee establishments is well 
 known. There was the earthen rampart enclosing the 
 settlement, the barn, the mill stream, the kiln, the 
 refectory. The Church, with the sacristy, was of oak. 
 The cells of the brethren were of clay, held together 
 by wattles, Columba, the Abbot, had his special cell 
 at lona, in which he wrote and read. Like Jacob of 
 old, he slept on the bare ground, with a stone for his 
 pillow. The dress of the brethren was simple, and 
 free from all adornment. It consisted of a white 
 tunic, over which was worn a rough mantle and hood 
 of wool of its natural colour. They bore the special 
 tonsure — sign of the solemn vows by which the mem- 
 bers of the community were bound — which left the 
 forepart of the head bare. They were shod with 
 sandals, which they took off at meals. Their food 
 was simple also, consisting commonly of barley bread, 
 milk, fish and eggs, with seals flesh, though on Sun- 
 days and festivals the fare was somewhat better. The 
 training and probation of the Culdees were marked by 
 severity of discipline and protracted study. Many of 
 the students employed themselves in the mechanical 
 arts, as well as in the study of medical and other 
 sciences. The laws and customs and histories of 
 nations, the study of the classics of antiquity, formed 
 the groundwork of those literary pursuits which fitted 
 the inmates of these establishments for their great 
 
82 The Scot lis J L Church, 
 
 work as pioneers of civilisation in this land, and re- 
 storers of it in others where it was in decline. 
 Attendance at public prayers three times during each 
 day, and as often in the night, was enjoined on the 
 brethren. In each office of the day they were to use 
 prayers, and chant three psalms ; and in the offices of 
 the night, from October to February, they were to 
 chant thirty-six psalms and twelve anthems, at three 
 several times : through the rest of the year twenty- 
 one psalms and eight anthems ; but on Saturdays and 
 Sundays twenty-five psalms and as many anthems. 
 Thus trained through a long period of probation, — 
 sometimes, as in the case of St. Munn, extending over 
 eighteen years, — lona sent forth her missionaries into 
 this and other lands, from which ignorance and idola- 
 try were to be banished by the influence of Christian 
 civilisation. The brethren were divided into three 
 classes : the seniors, the working brothers (who were 
 exempted from the Psalter exercises), and the pupils. 
 In the most plain and frugal manner, then, did these 
 Culdees live, supporting themselves by the labour of 
 their hands. They fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays 
 in Lent. They lived a life of rule and constant self- 
 denial. A peculiar form of austerity practised by 
 some was to remain in cold water till they had 
 repeated the entire Psalter. The chief service was 
 the Communion, celebrated each Sunday and on all 
 festal days. Easter — which they celebrated at a 
 diflercnt time from the rest of Christendom, because, 
 as Bcde says, " In that far-out-of-the-world abode of 
 
Discipline and Labours of the Culdees. 'i^ 
 
 theirs, none had ever communicated to them the 
 synodal decrees relating to the Paschal observanse " — 
 was the great festival of their Christian year. If we 
 look at the outside of this establishment at lona, we 
 see little to satisfy our sesthetical feelings in the little 
 group of mud and wattled huts, and in the austere 
 life of the brethren who found in these cells sanctu- 
 aries, under whose low roofs high thoughts were wont 
 to dwell. The island itself, with its "picturesque 
 bays, quiet dells, green hills, and plains not unfruit- 
 ful," presents yet little that is strikingly attractive to 
 the lover of natural scenery ; and then, when its social 
 gloom was unbroken by the light of woman's smile, it 
 seems like a desolation — a place enveloped by weird 
 mists. For these monks were strict celibates, and on 
 this consecrated island no woman was allowed to land. 
 The poet Otway has said: — 
 
 " O woman ! lovely woman ! Nature made thee 
 To temper man ; we had been brutes without you. " 
 
 But this fanciful eulogium of woman on the back- 
 ground of so unimposing a view of man can scarcely 
 apply to the Culdee establishments of Columba, for 
 on this foil of asceticism we see set a faith, like the 
 rainbow in the cloud, reflecting a bright lustre on the 
 scene ; a service training souls to a life of high conse- 
 cration to the highest interests of man. The outcome 
 of this organisation and life of rule was fraught with 
 the beneficence of the Gospel of Christ. The poor 
 were the especial objects on which the brethren be- 
 stowed their care. The hungry had their wants 
 
84 The Scottish CJiiircJi. 
 
 supplied ; the sick were carefully tended ; and the 
 ignorant were taken up and instructed by these saintly 
 men. St. Aidan, for instance, had the charge of twelve 
 children, to whom he was to be a "nursing father," 
 feeding, clothing, and educating thein as his own. 
 From this centre of Christian nurture there radiated 
 in all directions lines of light. Swarms of mission- 
 aries hived off from this parent establishment, and 
 settled at various points, amid a great surrounding 
 heathen population, in which they formed so many 
 Christian colonies. They went out day by day, labour- 
 ing in various places with zeal and boldness in the 
 work of the Master, and at night they repaired to 
 their cloistered retreat, where, amid the companionship 
 of the brethren, they found the comfort and refresh- 
 ment which, in such circumstances, human nature so 
 urgently needs. Wherever these centres were estab- 
 lished, there was a zone of cultivated land reclaimed 
 from the morass and the forest, a significant symbol 
 of the character of the influence wielded by these 
 Culdee missionaries on surrounding spiritual barren- 
 ness and heathen growths. Their first religious house 
 of any importance on the mainland was at Abernethy, 
 the Church of which is said to have been built in 
 Columba's lifetime, and which became the principal 
 seat of royalty in the Pictish Kingdom. St. Andrew's 
 also was a foundation of the Culdees, as well as Dun- 
 keld, Dumblane, Brechin, and other places. As to the 
 mode in which Columba carried on his operations in 
 the evanfrelisinG: of this land we know little. Adam- 
 
Columbas Labours. 85 
 
 nan, liis biographer, and one of his successors, extols 
 his wonderful powers, and relates how, on one occa- 
 sion, he arrived at the Pictish king's fort, the gates 
 suddenly burst open at his approach ; and how, as he 
 chanted the 45th Psalm, his voice, always loud and 
 deep, was preternaturally strengthened so as to be 
 heard like a thunder-peal above the din and clamour 
 by which the magicians tried to silence his evening 
 prayer under the walls of the Pictish palace. A Celtic 
 manuscript of a later date records how Columba and a 
 disciple came from Hy (lona) to Aberdour, a beautiful 
 little bay among the huge cliffs which fringe the coast 
 of Buchan ; how Bede, a Pict, was then high-steward 
 of Buchan, and " gave them that town in freedom for 
 evermore." In some such way as this Columba seems 
 to have traversed the Pictish mainland, the Western 
 Islands, and the Orkneys, establishing humble monas- 
 teries whose inmates ministered to the religious wants 
 of the people. Thirty-four years of his life were spent 
 in this way, during which time he converted the Pic- 
 tish king Brude, who dwelt at the mouth of the river 
 Ness, not far from the modern town, Inverness. And 
 when Aidan succeecl,ed Columba's cousin Connal, king 
 of the Scots, he was crowned by Columba at lona — 
 the first Christian coronation of our Scottish kings. 
 He paid repeated visits to his old home, Ireland, where 
 he was still much beloved. And when Glasgow was 
 still unborn, he visited St. Kentigern or Mungo, its 
 father and patron saint, who was then engaged preach- 
 ing Christianity among the Welsh or British tribes of 
 
86 The Scottish Church. 
 
 Cumbria and Strathclyde. The health of Columba 
 began to fail in the year 593 A.D., when he was in 
 his 72nd year, though his life was prolonged till he 
 reached his 77th year. When his end was approach- 
 ing, he visited the working brethren on the opposite 
 side of the island to that on which the monastery was 
 situated. From the litter in which he was carried he 
 addressed them in gentle tones, which made them sad, 
 as they thought of the inevitable stroke which was so 
 soon to descend on him who was their father and 
 head. Turning to the east, he blessed the island and 
 all its inhabitants, as from the verge of the shores of 
 all-subduing time. A week afterwards he felt that 
 his last day on earth had dawned. It was a Saturday, 
 the 8th day of June. With his faithful attendant, 
 Diormit, he went to bless the barn ; and rejoiced to 
 think that there was provision enough for his beloved 
 Monks for a year. " This day," he said, " in the holy 
 Scriptures, is called the Sabbath, wdiich means rest, 
 and this day is indeed a Sabbath to me, for it is the 
 last day of my present laborious life, and on it I rest 
 after the fatigues of my labours ; and this night at 
 midnight, which commenceth the solemn Lord's Day, 
 I shall go the way of our fathers. For already my 
 Lord Jesus Christ deigneth to invite me ; and to Him 
 ill the middle of this night I shall depart at His invita- 
 tion. For so it hath been revealed to me by the Lord 
 Himself." Returning to the monastery, we are told, 
 that a white horse that used to carry the milk vessels 
 from the cowshed to the dairy came to the saint, and 
 
Death of Cohimba. '^'j 
 
 laying its head on his breast, began to shed tears of 
 distress. The poor man blest his humble fellow- 
 creature ; then, ascending the hill hard by, he looked 
 upon the monastery, and, holding up his hands, 
 breathed his last benediction upon the place he had 
 ruled so well. Arrived at his little hut, he took up, 
 for the last time, his task of transcribing the Psalter. 
 The last lines he wrote are the 8th and 9th verses of 
 the S4th Psalm : — " O taste and see that the Lord is 
 good ; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. 
 fear the Lord, ye His saints ; for there is no want to 
 them that fear Him." This done, he laid down his 
 pen for the last time, saying : " Here, at the end of 
 the page, I must stop : let Baithene write what comes 
 after." At evening service he was present ; and, amid 
 the sighing of the wind and the moaning of the sea, 
 he lifted up his voice in prayer and praise. After 
 service he returned to his chamber, lay down on his 
 bed — a bare flag — and from his stony pillow he gave 
 his last counsels to the brethren, in words breathing 
 peace and charity. Then, subsiding into silence, he 
 lay till the midnight bell rung in the Lord's Day, 
 when he rose and entered the church in haste, followed 
 by his attendant. There was the saint alone, kneeling 
 before the altar ; and to the eyes of the advancing 
 brethren, the whole church was ablaze with heavenly 
 light ; but, as they entered, the light vanished and all 
 was dark. When lights were brought the saint was 
 lying before the altar. With a countenance lighted 
 up with joy and peace, he looked eagerly to right and 
 
S8 The Scottish Church. 
 
 left, moved his right hand in blessing on his brethren ; 
 and thus the wearied saint passed to his rest, amid the 
 lamentations of the monks. For three days and 
 nights, a storm of wind and rain beat upon the island ; 
 but the sea grew calm when the saint was laid in his 
 lowly bed to his last sleep. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Medievalism — Picts and Scots — St. Kentigern" — 
 His Austerities and Labours. 
 
 tHE elements of civilisation, for which we are 
 mainly indebted to the Romans, affected first 
 the southern parts of Britain, and were long 
 rigorously excluded from the wilds of Caledonia, But 
 in process of time, in language and literature, in archi- 
 tecture and improved agriculture, the Roman civilisa- 
 tion penetrated those parts which were inaccesible to 
 their arms. And Christianity, the greatest blessing 
 of all, M^as first imported hither during the Roman 
 occupation. In tracing the foundations of the Celtic 
 Church, our attention was first drawn to South Bri- 
 tain, where it took its rise. Early in the fourth cen- 
 tury, under Constantine, Christianity became the 
 religion of the State. In the fifth century St. Ninian 
 established himself at Candida Casa, and laboured for 
 the conversion of the southern Picts ; and a century 
 later St. Columba, from his monastery at lona, spread 
 a network of Christian agencies north of the Gram- 
 pians. Before taking up the thread of the story from 
 the life and labours of St. Columba, I propose to fore- 
 cast a little, by introducing to you in outline a view 
 of what is known as Medisevalism, at the threshold of 
 
90 The Scottish Church. 
 
 which we now find ourselves. I shall then invite you 
 to look a little ahead, to see what is going on in the 
 political and social state of this country during the 
 next few centuries in which the Columban Church 
 flourished, and conclude with a brief account of the 
 life and labours of St, Kentigern. Thus, by keeping 
 up our acquaintance with the outside world, by letting 
 in side-lights from the development of the Christian 
 system in Europe, and by tracing the progress of 
 Christianity in connection with our social and political 
 advancement ; by, as it were, throwing over the sub- 
 ject the social sky of evolution, we may hope to arrive 
 at a juster conception than would be possible in any 
 isolated treatment of our theme. The period at which 
 we have now arrived was one of much interest. Poli- 
 tically, confusion and darkness reigned ; wave after 
 wave had passed over the surface of the old Roman 
 State, and obliterated almost all the landmarks of the 
 ancient time. But in the general dissolution that 
 followed the dismemberment of the old Empire, in 
 the confusion that followed the decay of the old 
 order of things, the Church was rising into promin- 
 ence. The monks gathered up and saved from ruin 
 whatever was valuable and capable of assimilation. 
 They rescued agriculture from neglect, and preserved 
 the monuments of ancient learning. In times of tur- 
 bulence and bloodshed, these men were secure as 
 within walls of adamant. A religious reverence 
 proved a surer safeguard to these men than castles 
 or armour could have been. No marauder dare tres- 
 
Medicevalism. 
 
 pass on lands under the protection of priest and 
 bishop. The storms that raged outside produced 
 no ripple on the calm life of religious meditation 
 within the cloister. Over the chaos of contending 
 powers appeared the mitre and crozier of the Pope. 
 A combination of many agencies we see for ages at 
 work in weaving that fine and curious network which, 
 at first no bigger than a man's hand, was stretched 
 further and wider, till it became "a covering spread 
 over all nations," including and confining within its 
 fatal meshes the bodies and the souls of men. We 
 are now bordering on the middle ages, that strange 
 bridge across the gulf that separates ancient and 
 modern history. All Europe we see with its night- 
 cap on, composing itself to sleep ; and, while the dark 
 cloud creeps over the sky, sleeping soundly. During 
 the long night of the dark ages, that " parenthesis," 
 as it has been called, in the history of the human 
 mind, which, preceded and followed by bright days, 
 seems all the more gloomy by the contrast, we see the 
 decline of learning going on side by side with the 
 rise and growth of the Papal power. The popularity 
 the Church attained from its beneficent action in 
 times of lawlessness and injustice, brought with it 
 temptations from which poverty or unpopularity 
 would have kept it free. As it gained in power it 
 sank in morals. It was in the decay of learning that 
 the Papal power advanced, as it was when men slept 
 that " the enemy sowed his tares." During that long 
 night, which may roughly be said to extend from the 
 
92 The Scottish Church. 
 
 seventh to the fourteenth century, the human intel- 
 lect was wrapt in a profound slumber. We look in 
 vain for learning or original genius. One or two 
 figures now and then flit across the darkness, as one 
 meets an occasional belated townsman in the deserted 
 streets of the city at midnight. St. Columba and St. 
 Kentigern stand out from the crowd, when the cloud 
 was settling down on the world, as the foremost men 
 of their day, holding the torch of Christianity in front 
 of the advancing night. Scotus Erigena and Alfred 
 the Great emerge, when the night was at its darkest, 
 holding in their hands the lantern of philosophy in 
 the midst of the surrounding gloom ; and John de 
 Wycliffe, with his English Bible, appears in early 
 dawn, when the cloud is passing away,, the herald of the 
 Renaissance — the " Morning Star " of the Reformation. 
 In looking at the map of Scotland, — at this time 
 called Alban, or Pictland, or Caledonia, — we have to 
 remember that it was divided into four kingdoms, 
 two in the region north of the Forth, and two south 
 of that estuary. In the north, Alban proper, were the 
 Picts and the Scots, the former in the east and the 
 latter in the west ; while southward of that line were, 
 on the west, the Britons of Strathclyde ; and on the 
 east the Saxons of Northumbria. From Ireland, the 
 land of the Scots, then called Scotia, a colony had 
 settled in Argyleshire in the 5th century. At first 
 over-shadowed by the more powerful monarchy of 
 the Picts, they gradually increased in numbers and 
 strength, till, in the 9th century, by a revolution, the 
 
Picts and Scots. 93 
 
 Scots acquired a predominance in northern Britain. 
 Their first prince, Fergus, came to Britain early in the 
 6th century. His great-grandson, Conal, was king of 
 the Scots when Columba began his great work, the 
 conversion of the northern Picts. Aidan, his nephew, 
 who was crowned by Columba at lona, was a powerful 
 prince ; but his successors were obscure. During these 
 reigns almost all we know of the Scots is that they were 
 in unceasing conflict with the Picts, as well as with 
 the Britons of Cumbria. In the year 836 Kenneth 
 M'Alpine succeeded his father as king of the Scots. 
 He was lineal descendant of Fergus and Aidan. The 
 Pictish kingdom, weakened by civil dissension and a 
 disputed claim to the throne, was easily won over by 
 Kenneth, who laid claim to it as the true heir in the 
 female line. In 843 Kenneth became king of the 
 united kingdom of the Picts and Scots. The first 
 Christian king of the Picts was Brude, the son of 
 Mailcon, whom Bede styles a very powerful king. 
 His chief residence was on the banks of the Ness, and 
 there Columba baffled and confuted his heathen magi- 
 cians. Of the successors of Brude, engaged, for the 
 most part, in war with their Northumbrian and Scot 
 neighbours, we select two as worthy of mention here. 
 The first is Nectan, son of Dereli, who succeeded about 
 the year 710. He cultivated learning to some extent, 
 and aspired to the position of an ecclesiastical re- 
 former. Like our own James VI., he took part in 
 ecclesiastical councils. At one which he summoned to 
 discuss the questions of ritual and Easter, he endea- 
 
94 riie Scottish C/mrck. 
 
 voured to carry out a policy to assimilate these obser- 
 vances in Scotland to the English model. In a letter 
 from the Abbot of Jarrow, whom he consulted in this 
 and other matters, and which appears in the works of 
 Bede, he is thus addressed : — " To the most excellent 
 lord, and most glorious King Nectan." The king's 
 command was peremptory ; the Scottish Church was 
 to be overshadowed by the English. Architects were 
 sent by the Abbot of Jarrow to build a church of 
 stone in the Roman fashion, which he proposed to 
 dedicate to St. Peter. The Scots were unmoved by 
 his authoritative commands. His policy was post- 
 poned for four centuries, and St. Andrew was destined 
 to keep his ground against St. Peter. But the most 
 active of all the Pictish sovereigns was Hungus, son 
 of Urgust, who succeeded in 780, and reigned for 30 
 years. He was engaged in constant wars with the 
 Scots, the Britons, and the English, in which he was 
 generally victorious. After his death the kingdom of 
 the Picts suffered rapid decline, its latest period being 
 involved in impenetrable obscurity. All that we know 
 for certain is the final result. Various princes claimed 
 the crown, and held possession of various portions of 
 the kingdom, till Kenneth, king of Scots, the most 
 powerful competitor, was acknowledged king, and 
 fixed his residence at Forteviot in Stratherne, the 
 then capital of the Pictish Kingdom. 
 
 The name of Scotland was first given to the United 
 Kingdom of the Picts and Scots in the tenth century, 
 superseding the ancient names of Pictavia, or Pictland, 
 
wS"/. Kentii 
 
 Alhan, or Caledonia, by which it had formerly been 
 known. The Picts and Scots now gradually coalesced 
 into one people, whose territory extended from the 
 Friths of Forth and Clyde to the northern extremity 
 of Britain. While St. Ninian had taught Christianity 
 among the Picts south of the Grampians, and St. 
 Columba in his labours overtook the region north of 
 that boundary, the country south of the Forth, in- 
 habited by the Strathclyde Britons, was not left in 
 darkness. Early in the sixth century there arose one 
 who, contemporary with Columba, made his mark on 
 that age ; and, in the City of Glasgow, of which he 
 may be called the Father, we recognise a monument 
 erected to his memory, and a type of his enduring 
 fame. St. Kentigern (a.d. 516-601), or, as he is more 
 popularly named, St. Mungo, or the beloved, a title 
 which speaks of the amiability of his character, was 
 connected with the royal family of the Cumbrian 
 Britons through his mother, St. Thenau. He was 
 educated at Culross by St. Serf, who had a cell there, 
 an educational establishment whose fame was wide- 
 spread, as a centre of Christianity whose light irradi- 
 ated the north shore of the Firth of Forth. After 
 being educated at this school, he planted a small 
 religious establishment on the banks of a little stream 
 which falls into the Clyde at what is now the city of 
 Glasgow. Upon a tree beside the clearing in the 
 forest he hung his bell, to summon the savage people 
 of the neighbourhood to worship, and the tree with 
 the bell still appears in the arms of Glasgow. Thus 
 
96 The Scottish CJuirch. 
 
 was the commencement made of what in time became 
 a seat of population in connection with a Culdee 
 establishment ; by and bye an industrious town ; ulti- 
 mately, what we may now see, a magnificent city with 
 more than a half a million of inhabitants. In the 
 midst of his great work troubles came upon him. The 
 king of the Strathclyde Britons was his enemy, and 
 made the place so hot for him that he fled for refuge 
 to Wales, where, however, he did not relax his efforts 
 as a Christian Missionary. At Menevia, now St. 
 David's, he found a congenial friend and brother in 
 the saintly David, whose name is perpetuated in that 
 See. Under David the cause of religion attained to 
 great prosperity. " He was to all," says Giraldus, " A 
 mirror and a pattern of life ; he taught both by pre- 
 cept and example ; was an excellent preacher in words, 
 but more excellent in works. He was a doctrine to 
 those who heard him, a model to the religious, life to 
 the needy, defence to orphans, support to widows, a 
 father to the fatherless, a rule to works, a directory to 
 men of the world ; being made all things to all msn, 
 that he might win all to God." During St. Kenti- 
 gern's residence in Wales, between 540 and 5G0, a 
 religious Prince of Denbighshire bestowed upon him a 
 piece of land at the confluence of the rivers Elwy and 
 Clwyd, on which he built a school and monastery, 
 called from it Llan-Elwy, where a great number of 
 disciples and scholars soon placed themselves under 
 his direction. His enemy of Strathclyde being now 
 dead, he, in 5 GO, returned to his old charge in Scot- 
 
SL Kentigern. 97 
 
 land, whither he carried along with him many of his 
 scholars. On leaving Wales he appointed Asaph or 
 Hassaph, one of his disciples, his successor in the 
 school and monastery. His successor was a native of 
 North Wales, and his name is handed down to our 
 day in the See of St. Asaph. Though his old friend, 
 St. David, had been dead for many years, on his return 
 from Wales he was visited by St. Columba at his little 
 church beside the Clyde. One circumstance connected 
 with this visit is recorded. The two chief shepherds 
 interchanged their respective pastoral staves, as a 
 token of brotherly affection. St. Kentigern's pastoral 
 staff was not gilded and gemmed, but of simple wood, 
 and merely bent, and in this exchange of croziers, 
 unless Columba's was a very poor one, he must have 
 had the best of the bargain. Of St. Columba's self- 
 denial and austerity I have already spoken. It was 
 the pervading influence and spirit of the age, so far as 
 Christianity was concerned. It was all of this ascetic 
 tj-pe. St. Kentigern was by no means free from it. 
 In his hand he always carried his Manual Book, ready 
 to exercise his ministry whenever needful. His bed 
 was a hollow stone, in which he cast a few ashes when 
 he lay down. This done, taking off his sackcloth, he 
 wooed sleep in the ashes, like another Jacob, with a 
 pillow of stone for his head. " Verily," says his bio- 
 grapher, Joceline, " he was a staunch combatant 
 against the flesh, the world, and the devil." At the 
 second cock-crowing he arose, and, stripping himself 
 of his raiment, he plunged into the cold and rapid 
 
98 The Scottish Church. 
 
 stream, and then, with eyes and hands lifted up to 
 Heaven, he chanted on end the whole Psalter. Such 
 bodily ablutions, we are told, produced in him a 
 wonderful physique ; and we are not surprise<l to 
 learn that his spirit, tlius soaked in asceticism, became 
 pure and bright, and that sometimes, when he said the 
 Sursum Corda, and sought to lift up his own heart to 
 Christ, a " glory gleamed upon his face and form, so 
 that he seemed like a pillar of fire." For a while he 
 abode in Dumfriesshire, where Rederech (Iloderick) 
 the Liberal, the friendly king who succeeded his 
 enemy, met him, but Glasgow was his seat. From 
 this centre his influence extended north as far as the 
 Orkneys and South to Wales. Galloway also shared 
 in his beneficent influence. Tradition assigns him a 
 long life, 185 years. From this we may safely deduct 
 100 years, and say that, though he died at the age of 
 85, he lives through the ages, and will live not merely 
 in those localities in which his name is knoAvn, but in 
 those streams of holy influence which are part of our 
 inheritance from the past, and of which he contributed 
 so largely towards the initial impulse. In the ceme- 
 tery of his church " for a long time," says his bio- 
 grapher, " all the great men of that region have been 
 in the custom of being buried." There rested in old 
 days 0G5 saints of God. It is still, as in days of old, 
 customary to bury hard by the place where so many 
 of Christ's saints sleep. And in a solemn burying- 
 place, that awes one by its wide extent, " with terraced 
 walks, and green slopes, and rocky graves, a very city 
 
Sf. Kentigeru. 99 
 
 of the dead, the good and wise of the vast city of the 
 livino', and many of its fair and young no less, are 
 laid, as of old, beneath the shadow of the great Church 
 of St. Kentigern." The miracles which he was be- 
 lieved to have wrought were so deeply rooted in the 
 popular mind, that some of them sprung up again in 
 the eighteenth century to grace the legends of the 
 Cameronian martyrs. Others are still commemorated 
 by the armorial ensigns of the city of Glasgow — a 
 hazel tree whose frozen branches he kindled into a 
 flame, a tame robin which he restored to life, a hand- 
 bell which he brought from Rome, a salmon which he 
 rescued from the depths of the Clyde, the lost ring of 
 the frail Queen of Cadzow. Nor is it St. Kentigern 
 (Mungo) only whose memory survives at Glasgow, the 
 Parish Church of St. Enoch commemorates his mother, 
 St. Thenau, and it is not many years since a neigh- 
 bouring spring, which still bears her name, ceased to 
 be an object of occasional pilgrimage. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Early Modes of EvANGELisAxiojf — Caledonia 
 Kegenerated. 
 
 ~\Vlr?7'E have seen how Christianity was introduced 
 X^y~^ ^^^ extended in this land — how St. Ninian, 
 St. Columba, and St. Kentigern, "prepared 
 the way of the Lord " among the savage races that 
 then peopled North Britain; how St. Cokimba planted 
 religious establishments among the Picts and Scots, 
 and St. Kentigern Christianised the Britons of Stratli- 
 clyde. Our country, thus possessed by Celtic Mission- 
 aries, the coadjutors and successors of these great men, 
 we can but dimly imagine the struggle which for gene- 
 rations must have been carried on before the Pagan 
 ideas gave place to Christianity in the minds of our 
 ancestors. It is all but impossible to place ourselves 
 in the position of these men — to see things as they 
 saw them. The effect is nothing less than an endea- 
 vour to revert to a ruder type of mental structure ; to 
 put aside our hereditary culture, and to become for 
 the time barbarians. The distance between eastern 
 and western thought, the interval that separates the 
 European from the Asiatic mind, is a faint approxima- 
 tion of the contrast between the Christianity of a 
 Columba or Benedict, and the heathenism of one of 
 
Early Modes of Evangelisation. loi 
 
 these wild Caledonians. The clash and conflict and 
 mental friction incident to the process of Christianis- 
 ing these savage tribes must, from the nature of the 
 case, have rendered the work a tedious one. Even 
 with all our modern appliances and Christian organisa- 
 tions, how slowly is the work of converting the heathen 
 carried on ; how comparatively meagre are the results 
 of Missions to heathen lands ! One method adopted 
 by these early Celtic Missionaries was, to go direct to 
 the reigning chief or kingiing, preach the Gospel to 
 him, and get him to interpose his authority for the 
 conversion of his subjects. This, which might be de- 
 scribed as the method of gravitation, proceeded on the 
 principle that the head of the tribe being won, the 
 influence would filter down through all grades of the 
 people — the leaven, being inserted in the centre, would 
 soon leaven "the whole lump." However crude, or 
 even absurd, this notion may appear to us, we must 
 remember that individualism, whether in politics or 
 religion, in the state of society that then existed, was 
 an unknown quantity. Besides, are we certain that 
 something very like this does not operate in modern 
 society — that habits, and manners, and modes of 
 thought, do not naturally tend to follow the law of 
 gravitation, and descend from the upper to the lower 
 grades of the social system ? Another method of meet- 
 ing the difiiculty consisted in a system of compromise 
 which has a curious illustration in the instructions 
 given by Gregory the Great to Augustine, as recorded 
 by Bede. According to this method the Christian 
 
02 The Scottish Chzirch. 
 
 saint had to be substituted for the Pagan deity ; the 
 holy day of the Church for the Pagan festival, and the 
 Pagan Temple converted into the Christian Church. 
 The Roman Basilica, or Judgment Hall, however, was 
 the model almost universally adopted for Christian 
 architecture. No doubt this policy was liable to great 
 abuse. It is, of course, true that all religions, as such, 
 must necessarily have a good deal in common; and it 
 would be an objection to any new religion, not a re- 
 commendation, that it was wholly unlike all that had 
 been known before. The question may, however, be 
 asked, whether this compromising policy was not 
 carried too far in the Mediaeval Church, and whether, 
 to quote Fuller, "This new wine, put into old vessels, 
 did in after ages taste of the cask ! " But undoubtedly 
 the principle was recognised in the early Church, when 
 the Jewish Passover merged in the Feast of the Re- 
 surrection, and Christmas took the place of the Pagan 
 Saturnalia and Solstitia. It had been exemplified by 
 our Lord in the adoption of the rite of baptism, for 
 which precedents might be cited both in Jewish and 
 other existing religious usages. The Church, liowever, 
 was more chary in the application of this principle 
 during the first ages, while Paganism, in its most idola- 
 trous and licentious forms, was still a living power in 
 the world, though this caution perhaps increased the 
 diflficulty of evangelising the rural populations of the 
 Empire, among which Paganism steadily survived for 
 centuries after Christianity was the authorised religion 
 of the State. The story of the jirofessing convert wlio 
 
Caledonia Regenerated. 103 
 
 continued to make his bow to the statue of Jupiter, in 
 case his day should return, illustrates the same fact 
 from another point of view. With this reservation, 
 we may not minimise the force of Fuller's thunder, 
 when he says : " In process of time, Christianity, keep- 
 ing a correspondency and some proportion with Pagan- 
 ism, got a smack of heathen ceremonies." And in 
 reference to the Pantheon, or " shrine of all gods " in 
 Rome, which was turned into a Christian Church, he 
 adds — " Surely they had better have built new nests 
 for the holy dove, and not have lodged it where 
 screech-owls and unclean birds had formerly been 
 harboured. If the High Priest among the Jews was 
 forbidden to marry a widow or a divorced woman, but 
 that he should take a virgin of his own people to wife, 
 how unseemly was it that God Himself should have 
 the reversion of profaneness assigned to His service, 
 and His worship wedded to the relict, yea (what was 
 worse) whorish shrines, formerly abused with idola- 
 try." By whatever method it was accomplished, we 
 see the great work going on in our land, whereby in 
 the sixth and seventh centuries barbarism is being 
 baptised and made a new creature, the angel is being 
 born, and the ape and tiger in us doomed. The wild 
 Caledonian has caught a higher vision that will poison 
 all meaner life for evermore. From the dim life of 
 the past, with all its savage fierceness and absence of 
 the feelings of true humanity, he was waking up to 
 the contact of a supreme love, a motive that gave a 
 sublime rhythm to life, a high initiation in the sphere 
 
104 ^^^^ ScottisJi ChitrcJi. 
 
 of influences that modify and ennoble the being. 
 Here, then, is a great landmark in the history of 
 Christianity in our land. Here let the light of his- 
 tory shine forth, is the fond aspiration that involun- 
 tarily arises in our breast. But, alas, vain is the 
 thought ! For just here, where it would be so inte- 
 resting to watch the spiritual transformation going on 
 in our land, history limps. Our guides withdraw. 
 The light grows less. Even with Bede we come into 
 the stifling atmosphere of legend and myth, and after 
 him silence and darkness reign. In vain do we long 
 for the braced soul and hardy courage of the historical 
 critic, who, " having climbed the lofty peaks of bygone 
 centuries," has watched and noted the inevitable dis- 
 covery and defeat of lies, the grandeur and beauty of 
 truth. But already we know that the influence of 
 lona was beginning to be felt both in the north and 
 south. There were religious establishments at Aber- 
 nethy. Deer, and elsewhere, which, established by her 
 monks, so grew in reputation that they began to rival 
 the parent monastery. The Orkney Isles in the 
 north, and Northumberland in the south, became the 
 scene of missionary labours carried on by the brethren. 
 From the wave-washed island of the Atlantic there 
 thus streamed influences tliat tilled our land and over- 
 flowed her boundaries, causing "the wilderness and 
 the solitary place to be glad for them, and the desert 
 to rejoice and blossom as the rose." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 Mohammed and Gregory I. — The Crescent and the Cross— 
 The Good Missionary Pope — Augustine's Mission to Eng- 
 land — Rome and Iona Meet in England. 
 
 jiTiT was at the close of the sixth century that Gre- 
 (^ gory I., Bishop of Rome, conceived the idea of 
 converting the Anglo-Saxons of Britain. In an 
 early age, as we have seen, Christianity was intro- 
 duced into Britain. But the Celtic Church had well- 
 nigh perished under the influence of the heathen 
 invasion. The early Britons of the South had been 
 born to Christ, but needed to be born again ! The 
 lamp of Divine truth had been succeeded by the 
 choke-damp of Saxon idolatry. Like a palimpsest 
 originally inscribed with the Gospel, and subsequently 
 written over with monkish legend and superstition, 
 the early features of Celtic Christianity that charac- 
 terised South Britain were well-nigh lost in the 
 superincumbent heathenism with which they were 
 overlaid. Henceforth Christianity in tlie South par- 
 took, more or less, of the Roman form, while in the 
 north it existed for centuries in its insular Celtic 
 character. In the seventh century, what we now call 
 England, we see subject to a twofold spiritual inva- 
 sion. Rome attacks it on the south, and Iona invades 
 it on the north. A consideration of this interesting 
 
io6 The Scottish Church. 
 
 episode in the development of Christianity in Britain 
 will lead us out of our special field into the great, 
 broad hiohway of general history, in which we see 
 European societ}^ in a state of dissolution, and Chris- 
 tianity partaking of the general decay, called suddenly 
 to face wild hordes of Arabs, "earnest as death and 
 life," in the belief and propagation of a great truth and 
 a great lie — the great truth, "God is One" ; the great 
 lie, " Mohammed is His prophet ! " In this century, 
 then, while we see the Celtic Church in Scotland 
 rising into prominence, establishing monasteries every- 
 where throughout the land, sending out its Christian 
 and civilising influences in all directions, bulging over 
 into England, and even extending its missionary opera- 
 tions to the Continent, the outlook on the Continent 
 of Europe also presents a scene of more than usual 
 interest, in which learning and piety are beheld in a 
 state of decline. The natural simplicity which charac- 
 terised the writings of the Apostolic age was now 
 succeeded by the coarse and confused jargon of the 
 schools. The lustre of the Gospel was eclipsed by a 
 cloud of corrupt opinions. Abuses crept in one by 
 one, and each paved the way for others, until an un- 
 seemly fabric of superstitious ceremony gradually 
 arose upon the ruins of genuine piety. An extrava- 
 gant veneration for departed saints and martyrs, the 
 idolatrous worship of images and relics, the pride and 
 ambition of ecclesiastics, and, especially the low moral 
 tone of society, and the vices and follies of the people, 
 mark this as an age of melancholy decline. In this 
 
Mohanwied and Gregory I. 107 
 
 .state of things two striking figures emerge on the 
 page of history — Mohammed and Gregory the Great. 
 Each in his own way impressed his mark on that and 
 succeeding ages. It may, perhaps, be thought a little 
 out of place in a sketch of Scottish Church History to 
 take into our view so wide a range ; but as we can 
 only adequately understand our subject when seen in 
 connection with the general development of Chris- 
 tianity, and the larger movements of the world ; and 
 as Gregory is the man to whom we are, most of all, 
 indebted for bringing Anglo-Saxon England into con- 
 nection with Roman Christianity, he is deserving of 
 notice here, as indicating the point of junction between 
 Rome and South Britain, and as affording, as we shall 
 afterwards see, some means of determining the com- 
 plexion of our Celtic form of Christianity as dis- 
 tinguished from that of Rome. As to the other great 
 figure, Mohammed, his only place here is as the em- 
 bodiment of a great religious and military power out- 
 side of, and antagonistic to, Christianity, a force which, 
 beginning in the deserts of Arabia, as a protest against 
 idolatry, gradually assumed the dimensions of a power 
 that threatened Christianity, and even civilisation it- 
 self. In Mecca, near the well Avhich Hagar found 
 with her little Ishmael, Mohammed was born (570 
 A.D.). To the Arab people this descendant of Ishmael 
 was as a birth from darkness to light. To this ob- 
 scure people, roaming unnoticed in the desert from 
 the time of Abraham their father, a prophet appears, 
 and the unnoticed becomes world-notable, the small 
 
io8 TJie Scottish Church. 
 
 has grown world-great. Within one century after- 
 wards Arabia is at Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on 
 that ; glancing in valour, and splendour, and the light 
 of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a 
 great section of the world. " These Arabs," says 
 Carlyle, " the man Mohammed, and that one century, 
 — is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a 
 world of what seemed black, unnoticeable sand ; but 
 lo, the sand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven- 
 high from Delhi to Grenada." Extending our outlook, 
 then, beyond the European barrier, our attention is 
 arrested by the rise, in Asia, of a new power, in the 
 form of a hostile creed and a destroying enemy — a 
 power that not only threatened the national exist- 
 ences of Europe, but the Christian faith. It w^as in 
 the year G21 A.D. that Mohammed made his trium- 
 phant entry into Medina, in Arabia. At this point a 
 new stream of events begins to flow in the world's 
 history. This entry is called the Hegira, or Flight, 
 and forms the commencement of the ]\Ioslem chrono- 
 logy. At this place began that new form of religion 
 which is known by the name of its founder. The 
 worshippers were summoned by a voice sounding from 
 the highest pinnacle of the Mosque or Church, and 
 announcing the words which to this hour are heard 
 from every minaret in the East — " God is great ! God 
 is great ! There is no God but God. Mohammed is 
 the apostle of God. Come to prayers ; come to 
 prayers. Prayer is better than sleep ; prayer is better 
 than sleep." This new swarm from the desert soon 
 
The Crescent and the Cross. 
 
 109 
 
 became the terror of Europe, They were not like the 
 Goths or Huns — savage warriors to be turned aside 
 with a bribe, or won by a prayer, but enthusiastic in 
 what they considered a holy cause, flushed with vic- 
 tory, armed and disciplined in a style superior to any- 
 thing the West could show. Ali, who married the 
 favourite daughter of the chief, we are told '-'fought 
 and prayed with the same irresistible force," and con- 
 quered the unbelievers with might and main, " cleav- 
 ing armed men from the crown to the chin with one 
 blow." Blow after blow resounded from these fierce 
 warriors, till the majestic empires of the Greeks and 
 Persians were laid low. And still the great march 
 went on, and everywhere high-peaked mosques arose 
 where formerly the basilicas of Christian worship 
 stood. This was the initial encounter of the Crescent 
 and the Cross, the struggle between Mohammedanism 
 and Christianity, which culminated in the Crusades. 
 Not altogether indiscriminate was the wrath of the 
 Caliphs, as the successors of the prophet were called, 
 against the professors of Christianity, as the following- 
 instructions from one of their number to the leaders of 
 the host will show : — "Be just, and spare the feelings 
 of the vanquished. Respect all religious persons who 
 live in hermitages or convents, and spare their edifices. 
 But should you meet with a class of unbelievers of a 
 different kind, who go about with shaven crown, and 
 belong to the synagogue of Satan, be sure you cleave 
 their skulls, unless they embrace the true faith or 
 render tribute." The monks were alarmed, and the 
 
I lo The Scottish Church. 
 
 monasteries were filled with exaggerated reports of 
 the progress of this vast invasion. In their appar- 
 ently sheltered positions, they could never be sure for 
 an hour that the missionaries of the new faith would 
 not be climbing over their walls with shouts of con- 
 quest, and giving them the option of conversion or 
 death. The attitude of this power to ancient civilisa- 
 tion comes out with tragic hopelessness in the Chris- 
 tian legend of the destruction of the Alexandrian 
 library, which contained a collection of MSS. so vast 
 and valuable that it had no equal on earth. Said 
 Omar the Caliph, to the general who was his in- 
 formant as to the literary wealth it contained : " Either 
 what those books contain is in the Koran, or it is not. 
 If it is, these volumes are useless ; if it is not, they 
 are wicked. Burn them." And so these records, of 
 priceless worth — irrecoverable monuments of the past 
 — were used to heat the baths of the city for many 
 months — an everlasting disgrace to the Saracen name. 
 This apparently retrograde movement, however, in 
 which the world was in danger of losing all the re- 
 sults of civilisation and all the lessons of Providence, 
 represents rather the eddying of the stream, than a 
 backward impulse. But to those contemporaries who 
 were competent to take a large view of events from 
 their standpoint, there was much in the aspect of 
 things to cause not a little anxiety. The rapid ad- 
 vance of this alien power from the desert seemed like 
 the sounding of the trump of doom over the old order 
 of thino-s, or lettimr the windlass rini down after men 
 
The Good Missionaiy Pope. 1 1 1 
 
 had been turning at it painfully for generations. When 
 Pope Gregory the Great first conceived the idea of 
 sending Christian missionaries to evangelise Great 
 Britain, the scheme and empire of the Prophet of 
 Islam — that Empire which, before many years elapsed, 
 extended from India to Spain — existed onl}' in his 
 mind. There it was fostered by study and medita- 
 tion ; and, moulded by a high poetical temperament, 
 gave rise to visions and dreams which startled the 
 repose of the world as a nightmare. Meanwhile 
 Gregory, fired with Christian zeal, cherished the noble 
 design of sending Christian missionaries to convert the 
 heathen in various parts, and especially the Anglo- 
 Saxons of Great Britain. Thus, unconsciously to each 
 other, the two great powers of Christianity and 
 Mohammedanism were being prepared for the im- 
 pending struggle. The story of Gregory's celebrated 
 mission for the conversion of this country is well 
 known. It refers to the time before he sat in St. 
 Peter's chair, while he was Abbot of the Monastery of 
 St. Andrew's, Rome. Passing through the market- 
 ])lace of that city, on one occasion, he beheld exposed 
 for sale several fair and beautiful children, with ruddy 
 cheeks and blue eyes, and their fine yellow tresses 
 flowing in long curls upon their shoulders. Inquiring 
 from what country or nation they were brought, he 
 was told from the island of Britain, whose inhabitants 
 were of such j^ersonal appearance. Again inquiring, 
 whether these islanders were Christians, or still in- 
 volved in the errors of Paofanism, and beino; informed 
 
The Soottish Church. 
 
 that they were Pagans, he sighed deeply, and said — 
 " Alas ! what pity that the author of darkness is 
 possessed of men of such fair countenances ; and that 
 being remarkable for such graceful aspects, their 
 minds should be void of inward grace." Again, there- 
 fore, he asked what was the name of that nation ? 
 and, being answered that they were Angles, " Right," 
 said he, "for they have an angelic face, and it be- 
 comes such to be co-heirs with the angels in heaven. 
 What is the name," proceeded he, " of the province 
 from which they are brought?" It was replied that 
 the natives of that province were called Deiri. " Truly 
 they are De ira" said he, " withdrawn from wrath, 
 and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king 
 of that province called?" They told him his name 
 was ^lla ; and he, alluding to the name, said, " Halle- 
 lujah, the praise of God the Creator must be sung in 
 those parts." This conversation may appear trifling, 
 but it was destined to produce the most important 
 results. St. Gregory immediately resolved on under- 
 taking a mission to Britain, with the permission of 
 Benedict I., the reigning Pope, and had even set forth 
 on his journey, in company with several monks of his 
 own monastery, when so great a clamour was raised 
 by the Roman people at the loss of so good a man, 
 that the Pope compelled his return. The idea, how- 
 ever, continued to occupy his mind ; and when, 
 afterwards, he was elevated to the bishopric of 
 that see, he looked about him for a man of zeal 
 resolution, and piety, that might undertake the 
 
AngiLstines Mission to England. 1 13 
 
 mission, and such a one he found in Augustine the 
 Monk. 
 
 It was on July 23, 596, that Gregory despatched 
 Augustine on his mission to England, accompanied by 
 thirty companions ; and they set out with joy upon 
 an expedition, of which the prize was to be either the 
 conquest of a new nation to Christ, or the crown of 
 martyrdom for themselves. Having passed through 
 France, the missionaries embarked at Ebbsfeet, in the 
 Isle of Thanet, whence they sent messengers to Ethel- 
 bert, king of Kent, to inform him that they were come 
 from Rome, and soliciting an interview. Ethelbert, 
 whose queen Bertha was a Christian, appointed Augus- 
 tine a day when he and his companions should appear 
 before him. At the time appointed Augustine and 
 his companions proceeded to the royal presence, where 
 seats had been prepared for them. At the command 
 of the king, they preached to him and his nobles the 
 Word of life. " They told," says an old Saxon author, 
 "how the mild-hearted Healer of mankind, by His own 
 throes of suffering, set free this guilty middle-earth, 
 and opened to believing men the door of heaven." 
 Ethelbert's answer, as given by Bede, was both manly 
 and sensible, and would not have disgraced the most 
 enlightened philosopher — "Your words and promises 
 are very fair, but as they are new to us, and of un- 
 certain import, I cannot forsake the established cus- 
 toms of my nation. But because you have come from 
 far into my kingdom ; and, as I conceive, are desirous 
 to impart to us those things which you believe to be 
 
114 1^^^^ Scottish Chti7'ch. 
 
 true, and most beneficial, we will not molest you, but 
 give you favourable entertainment, and take care to 
 supply you with your necessary sustenance ; nor do 
 we forbid you by preaching to gain as many as you 
 can to your religion." This favourable response filled 
 them with joy. The final conversion of Ethelbert 
 speedily followed, who sought, at the hands of the 
 missionaries, the sacrament of baptism ; and his long 
 reflection and deliberation on the subject aflforded good 
 hope of his sincerity. The Queen, already a zealous 
 missionary, and the king being secured, the Gospel 
 triumphed in the realm. Within a short period the 
 inhabitants of Kent were convinced of their folly in 
 worshipping Thor and Woden, the gods of their an- 
 cestors, and so earnestly did they listen to Augustine, 
 that thousands were baptised, and made open profes- 
 sion of Christianity. 
 
 That the way was prepared in Saxon England for 
 the reception of the Gospel even before the mission of 
 Augustine, is evident from the Epistles of Gregory, 
 who asserts that the Saxons were not only desirous to 
 receive the Christian faith, but had also signified their 
 desire to the clergy of France, whom he blames for 
 their refusal " to assist them in their good motions 
 and encourage their piety." This pious inclination in 
 the Saxons, in all probability, proceeded from the in- 
 fluence and example of the British Christians who 
 resided among them — and the fact itself had probably 
 come to the knowledge of Gregory through the Queen. 
 While this movement was going on in the south, 
 
Ro77ie and lona meet in England. 1 1 5 
 
 another was set on foot in the north. Christianity- 
 had entered Saxon England at its two extremities. 
 Augustine and his monks beginning in Kent, had ex- 
 tended their teaching and influence over the south 
 and south-west of the kingdom, while Aidan and 
 his monks had entered Northumberland, and pushed 
 their teaching and influence over the northern, and 
 eastern, and midland provinces. Thus Rome and lona 
 met on English ground, and Italian and Celtic mission- 
 aries contended for the mastery. Between them Eng- 
 land suffered a spiritual conquest, threw away her 
 idols, abandoned Thor and Woden, and embraced 
 Christianity. The first Celtic missionary who went 
 from lona to Northumberland was a man of an 
 austere disposition, who could make no impression 
 upon the people. He returned with the story of his 
 failure, and reported that the Northumbrians were 
 people of "a stubborn and barbarous disposition," 
 whom it was hopeless to think of converting to 
 Christianity. An aged monk, on hearing the doleful 
 tale of failure, rose up, when the matter was debated 
 in the monastery, and addressing himself to the weak 
 brother who had abandoned the mission field, said — 
 " I am of opinion, brother, that you were more severe 
 to your unlearned hearers than you ought to have 
 been, and did not at first, conformably to the Apostolic 
 rule, give them the milk of more easy doctrine, till 
 being by degrees nourished with the Word of God, 
 they should be capable of greater perfection, and be 
 able to practice God's sublimer precepts." That speech 
 
1 1 6 The Scottish Church. 
 
 pointed out the speaker as the fittest man to deal with 
 the barbarous Saxons, and Aidan (for he it was who 
 thus spoke) was ordained by the Presbyter Monks of 
 lona. And though he was now a man of nearly 
 eighty years of age, he undertook the mission with 
 cheerfulness and alacrity, and at once set his face 
 towards Northumberland. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Edwin, King of Northumberland — Christianity in Conflict 
 WITH Heathenism — Edwin's Conversion to Christianity — 
 The good King Oswald — Oswald and Aidan — Brother 
 Oswald. 
 
 fHE missionary zeal which was kept alive by a 
 ^^^. succession of learned and pious Abbots in the 
 Monastery of lona went forth in all directions, 
 till the whole of Scotland was evangelised. Nor did 
 the labours of the monks stop here. But, as Alex- 
 ander, after he had conquered the world, expressed 
 the wish that there were more world's to conquer, so 
 these missionaries, fired with zeal, could not be re- 
 strained within the limits of their own country, but 
 carried the light of Christianity to England and the 
 Continent. As we have already seen, the Anglo- 
 Saxons of England attracted the notice of Gregory 
 of Rome who sent missionaries to convert them from 
 their idols to Christianity. A little later the Culdees 
 issued from their headquarters in lona on the same 
 great enterprise. These two streams of Christian 
 propagandism met on English ground. The Roman 
 missionaries advanced from the South, while the 
 Scottish evangelists issued from the North. The 
 carcase — England with its Anglo-Saxon idolatry — 
 
1 1 8 The Scottish Church. 
 
 was attacked on the south by the Roman eagles, on 
 the north by the Scottish lion. Between the two 
 forces, the spiritual conquest of England was a fore- 
 gone conclusion. 
 
 We have already seen how Ethelbert, king of Kent, 
 was converted to Christianity through the labours of 
 Augustine. It will be both interesting and instruc- 
 tive to note some typical examples of the progress 
 made by these missionaries, Roman and Scottish, in 
 the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons of Britain. Edwin, 
 king of Northumberland, who reigned in the third 
 decade of the century, seemed to have been more 
 powerful than any of his predecessors, being monarch 
 of all England, a circumstance which, as Bede observes, 
 was "in auspicium suscipiendce fidel," — "a favour- 
 able omen for the faith " he was afterwards to receive. 
 " God first made him great and after gracious," says 
 Fuller, " that so, by his power, he might be the more 
 effectual instrument of His glory." Meanwhile he had 
 married Edelherga, daughter of Ethelbert, king of 
 Kent, and was thus brought within the influence of 
 the missionaries of the south. The story of his 
 espousals is not without interest. Having sent am- 
 bassadors to ask her in marriage of her brother Ead- 
 bald, who then reigned in Kent, that king demurred, 
 on the ground that "It was not lawful to marry a 
 Christian virgin to a Pagan husband." But a com- 
 promise was effected. Edwin promised to observe an 
 attitude of strict neutrality towards the Christians, 
 giving his queen, and all her attendants, priests, or 
 
Edzvin, King of Northumberland. 1 1 9 
 
 ministers, perfect religious freedom. He also further 
 promised that he himself would embrace the Christian 
 religion if, " being examined by wise persons, it should 
 be found more holy and more worthy of God." Where- 
 upon the virgin was sent to Edwin, and Paulinus, a 
 Roman missionary, a "man beloved of God," was 
 ordained Bishop to go with her, and by daily exhorta- 
 tions, and "celebrating the heavenly mysteries, to 
 confirm her and her company, lest they should be 
 corrupted by the company of the Pagans." But the 
 king was obstinate — proof against the tender solicita- 
 tions of his queen, and as for the earnest appeals of 
 the missionaries, he glided through them unstruck for 
 a long time, " buoyant and evasive as a bee amongst 
 hailstones." But serious thought at length came to 
 him. An envenomed dagger, sent from the king of 
 the West Saxons, was thrust at him, when one of his 
 guard interposed, and received it, and fell dead, 
 loyalty's martyr, at his feet. This produced a power- 
 ful impression on him. He became partly convinced 
 of the truth of the Christian religion, and often 
 debated the matter with his own thoughts as well as 
 with others. And yet, quaintly observes Fuller, " he 
 durst not entertain truth, a lawful king, for fear to 
 displease custom, a cruel tyrant." Among the many 
 debates he had with his counsellors on this subject, 
 two passages from Bede may here be cited (book 2, 
 cap. 13). The first is what purports to be a speech 
 spoken by Coify, the prime Pagan priest, at a council 
 of Edwin's nobles, held A.D. G27. " Surely," says he, 
 
1 20 The Scottish Church. 
 
 " these gods 'whom we worship, are not of any power 
 or efficacy in themselves ; for none has served them 
 more conscientiously than myself ; yet other men, less 
 meriting of them, have received more and greater 
 favours from their hand, and prosper better in all 
 things they undertake. Now, if these were gods of 
 any activity, they would have been more beneficial to 
 me, who have been so observant of them." The logic 
 of this Pagan priest limps, no doubt, but, as Fuller 
 well observes, "let none wonder, if the first glimmer- 
 ing of grace in Pagans be scarce a degree above blind- 
 ness." But the king M'as too astute a man to be thus 
 caught. Though shivering on the brink of the change 
 from Saxon idolatry to Christianity, he could not, all 
 at once, launch out on the deep, with nothing but such 
 air-bags, so suddenly blown out by Coify, to float his 
 belief. Paulinus tried to get at him by direct Chris- 
 tian teaching, and in this was ably seconded by one 
 of the chief men of the court, whose beautiful dis- 
 course, though dressed in a style more familiar than 
 ornate, I quote from Bede (book 2, cap. 13) — "The 
 present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison 
 of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift 
 flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit 
 at supper in winter with your commanders and minis- 
 ters, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of 
 rain and snow prevail abroad ; the sparrow, I say, 
 flying in at one door and immediately out at another, 
 whilst he is within is safe from the wintry storms, but 
 after a short space of fair weather he immediately 
 
Chi'istianity in Confiict ivith Heathenism. 121 
 
 vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from 
 which he had emerged. So this life of man appears 
 for a short space, but of what went before, or what is 
 to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this 
 new doctrine of Christianity contains something more 
 certain, it seems justly to deserv^e to be followed." At 
 that council others spoke to the same effect. Paulinus 
 preached. The Pagan priest was converted, confessed 
 the utter hollowness of Paganism, advised the king 
 to " instantly abjure and set fire to those temples and 
 altars " which had been consecrated by them " without 
 reaping any benefit from them." The king consented, 
 when, suiting the action to the word, Coify, having 
 girt a sword about him, with a spear in his hand, 
 mounted the king's stallion, and proceeded to the 
 temple, which he destroyed, with all its idols and 
 enclosures, by fire. The name of the place where this 
 occurred is called Godmanham (in Bede's time Good- 
 mundingham, or " the home of the protection of the 
 gods "), and is situated in the East Riding of York- 
 shire, not far from the city of York, Here Paulinus 
 built the parish church, wherein is the font in which 
 he baptised the heathen priest Coify. At length, 
 after much doubt and deliberation, Edwin the king 
 formally embraced Christianity, and he and his nobles 
 received the sacrament of baptism on Easter day, 
 being the 12th of April, A.D., 627, in a church which 
 he himself had built in York during the time he was 
 receiving instruction in the Christian faith. Thus the 
 king was subdued to Christianity at last, and if his 
 
122 The Scottish Church. 
 
 disposition was typical of that of his subjects, it may 
 lead us to tone down our censure of Gorman, the pre- 
 decessor of Aidan, who, as we saw in our last lecture, 
 having gone from lona to convert the Northumbrians, 
 soon gave up the task as hopeless, and returned to his 
 native monastery to report that nothing could be made 
 of them, as they were of a "stubborn and barbarous 
 disposition," for Edwin's heart was as a citadel be- 
 sieged yet strongly fortified on all sides. His action 
 in resisting so long the influence of Christianity may 
 serve to show, in a passing glance, the nature of the 
 struggle then going on between Heathenism and the 
 Gospel in Britain. The queen had used her private 
 influence with him. The Pope, Boniface, had written 
 to her reminding her of the words of St. Paul, " the 
 unbelieving husband is sanctified of the wife," etc. 
 This appeal to the queen on behalf of her husband 
 w^as reinforced by Boniface by the present which he 
 sent her of a silver looking-glass and a gilt ivory 
 comb. Once, we are told, wdien in exile, and in cir- 
 cumstances of danger in East Anglia, a vision had 
 appeared to him to ofler him protection if he would 
 only change his religion by renouncing his idols and 
 becoming a Ghristian. If he believed in ghosts, as his 
 chronicler undoubtedly did, he was, it appears, not 
 over civil to the one referred to, for, according to the 
 narrative, as he stood beside the palace of his host, 
 Redwald, the king, at the dead hour of night, brooding 
 over the danger that he had been warned to fear from 
 his treachery, a strange apparition intruded on his 
 
Edzviiis Conversion to Christianity. 123 
 
 loneliness, and coming close up, saluted him, and asked 
 him, " why he sat there alone and melancholy on a 
 stone at that time when all others were taking their 
 rest and were fast asleep ? " Edwin replied in good 
 Scotch fashion, " what was it to him whether he spent 
 the night within doors or abroad ? " It was, then, no 
 easy task to gain over to Christianity this heathen 
 king, but being won, he became a zealous missionary 
 of the cross, and was instrumental, according to Bede, 
 in persuading Eorpwald, king of the East Saxons, to 
 "abandon his idolatrous superstitions, and with his 
 whole province to receive the faith and sacraments of 
 Christianity." Altogether Edwin was a nian of strong 
 conviction, and so inflexible was he in the administra- 
 tion of justice, that, as is attested by Bede, "in his 
 days a woman with a babe at her breast might have 
 travelled over the island without suffering an insult," 
 and Paulinus, the instrument of the king's conversion, 
 proved himself to be a willing and powerful ally, a 
 great evangelist and pillar of the state. He was 
 among those sent by Pope Gregory to Britain on hear- 
 ing from Augustine that he had " a great harvest and 
 but few labourers." His personal appearance is thus 
 described by Bede on the authority of " a certain abbot 
 of singular veracity:" " Tall of stature, a little stooping, 
 his hair black, his visage meagre, his nose slender and 
 aquiline, his aspect both venerable and majestic." And 
 the power that accompanied his evangelistic labours 
 laid prostrate that of the Saxon idolatry as Dagon was 
 overcome by the ark of God. Many thousands of 
 
1 24 The Scottish Church. 
 
 Edwin's subjects were then converted and baptised by 
 Paulinus in the river Swale, and shortly after we find 
 him going north, and for six-and-thirty days together 
 instructing the people of Bernicia, and baptising them 
 in the river Glen. 
 
 The circumstances of Edwin's death are thus re- 
 corded. In GS3 Cadwalla, king of the Britons, rebelled 
 against him, being supported by Penda, a Pagan and 
 a most warlike man. At Hatfield, in the West Riding 
 of Yorkshire, about seven miles to the north-east of 
 Doncaster, a great battle was fought in which Edwin 
 was slain and his army routed. He was then forty- 
 seven years of age, having reigned " most gloriously 
 seventeen years over the nations of the English and 
 the Britons," the six last years of his life as a Chris- 
 tian. After the battle, his head was brought to 
 York, and deposited in the porch of St. Gregory, 
 from whose disciples he had received the Word of 
 life. The kingdom of the Northumbrians was 
 then divided into two provinces, Deira and Bernicia, 
 the former reaching from the Humber to the Tyne, 
 the latter from the Tyne to the Tweed. Though not 
 united into one community, the two states were gene- 
 rally governed by one monarch, and became at such 
 times the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. 
 After the death of Edwin the kingdom was divided, 
 Osric becoming king of the Deiri, and Eanfrid king of 
 the Bernicians. Both of these men were Christians 
 when they began to reign, but subsequentl}^ aposta- 
 tised, and Cadwalla, the king of the Britons, through 
 
The good King Oswald. 125 
 
 whom they had mounted the throne, afterwards slew 
 them and reigned in their stead ; and thus in North- 
 umbria, as the result of tyranny and apostasy, the 
 Christians had at that period a bad time of it — men, 
 women, and children being alike the objects of savage 
 cruelty, and being "put to tormenting deaths." The 
 year that witnessed these untoward events, according 
 to Bede, " is looked upon as unhappy and hateful to 
 all good men, as well on account of the apostasy of 
 the English kings, who had renounced the faith, as of 
 the outrageous tyranny of the British king." Oswald, 
 next of the blood royal, and nephew to King Edwin, 
 succeeded to the throne of Northumbria. In his youth 
 Oswald became an exile in the mountains of Caledonia, 
 where he was brought up in the midst of Christian 
 influences. When he went to take possession of his 
 kingdom, then in the enemy's hand, he erected, at a 
 place called Denis's-brook, the sign of the holy cross, 
 and on his knees prayed to God that He would assist 
 His worshippers in their great distress. Victory was 
 his, and he sat on the throne. His first concern, now 
 that he had rest from his enemies, was that his nation 
 should receive the Christian faith. For, apparently, 
 the obstinacy of the former king, Edwin, in adhering 
 to Paganism, was characteristic also of his people, who 
 had never, as a whole, been evangelised, while the 
 interregnum of apostasy and persecution already 
 noticed had retarded the work so auspiciously begun 
 in that king's reign. Accordingly, Oswald sent to the 
 elders of the Scots, among whom himself and his 
 
126 The Scottish Chtirch. 
 
 followers, when in banishment, bad received the 
 sacrament of baptism, " desiring they w^ould send him 
 a bishop, by whose instruction and ministry the Eng- 
 lish nation, which he governed, might be taught the 
 advantages, and receive the sacraments of the Chris- 
 tian faith." It was in answer to this request that, as 
 we saw in our last lecture, Aidan, "a man of singular 
 meekness, piety, and moderation," was sent. On the 
 arrival of Aidan the king appointed him his seat, 
 as he desired, in the Isle of Lindisfarne. Beautifully 
 situated on the Northumbrian coast, this isle com- 
 mands a view of the town of Berwick on the north, 
 from which it is separated by an arm of the sea about 
 seven miles in breadth ; to the South Bamborough 
 Castle is seen jutting out on a bold promontory. To 
 the east stretches, far as the eye can reach, the open 
 sea ; while, to the west, across a narrow channel, the 
 shore exhibits a beautiful hanging landscape of culti- 
 vated country, graced with a multitude of hamlets, 
 villages, and woodlands. This island, a second lona, 
 became a centre of missionary operations whence the 
 Culdees carried the Gospel to the half of the English 
 nation — the northern half, the Roman missionaries 
 operating on the other or southern half from their 
 seat in Canterbury. Aidan appears to have been a 
 man of a most exemplary life, zealous in the cause of 
 Christ, and charitable to the poor. He seldom tra- 
 velled but on foot ; and, Avhen invited to large feasts 
 at court, used to arise after a short refection, and 
 betake himself to his meditations. Many slaves he 
 
Oswald and A 2 da n. 127 
 
 redeemed from captivity, making them first freemen, 
 then Christians. The historian Bede has but one 
 fault to find with him — he did not celebrate Easter 
 at the time fixed by Rome. On this account he says 
 of him that " he had a zeal of God, although not fully 
 according to knowledge." Yet he faithfully records 
 that he and his followers, in their devotion to the 
 religious life ; their continual contemplation ; their 
 reading of Scripture ; and learning of the Psalter, 
 were a contrast and standing rebuke to his own age. 
 His words are — " Tantum vita illius a nostri temporis 
 segnitid distahat." " So much differed his life from 
 the laziness of our age." In him the king had a man 
 according to his own heart. The nation was well off", 
 blessed with a pious king and a pious priest. There 
 was one difficulty Aidan had to contend with. He 
 knew not the English language spoken by the people, 
 and the people understood not the Gaelic language 
 which was his mother tongue. But this difl&culty 
 was solved by the king, who, knowing both languages, 
 consented to act as interpreter to the people, giving 
 the English rendering of the discourses of Aidan 
 spoken in the Gaelic. It must indeed have been a 
 goodly .sight to see the two pious men — priest and 
 king — going thus hand-in-hand in the work of con- 
 verting the heathen. The saintly monk, austere in 
 his own conduct, indulgent to others, we seem to see 
 traversing town and country on foot, and inviting 
 every passer by to embrace the faith. The pious king, 
 also humbly and willingly giving ear to his admoni- 
 
128 The Scottish Church. 
 
 tions, we see buildini^ and extending the Church of 
 Christ in his kingdom ; and we fully endorse the 
 sentiment of Bede when he says, quoting evidently 
 from some contemporary source : " It was most de- 
 delightful to see the king himself interpreting the 
 Word of God to his commanders and ministers." We 
 are not, therefore, surprised to learn that, in the lan- 
 guage of Bede — " From that time many of the Scots 
 came daily into Britain, and with great devotion 
 preached the Word to those provinces of the English 
 over which King Oswald reigned, and those among 
 them that had received priest's orders administered 
 to them the grace of baptism. Churches were built 
 in several places ; the people joyfully flocked together 
 to hear the Word ; money and lands were given of 
 the king's bounty to build monasteries ; the English, 
 great and small, were, by their Scottish masters, in- 
 structed in the rules and observance of regular disci- 
 pline, for most of them that came to preach were 
 monks." Lately, on visiting one of the most beautiful 
 spots in the Highlands of Inverness-shire, where a 
 Benedictine monastery had been erected by some who 
 formerly were Protestants, but who have joined 
 the Romish communion, I was informed that the son 
 of a Wigtownshire laird, one of the inmates, regard- 
 ing whom I made inquiries, took the name of Brother 
 Oswald. On asking one of the brethren, who showed 
 us through the monastery, whence the name was 
 derived, he said — " King Oswald." Though wc may 
 not apply the epithet " pervert " to men so devoted as 
 
Brother Osivald. 129 
 
 those who have thus renounced Protestantism, put the 
 new wine of the nineteenth century into the old 
 bottles of mediiievalism, and inserted a bit of the past 
 into the present, yet we cannot help thinking that 
 they have looked at the past through the wrong end 
 of the telescope, and perpetrated the solecism, in this 
 age, of a crab movement, in renouncing Protestant 
 freedom to kiss the Pope's toe. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Rise of the Papal Power — Gregory the Great no Papist — 
 Presbytery and Prelacy — Heretical Popes — RoiviE and 
 loNA — Synod of Whitby. 
 
 fOWARDS the close of the seventh century an 
 ^^^-7, era of hopelessness had set in. Darkness that 
 might be felt settled down on Europe. The 
 star of human progress was at its nadir. The conti- 
 nent was a scene of divided peoples and worn-out 
 kings; an indolent church, and exhausted fields. It 
 was an age of despair — when manhood, patriotism, 
 and Christianity were at the lowest ebb. It is diffi- 
 cult to discern in the picture the least ray of hope. 
 Of course each particular age is entitled to be judged 
 on its own merits. It may not seem to be in advance 
 of its predecessor, or to be vitally connected with the 
 progressive features of succeeding times, but to exist 
 in a state of aloofness from both, and to exhibit some 
 special features of its own. That is to some extent 
 true of the age to which our inquiries have conducted 
 us. It is an age in which the civil power is declining 
 and the ecclesiastical power is growing in strength. 
 The old empire is in ruins, and the debris has not yet 
 been organised into life. And the age has come into 
 existence burdened with an inheritance of evils from 
 the past almost too great for it to cope with. The 
 
Rise of the Papal Poivc7'. 1 3 1 
 
 elements of social and political order are in a state of 
 solution, and the time for their crystallisation in 
 feudalistic moulds is not yet. The rise of the spirit 
 of Popery, on the background of this chaos of civil 
 power, meets us at every turn. At Antioch, and Con- 
 stantinople, and Alexandria, unseemly disputes are 
 carried on in regard to ecclesiastical power and 
 primacy. The rise and progress of this spirit, which 
 began to show itself even in Apostolic times (Luke 
 xxii. 24), must be here dealt with in the briefest 
 manner. Originally there were no diocesan bishops 
 in the Church. The election of one of the Presbyters 
 to preside over the others at their deliberations led to 
 the innovation ; the office of president suggesting, 
 when it was made perpetual, that of overseer or 
 bishop. As early as the second century men began 
 to value the bishop, or pastor of the church, according 
 to the size of the city where he dwelt. As the city 
 of Pome had gradually acquired dominion over the 
 rest of the civilised world, the Bishops of Rome early 
 began to assume supremacy over the Church. Imitat- 
 ing the gradations of power in the State, the Church 
 soon had (1) the Bishop, overseer of his parish ; (2) 
 the Metropolitan, overseer of the province ; (.3) the 
 Patriarch, overseer of the Metropolitans ; and (4) 
 eventually the Pope, overseer of all. Finding one 
 supreme head of the Eoman empire, they aimed at 
 making one supreme head of the Church. It seemed 
 vain to seek this supreme ruler in the East. For 
 there Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jeru- 
 
132 The Scottish Chtirch. 
 
 salem, formed a sort of balance of power. And when 
 Constantinople began to got the upper hand in eccle- 
 siastical affairs, the three other eastern churches 
 applied to the Church of Kome for help. Though 
 the foundation of the Pope's temporal power was not 
 laid till the middle of the eighth century, his ecclesi- 
 astical power had been steadily growing for centuries. 
 At the time when Gregory sent Augustine to convert 
 the Anglo-Saxons of Britain, it was advancing with 
 resistless sweep. Pope Gregory seemed to be uncon- 
 scious of it, yet undoubtedly it was then in the air. 
 And the very elements of character that determined 
 the influence of this great and good man were power- 
 fully contributing to this result, notwithstanding all 
 his efforts to the contrary. What his views on the 
 subject were may be gathered from his own extant 
 epistles. At the end of the sixth century, when the 
 seat of Empire had been removed to Constantinople, 
 John, Bishop of that place, began to assume the title 
 of universal bishop. The same title was claimed by 
 Cyriacus, his successor in that see, which drew from 
 Gregory an indignant protest. " Far, very far," he 
 says, " be it from a Christian mind, that any person 
 should wish to snatch to himself a title whence he 
 may seem, even in any the smallest degree, to diminish 
 the honour of his brethren. To consent to the adop- 
 tion of that wicked appellation is nothing less than to 
 apostatise from the faith." Again, he says, "I tell 
 you confidently, that whosoever calls himself, or 
 wishes to be called, Universal Pi'iest, does, in his self- 
 
Gregory the Great no Papist. 
 
 exaltation, anticipate Antichrist, because, through his 
 pride he exalts himself abov^e his fellows," In his 
 epistle to John of Constantinople, he had said that " the 
 bulk of the iniquity was weighty enough to sink and 
 destroy all And therefore I am bold to say, that 
 wdioever uses or affects the style of Universal Bishop, 
 has the pride and character of Antichrist." Again, in 
 his letter to Anastatius, Bishop of Antioch, he has 
 these words upon the same subject — " Cyriacus and 
 myself can never be made friends, and come to any 
 good understanding, unless he is willing to give uj^ 
 the vanity and usurpation of his style. This is a 
 point of the last importance, neither can we comply 
 with the innovation, without betraying religion, and 
 adulterating the faith of the Catholic Church. For, 
 not to mention the invasion upon the honour of your 
 character, if any one bishop must have the title of 
 universal, if that Universal Prelate should happen to 
 miscarry, the whole Church must sink with him." 
 Thus far removed from Popish pretensions was the 
 man who may be viewed as the founder of the 
 Anglican Church, and no other vindication is needed 
 for the breaking of that Church from the see of Rome. 
 It is not the case of the man who kicks over the 
 ladder by which he has mounted ; but of a great 
 community that severs itself from a system that has 
 developed in wrong lines. An appeal from medise- 
 valism to antiquity is the ample justification, as it is 
 the very raison cVetre, of the Anglican Church. It 
 might be imagined by the uncharitable tlmt Gregory's 
 
134 ^^^^ Scottish Church. 
 
 opposition to papal pretensions arose to some extent 
 from the fact that others claimed that position, and 
 that liad he himself had that dignity conferred on 
 him, his objections would have melted away. But 
 this supposition is in direct opposition not only to the 
 well-known character of Gregory, but to the facts of 
 the case. In his letter to Eulogius, bishop of Alex- 
 andria, he complains loudly to that patriarch for 
 saluting him with the title of Universal Bishop. '•' If 
 your holiness," says Gregory, "treats me with the 
 title of Universal Bishop, you exclude yourself from 
 an equality of privilege. But, pray, let us have none 
 of this. Let us not feed our vanity with pompons 
 appellations ; for this is the way to weaken the grace 
 of charity, and disserve us in our best qualities." 
 Thus, although the spirit of Popery seemed then to be 
 in the air, Gregory did his best to exorcise it, and to 
 keep himself aloof from it, which undoubtedly he, to 
 a large extent, succeeded in doing ; only, in a nature 
 like his, a great deal goes on beneath the surface of 
 consciousness, and determines the future, without the 
 man himself being aware of it. The spirit of the 
 age was too much for him. It was, unconsciously to 
 himself, influencing him ; he was, if not the creature 
 of that age, at least an embodiment of it in .some of 
 its better aspects. 
 
 Such, briefly, was the stage of development to which 
 the Church of Rome had attained when its mission- 
 aries met those of lona on English ground. \\\ the 
 polity of the Empire it found a framework on which 
 
Presbytery and Prelacy. 1 3 5 
 
 to model the constitution of the Church, which devel- 
 oped on these lines into a Holy Roman Empire, or 
 City of God. The Celtic Church in Britain, on the 
 other hand, was altogether simpler in its organisation 
 and, far from the seat of empire, passed, through no 
 such development as- that which culminated in the 
 Roman Hierarchy. If the question be asked, was the 
 organisation of the Celtic Church in Scotland Presby- 
 terian or Episcopalian, the answer of an impartial 
 judge must be that it was neither the one nor the 
 other, but an order 8iii generis, — a system of Church 
 polity which might develope into either, or even into 
 something different from both. That there were 
 persons bearing the name of bishops in very early 
 times in Scotland is undoubted, but it is equally un- 
 doubted — (and on this subject I may be permitted to 
 quote the words of the late Dean Stanley in his lec- 
 tures on the History of the Church of Scotland) — 
 that "they" (the bishops) "had no dioceses, no juris- 
 diction, no territorial Episcopal succession. Their 
 orders were repudiated by the prelates of England and 
 France in those ages. The Primate of the Church of 
 Scotland, for the first 300 years of its history, was not 
 a bishop, but a presbyter — first the Abbot of lona, 
 and then of Dunkeld. The succession, such as it was, 
 was a succession, not of Episcopal hands, but of Co- 
 lumba's relics. Early bishops of St. Andrews, of 
 Glasgow, and the like, figured in legends, but they 
 had no existence in fact. The abbot, not the bishop, 
 was regarded as the ordinary ecclesiastical ruler, and 
 
136 The Scottish Chiirch. 
 
 the superiors of the various monasteries, by which the 
 country was evangelised, looked to the chief abbot, 
 who sat in Columba's chair, as the head of their whole 
 Church. This much," says the Dean, " is acknow- 
 ledged by all." It seems a valid inference, too, from 
 the narrative of Bede — and this also is allowed by the 
 Dean, that Columba and his successors consecrated the 
 bishops whom they sent forth to England. " They 
 certainly," says he, "gave them their jurisdiction, and 
 it was, therefore, not altogether unlikely that the 
 Episcopal succession of the northern provinces of Eng- 
 land had been deeply coloured by Presbyterian blood." 
 It seems, on the whole, that the gap — ever widening 
 in the Roman Church — between the presbyter and 
 bishop, the monks of lona were not aware of ; or, if 
 they knew the fact that peculiar honours and functions 
 were now reserved for the one and denied to the 
 other, it is plain they had determined to ignore it. 
 It would be interesting, had we the necessary data, to 
 compare the two forms of Christianity — the Roman 
 and the Celtic — that thus divided Anglo-Saxon Bri- 
 tain between them in the seventh century. But the 
 student of that period, while he finds himself, in either 
 camp, walking in a familiar atmosphere, and breath- 
 ing a healthy Christian air, cannot make out the land- 
 marks of dogma. To those who seek for definite 
 schools and forms of thought, this age and place will 
 bring disappointment, it will be their despair. Cer- 
 tainly no Church then was more full of a true mis- 
 sionary spirit than that of lona, and yet no Church 
 
Heretical Popes. 1 3 7 
 
 was less explicit on particular doctrinal forms. It 
 appears, indeed, from an epistle of Pope Honorius 
 (625-638) written to the Scots, that the " poison of the 
 Pelagian heresy" infected them. They are accord- 
 ingly exhorted to put away from their thoughts "all 
 such venomous and superstitious wickedness," and to 
 remember that " that insolent and impious proposition, 
 ' That man can live without sin of his own free will, 
 and not through God's grace,' was condemned, and 
 abolished these 200 years," and was " also daily anathe- 
 matised for ever by us." But this same Pope, who 
 was so zealous a defender of the doctrine of original 
 sin, was more than suspected of being tainted with 
 the heresy of the " Monothelites," whose views he 
 undoubtedly encouraged. As Liberius, nearly two 
 centuries before, was an Arian, Honorius was a Mono- 
 thelite — rather hard nuts for the advocates of Papal 
 infallibility to crack ! But this by the way. There 
 was a dash of Pelagianism in the doctrine of the 
 Scots, and a taint of Monothelitism in that of the 
 Pope. But possibly these elements were neutralised 
 in the tide of missionary zeal that set in, or in the in- 
 teraction of Celtic and Romanised forms of Christian 
 thought. The truth is, that the differences then exist- 
 ing between the Roman and Celtic forms of Christi- 
 anity were mainly confined to subsidiary matters, such 
 as the time for the observance of Easter, and the form 
 of tonsure. According to Usher, in his " Religion of 
 the ancient Irish," the difference is thus explained. 
 The Romans observed Easter between the 15th and 
 
138 The Scottish Ch2trch. 
 
 21st clay of the moon, immediately after the 21st clay 
 of March. In reckoning the age of the moon, they 
 followed the Alexandrian cycle of nineteen years, or 
 the Golden Number, as interpreted and explained by 
 Dionysius Exiguus. The Celts, on the other hand, 
 kept Easter on the Sunday that fell betwixt the 14th 
 and 20th day of the moon ; and followed, in their 
 computation of it, not the nineteen years cycle of 
 Anatolius, but a cycle of eighty-four years attributed 
 to Sulpicius Verus. With regard to the tonsure, the 
 other subject in debate between the two contending 
 parties, the Roman clergy shaved the crown of the 
 head, which was surrounded by a circle of hair, sup- 
 posed to represent the wreath of thorns forced by the 
 cruelty of his persecutors on the brow of the Messiah, 
 a custom which they declared to have been handed 
 down to them from St. Peter. The Celtic mission- 
 aries, on the other hand, permitted the hair to grow on 
 the back, and shaved the forepart, of the head, from 
 ear to ear, in the form of a crescent, which their 
 opponents called, in derision, the tonsure of Simon 
 Magus. This matter of the tonsure appears to have 
 originated among the earliest Christian ascetics, who 
 regarded it as a token of their renunciation of the 
 world ; but afterwards it came to be looked upon as a 
 necessary mark of the priestly caste. Besides these 
 two forms of tonsure, the circular aud semicircular, a 
 third was also in use in early times, called the Oriental 
 or St. Paul's tonsure, which consisted in shaving the 
 whole head. History does not enlighten us as to who 
 
Rome and lona. 1 39 
 
 were the founders of these several tonsures; but, who- 
 ever they were, they deserve to be honourably men- 
 tioned by the corporation of the barbers ! Augustine 
 tried to reason with the Celts, to get them to conform 
 in these matters to the Konian custom, but in vain. 
 Laurentius, his successor in Canterbury, wrote a letter 
 to "his most dear brothers the lords, bishops, and 
 abbots throughout all Scotland," stating that he had 
 expected they would have been better informed about 
 Easter than the Britons, but that he had discovered 
 his mistake, and he goes on to add that a certain 
 Scotch bishop, called Dagan, had carried matters so 
 high as to refuse to eat with him, or even to take his 
 repast in the same house where he and his friends 
 were entertained. " There is a stupidity, as has been 
 well said, " against which the gods themselves fight in 
 vain." And doubtless the Roman priests thought 
 their Celtic brethren sufficiently endowed with the 
 faculty of obstinacy, at least, from their persistent 
 refusal to give up reckoning time by an old and erro- 
 neous almanac, and their steady adherence to a here- 
 tical tonsure. To us, in these times, when the very 
 fundamentals of Christianity are sometimes beheld 
 set under the Damoclean sword of modern thought, 
 such controversies are apt to provoke a smile ; and yet, 
 when we come to think of it, with all our culture and 
 breadth of view, there are questions which divide the 
 Churches of Christendom in our day which are not 
 much larger than those we are considering. For, not 
 to mention the minute questions, almost microscopical. 
 
140 The Scottish Church. 
 
 which divide Presbyterians, the strange sight is pre- 
 sented in our day of violent feuds among our Episco- 
 palian brethren, over such things as the position or 
 dress of a priest ! I have read of a barber's shop being- 
 characterised as " the focus of Florentine intellect," 
 and " the navel of the earth." What the barber 
 was in these old controversies, the milliner or draper 
 would seem to be in some modern feuds. This con- 
 troversy at length reached a crisis. The time came 
 when the question must be decided, and men left to 
 live at peace either together or apart. The Synod of 
 Whitby (A.D. GG4) was the result. The good Aidan 
 at Lindisfarne escaped the pressure of Rome in these 
 matters. Not so Finan, his successor. Eanfleda, the 
 Queen of Northumberland, had been brought up in 
 Kent, and had brought with her a Kentish priest, 
 Romanus by name, who followed the new or Roman 
 stj'le in the celebration of Easter, and thus it hap- 
 pened, awkwardly enough, in the palace, that when 
 the king had ended the time of fasting, and kept his 
 Easter, the queen and her followers were still fasting, 
 and celebrating Palm Sunday. But Finan stood firm, 
 defied the courtly influences, resisted the infection of 
 Roman innovation, and died in the faith of lona. 
 It was left to his successor, Colman, also a Culdee, to 
 witness the grand climax in this controversy. The 
 place where this synod was held was the monastery 
 of Streoneshalch, where the Abbess Hilda then pre- 
 sided, and which overlooked the German Ocean from 
 the clifis of Whitby. At this Synod the Roman view 
 
Synod of Whitby. 141 
 
 was represented by Agilbert, bishop of the West 
 Saxons, with the priests Agatho and Wilfrid, James 
 and Romanus, while the views of lona were repre- 
 sented by Bishop Colman and his Scottish clerks, the 
 Abbess Hilda, and Bishop Ced, who acted as inter- 
 preter throughout. The king, Oswy, who, along with 
 his son, Alfrid, was also present, opened the contro- 
 versy, and attempted to pour oil on the troubled 
 waters. Colman declared that the view held in lona 
 as to the time for the celebration of Easter, had de- 
 scended by tradition from John, the disciple beloved 
 of the Lord. Wilfred held that if John really taught 
 this he was wrong, and that St. Peter taught them 
 differently. Colman referred to the piety of Columba, 
 which had been attested by miracles. But Wilfrid 
 replied by scornfully suggesting the hope that lona's 
 oreat Abbot mio-ht not at last be found amon2f those 
 to whom, boasting that they had prophesied, and cast 
 out devils, and done wonderful works, our Lord would 
 say, " I never knew you." Columba could not, in any 
 case, be compared to the prince of the apostles, to 
 whom our Lord entrusted the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven. And when Wilfrid had quoted the passage 
 in which our Lord, addressing Peter, says, " I will give 
 unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," a pro- 
 found impression seemed to have been produced on 
 the mind of the king, who said, " Is it true, Colman, 
 that these words were spoken to Peter by our Lord ? " 
 and when he replied " It is true, O king " ; " Then," 
 concluded the king, " I also say unto you that he is 
 
142 The Scottish Chiurh, 
 
 the door-keeper whom I will not contradict, but will, 
 as far as I know, and am able, in all things obey his 
 decrees, lest, when I come to the gates of Heaven, 
 there should be none to open them." This ended the 
 debate, and victory \vas on the side of Rome. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Conclusion— The Abbess Hilda — The Poet C^dmon— St. 
 CuTHBERT — The Venerable Bede. 
 
 ^^ . . 
 
 tN bringing this series of these sketches to a close, 
 I have to lay before you four portraits — the 
 Abbess Hilda, the Poet Caedmon, St. Cuthbert, 
 and the Venerable Bede — as characteristic illustra- 
 tions of the intellectual and religious life in this 
 country at the close of the seventh century. Bede, 
 living half his life in the seventh, and the other half 
 in the eighth century, will form an appropriate link 
 to connect this with a future series. With him we 
 say good-bye for the present. We have now reached 
 the very darkest edge of that calamitous night that 
 fell on Europe, introducing a dreary waste of years, 
 empty of all noble intellectual and spiritual life. And 
 before looking out into the darkness, the vision of 
 something noble and true in our poor human nature 
 will be as a delightful hovering fancy to relieve the 
 impending gloom — a sort of Indian summer, whose 
 glory will project its brightness into the desolation of 
 winter. 
 
 THE ABBESS HILDA (614-680 A.D.) 
 
 In those dim ages where we find queens to be 
 " nursing mothers to the Church," and the very salt 
 
144 'r^^^ Scottish Church. 
 
 of society, Hilda occupies a position of eminence. She 
 appears as a woman in whom the love of the Saviour 
 is the supreme fact of her existence — a motive that 
 gives a sublime rhythm to her life. And as from the 
 watch tower of her faith she, a Christian sentinel, 
 is on the look-out in her Master's cause, we seem 
 to be invited to contemplate one whose whole life is 
 set to heavenly music. Hilda was a high-born noble 
 lady, being the daughter of Hereric, nephew to King 
 Edwin. Like that king, she had been converted from 
 idolatry to Christianity through the preaching of 
 Paulinus. In the troubles of the time that saw her 
 birth, her father, who " lived in banishment under 
 Cerdic, King of the Britons," was poisoned. Her 
 mother, Pregusuit, had a strange dream that night. 
 She fancied she was seeking for her husband most 
 carefully, and could find no sign of him anywhere ; 
 but after having used all her industry to seek him, 
 she found a most precious jewel under her garment, 
 which, whilst she was looking on it very attentively, 
 cast such a light as spread itself throughout all 
 Britain. " This dream," says Bede, " was brought to 
 pass in her daughter, whose life was a bright example, 
 not only to herself, but to all who desired to live well." 
 The incidents of her life are few and brief, but inter- 
 esting and suggestive. Christianity took a deep hold 
 of her convictions, and a life of absolute consecration 
 to God was the result. And as the highest form of 
 consecration, according to the spirit of the age, was 
 the monastic life, she resolved to quit the secular and 
 
 
The Abbess Hilda. 145 
 
 embrace the religious life by taking the vow and veil. 
 This resolution being taken, she withdrew into the 
 province of the East Angles (Norfolk and Suffolk), to 
 the king of which she was related. Thence she wished 
 to pass over to France, that, forsaking her native 
 country an€l all she had, she might live a stranger for 
 our Lord's sake. In the monastery of Chelles, ten 
 miles from Paris, her sister Heresuid, mother to Ald- 
 wulf. King of the East Angles, lived under regular 
 discipline. Thither she intended to go; but, after 
 remaining a whole year in East Anglia, Bishop Aidan 
 introduced her to the monastic life in a retreat on the 
 north side of the river Wear, where, for the next year, 
 she, with a few companions, lived the life of consecra- 
 tion. After this she went to a monastery called 
 Heruteu (Hartlepool), in which she was made abbess. 
 This monastery had been founded, not long before, by 
 a pious woman of the name of Heiu, the first woman, 
 it seems, who in the province of Northumbria took 
 upon her the habit and life of a nun. She, too, had 
 been consecrated by Aidan, but had gone elsewhere 
 (to Tad caster), thus causing the vacancy which Hilda 
 filled up. Here Hilda's fame for sanctity and learn- 
 ing blazed forth. Attracted by her piety, Aidan and 
 other religious men frequently visited her, and learned 
 men were drawn to her because of " her innate wis- 
 dom " and inclination to the service of God. Profiting 
 by their instructions, she organised the monastery, 
 " reducing all things to a regular " system. It M'as 
 after she had for some years governed this establish- 
 
146 The Scottish Chui'ch. 
 
 ment that she set to work to build that monastery at 
 Whitby (Streaneshalch), as abbess of which she is best 
 known to fame. This establishment she soon made 
 the home of regular discipline. Here were diligently 
 cultivated, under her fostering care, the virtues of 
 justice and chastity, and the graces of piety, peace, 
 and charity. The study of Scripture, and the active 
 Christian life to which the inmates were devoted, 
 made it a training school out of which men proceeded 
 fully equipped for ecclesiastical duties and the service 
 of the altar. The names of five bishops — all men of 
 singular merit and sanctity — have been handed down 
 as proceeding from this house. Among the five are 
 found the famous St. John of Beverley and Wilfrid of 
 York. The others w^ere Bosa of York ; Hedda of 
 Dorchester, then Winchester ; and Oftfor of Worcester. 
 This wonderful woman, whom all called "Mother," 
 was perhaps the most influential of all her contem- 
 poraries, male or female. Her piety shines out with 
 living power as a great factor in the advancement of 
 Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons. Her wisdom, 
 admired of all, was such that kings thought it not 
 beneath them to take her into their counsels, to ask 
 and receive her advice. Like Huldah, the prophetess, 
 in Josiah's reign, she was indeed a mother in Israel, to 
 whom men would resort on all matters of the highest 
 concern. As a patron of learning, she holds a distin- 
 guished place in connection with the most ancient 
 English poet whose name has been handed down to 
 us from the dust of antiquit}'. 
 
The Poet Ccvdmon. 147 
 
 C^DMON (G80 A.D.). 
 
 The story of Csedmon, the father of English song, 
 interwoven as it is with that of Hilda, is invested 
 with much interest. He lived near the monastery of 
 Whitby. The date of his birth is unknown. His 
 inspiration as a poet, in its initial stage, has thus been 
 described. It was a favourite custom among the 
 Anglo-Saxons to meet together at festivities. On such 
 occasions the harp was moved round, and each in his 
 turn was expected to sing or chant some poem to the 
 instrument. These lays, it seems, were often the ex- 
 tempore composition of the singer, the art of poetry 
 being extensively cultivated among our Saxon fore- 
 fathers. Ccedinon appears to have been a failure in 
 this department of extempore poesy, being unable 
 either to compose or sing. And when, on these 
 occasions, he saw the harp approach him, he was so 
 ashamed that he rose from his seat and went home. 
 On one of these occasions, when he had thus with- 
 drawn from the festive beer party in disgrace, he 
 went home and laid himself down, giving way to a 
 feeling of vexation and despondency, and fell asleep. 
 In his slumber a stranger appeared to him, and, ad- 
 dressing him by his name, said, " Csedmon, sing me 
 something." Casdraon answered, " I know nothing to 
 sing, or I should not have left the hall to come here 
 so soon." " Nay," said the stranger, " but thou hast 
 something to sing ! " " What must I sing ? " said 
 Caedmon. " Sing the Creation," was the reply. Ceed- 
 
148 The Scottish Chiwch. 
 
 mon immediately bei^an to sing verses " which he had 
 never heard before," and which are given in Anglo- 
 Saxon in some of the old manuscripts. In the morn- 
 ing when he awoke he was a new man, possessed of 
 the divine afflatus, able to compose at will the most 
 excellent poetry. Accordingly he presented himself 
 before the reeve or bailiff of Whitby, and informed 
 him of his miraculous gift of poetry, and the reeve 
 took him to the Abbess Hilda. That lady, with a 
 number of high and pious ecclesiastics, listened atten- 
 tively to his story, and witnessed his performances. 
 After this they read to him a short portion of Scrip- 
 ture in Anglo-Saxon, and he went home, and on his 
 return next morning he repeated it in Anglo-Saxon 
 verse, excelling in beauty everything they had heard 
 before. Such a heaven-born poet was a prize not to 
 be thrown away, and Ca^dmon yielded to Hilda's 
 earnest solicitations, embraced the religious life, and 
 entered her monastery. Here, we are told, he was 
 continually occupied in repeating to himself what he 
 heard, and, " like a clean animal, ruminating it, he 
 turned it into most sweet verse." Hilda ordered him 
 to convert into verse the whole of the sacred history, 
 a task he willingly undertook and successfully carried 
 out. It has been noted that in his account of the fall, 
 and that of Milton in "Paradise Lost," there are strong 
 points of resemblance, and it has been suggested 
 accordingly that the great Puritan epic poet had to 
 some extent " ploughed with the heifer " of the monk 
 of Whitby. The following verses, in which Satan is 
 
Ccedmon. 1 49 
 
 described as reviving from his overthrow, and which 
 are taken from Thorpe's edition of Caedmon, are so 
 like to the corresponding passage in Milton that they 
 might well be taken for the original note of which the 
 echo is in " Paradise Lost " : — 
 
 ' ' Boiled within him his thought about his heart ; 
 
 Hot was within him his dire punishment. 
 
 Then sj^ake he words : This narrow place is moat unlike 
 
 The other that we formerly knew, high in heaven's kingdom, 
 
 Which my master bestowed on me, though we it, for the All- 
 powerful, may not possess. 
 
 We must cede our realm ; yet hath he not done rightly, 
 
 That he hath struck us down to the fiery abyss of the hot hell. 
 
 Bereft us of heaven's kingdom, hath decreed to people it with 
 mankind. 
 
 That is to me of sorrow the greatest, that Adam, 
 
 Who was wrought of earth, shall possess my strong seat ; 
 
 That it shall be to him in delight, and we endure this torment, 
 misery in this hell. 
 
 Oh ! had I the power of my hands * * then with this host 
 I 
 
 But around me lie iron bonds ; 
 
 Presseth this cord of chain ; I am powerless ! 
 
 Me have so hard the clasps of hell so firmly grasped ! 
 
 Here is a vast fire above and underneath ; 
 
 Never did I see a loathlier landskape ; 
 
 The flame abateth not, hot over hell. 
 
 Me hath the clasping of these rings, this hard polished band. 
 
 Impeded in my course, debarred me from my way. 
 
 IVIy feet are bound, my hands manacled ; 
 
 Of these hell doors are the ways obstructed ; 
 
 So that with aught I cannot from these limb-bonds escape. 
 
 About me lie huge gratings of hard iron, forged with heat. 
 
 With which me God hath fastened by the neck. 
 
 Thus perceive I that he knoweth my mind, and that he knew 
 also. 
 
 The Lord of hosts, that should us through Adam evil befall. 
 
 About the realm of heaven, where I had power of my hands. " 
 
150 The Scottish Chiirch. 
 
 ST. CUTHBERT (D. 687 A.D.). 
 
 It was early in the seventh century that St. Cuth- 
 bert appeared, a man, who from his consecration to a 
 holy life and the activity and zeal put forth by him 
 as a Christian missionary, stamped his age as a worthy 
 successor of that which witnessed the heroic labours 
 of St. Columba and Kentigern. A high promontory, 
 round which swept the waters of the Tweed, was 
 then the seat of a small monastery, bearing the de- 
 scriptive name of Muilros (Old Melrose). A shepherd 
 boy of the neighbouring vale of the Leader had seen 
 this primitive abode of religious zeal and self-denial. 
 Attracted by the force of Christian unworldliness that 
 thus met his view, his soul burned within him, and it 
 was only a question of time and opportunity that 
 determined his entrance on the religious life. Ad- 
 mitted to the monastic life, he soon distinguished 
 himself by his ardent but mild piety and zeal for the 
 conversion of the heathen, and in due time rose to be 
 superior or prior of the establishment. In the pages 
 of the venerable Bede, his historian and contemporary, 
 St. Cuthbert appears surrounded with a saintly halo 
 amid the darkness of the Strathclyde and Northum- 
 brian kingdoms, shooting athwart the field of history 
 as a meteor, now in Strathtay, now in Ripon, then at 
 Melrose, and finally at Lindisfarne, where in GG4 A.D. 
 he became abbot. This holy man, we are told, excelled 
 all his brethren in devotion. While at Melrose he 
 received from Boisil, a " priest of great virtue and of 
 
SL Czithbert. 151 
 
 prophetic spirit," both the knowledge of the Holy 
 Scriptures, and example of good works." After the 
 death of Boisil, Cuthbert was placed over that monas- 
 tery, where he instructed many in regular life, " both 
 by the authority of a master and the example of his 
 own behaviour." Nor did he confine his labours to 
 the monastery, but " endeavoured to convert the people 
 round about, far and near, from the life of foolish 
 custom, to the love of heavenly joys." To prosecute 
 these missionary labours, when he departed out of his 
 monastery, he would often stay a week, sometimes 
 two or three, and sometimes a whole month, before he 
 returned home, continuing among the mountains to 
 allure "that rustic people," by his preaching and 
 example, to heavenly employments. A visit which he 
 paid to the Solway is perpetuated in the name of 
 Kirkcudbright {Kirk-Cuthhert). Being transferred to 
 the island of Lindisfarne, he gave himself so truly to 
 the spirit of prayer and heavenly contemplation, that 
 '■ he appeared to others more like an angel than a 
 man." To attain to still greater heights in devotion, 
 he raised a solitary cell of unhewn stones and turf for 
 his own habitation in the smaller island of Fame, 
 where at length he died on the 20th of March, 687. 
 Before going to Fame he had said, "If it shall please 
 the Divine goodness to grant me, that I may live in 
 that place by the labour of my hands, I will willingly 
 reside there ; but, if not, I will, by God's permission, 
 very soon return to you." The place, we are told, was 
 quite destitute of water, com and trees ; and, being 
 
152 The Scottish Church. 
 
 infested by evil spirits, very ill suited for human 
 habitation ; but we are not surprised to learn that, on 
 his arrival, it became " in all respects habitable, and 
 the wicked spirits withdrew " — in which the modern 
 reader of Bede can see an ideal commentary on the 
 industry and piety of the saint, who by the one causes 
 the "desert" to become a "fruitful field," and by the 
 other chases away heathen darkness by the exhibition 
 of Gospel light. It is curious to note that the ascetic- 
 ism which distinguished St. Cuthbert in life long 
 lingered round his tomb. Until the Reformation, no 
 woman was suffered to approach his shrine ; the cross 
 of blue marble still remains in the Durham Cathedral 
 floor which marked the limits beyond which female 
 footsteps were forbidden to pass, under pain of instant 
 and signal punishment from the offended saint. A 
 ludicrous instance of the saint's traditional aversion to 
 the fair sex is mentioned by Brand. " The Queen of 
 Edward III. having followed the King to Durham, 
 was conducted by him through the gate of the Abbey 
 to the prior's lodgings, where, having supped and gone 
 to bed with her royal lord, she was soon disturbed by 
 one of the monks who readily intimated to the king 
 that ' St. Cuthbert by no means loved the company of 
 her sex.' " The Queen, upon this, got out of bed, and 
 having hastily dressed herself, went to the castle for 
 the remaining part of the night, asking pardon for the 
 crime she had inadvertently been guilty of against the 
 patron saint of their Church. Interesting as is the 
 life of St. Cutlibert, with all its setting of legend, he 
 
S^. Ciithbert. 153 
 
 has what may be called a posthumous history exceed- 
 ing in interest that of his actual life — a history curious 
 in this, that it exhibits a human being more important 
 dead than alive. The first chapter of this posthumous 
 history relates to a period eleven years after his death, 
 when, his brother monks, raising his body, that it 
 might be placed in a conspicuous situation, found it 
 uncorrupted and perfect. This they accepted as a 
 miraculous proof of his saintly character. One 
 hundred and seventy-four years afterwards, on the 
 Danes invading Northumberland, the monks carried 
 away the body of the saint, and for many years 
 wandered with it from place to place throughout 
 Northumbria and the south of Scotland, everywhere 
 willingly supported by the devout, and this constitutes 
 the second chapter of this strange history. Early in 
 the eleventh century the saint's body was settled at 
 the spot where afterwards in consequence arose the 
 beautiful Cathedral of Durham. Here the saint was 
 allowed to rest, after his posthumous pilgrimage, for 
 five centuries, in which the shrine over the incorrupt 
 body was enriched by the offerings of the faithful, till 
 it became " a blaze of gold and jewellery, dazzling to 
 look upon." In 1104 the body was inspected, and 
 found still fresh, and again in 1540 it was examined 
 with the same result. But in May 1827, or 1139 
 years after his death, the body was finally examined, 
 and this time more rigorously than before, when it 
 was found a mere skeleton, swaddled up so as to 
 appear entire, with plaster balls in the eye sockets to 
 
154 ^^^(^ Scoiiish ChurcJi. 
 
 plump out that part of the visage. Thus a pious 
 fraud had establislied for itself a secure foundation in 
 the credulity of men for more than a thousand years. 
 The shock produced on the minds of those whose 
 pious superstition is thus suddenly emptied of its 
 reality, is like the dread of the pilgrim who has it 
 whispered to him that the holy places are a delusion. 
 It comes like the terror of the earthquake which 
 shakes the "sure and firm-set earth," when every- 
 thing which we have regarded as solid and secure 
 trembles and gives way. But no such crisis of faith 
 comes to the man who reads in the pious legend the 
 transmitted impulse of one whose influence overflowed 
 his generation, and flowed down through the ages to 
 our own time. Such a one is proof against the shock, 
 as he has seen behind the legend ; and from the back- 
 ward swing of the pendulum, with all its devastating 
 force, his faith escapes, as fixed on that which is inde- 
 pendent of myth and legend — as the mountain summit, 
 which, though swathed in mist, is yet there when the 
 cloud is scattered by the rising sun. Thus when we 
 pierce the film, and watch wreath after wreath of the 
 mists of legend in which tradition had invested him 
 pass away, with all the marvels of that wonderland in 
 which the devout imagination found a home for him, 
 St. Cuthbert stands out in this seventh century a lead- 
 ing embodiment of the saintly character ; an influence 
 at once attractive and far-reaching ; an example of 
 one whose exhibition in his own life of the Saviour's 
 compassion " makes a way where there was none be- 
 
TJie Venerable Bede. 1 5 5 
 
 fore " into the hearts of men, and shakes dull souls 
 till they start up and prophesy. 
 
 BEDE (G73-735 A.D.). 
 A few words regarding the venerable Bede will 
 form an appropriate sequel to this series of sketches. 
 In the Abbess Hilda, the poet Casdmon, the saintly 
 Cuthbert, and the venerable Bede, we have a quater- 
 nion of noble lives — lives which mirror the age — the 
 latter half of the seventh century — in its best charac- 
 teristics. But in Bede we have a " great teacher of 
 religion, literature, and science." Latest of the three 
 in entering the stage of life, he was perhaps the most 
 illustrious man of his time. The place of his birth 
 was in the territory afterwards belonging to the 
 twin monasteries of St. Peter and St. Paul, at Wear- 
 mouth and Jarrow. It was in the third year of 
 Egfrid, son of Oswy, the first of the kings of Nor- 
 thumberland after the union of the provinces Deira 
 and Bernicia into one monarchy. The dominions of 
 this king extended from the Humber to the Frith of 
 Forth, and comprehended all the six northern counties 
 of England, and the whole of the southern part of 
 Scotland, In the Abbey of Wearmouth, at the age of 
 seven years, he was placed under the care of the 
 celebrated Abbot Benedict Biscop, and when the 
 establishment of Jarrow, on the banks of the Tyne, 
 was founded (a.d. 682), he appears to have gone 
 thither under Ceolfrid, its first abbot, where he 
 resided all the remainder of his life. These two 
 
156 The Scottish Church. 
 
 monasteries, though five miles apart, from the unity 
 and concord which prevailed between them, deserved 
 rather, as Bede expresses it, to be called " one single 
 monastery built in two different places." They were 
 ruled for many years by Benedict himself, and his 
 associates, Ceolfrid, Easterwin, and Sigfrid, a triumvi- 
 rate of piety and peace. Bede was a youth of much 
 talent, which he improved by studious habits and in- 
 defatigable industry. His thirst for knowledge had 
 the most ample resources for its gratification in a 
 library attached to the monasteries by Benedict Bis- 
 cop. This man, a nobleman by birth, was unwearied in 
 the pursuit of knowledge. He was a great traveller 
 in many lands ; and wherever he went he endeavoured 
 to procure the most valuable books, and costly relics, 
 and works of art, which could be had for money. 
 Thus collected by him in the monasteries of Wear- 
 mouth and Jarrow, there was a library superior to any 
 other in Britain, replenished with everything that 
 could foster and develope a taste for learning. In 
 such circumstances, Bede advanced in learning with 
 such rapid strides, that although it was not usual to 
 ordain deacons before they reached the age of twenty- 
 five, he was promoted to that office at the early age of 
 nineteen. His ordination was conducted by the cele- 
 brated John of Beverley, "at the bidding of Abbot 
 Ceolfrid," as Bede himself relates. Such was his 
 ardour in the pursuits of learning that, on the office 
 of abbot being offered him, he declined the dignity on 
 the express ground that it would curtail his leisure 
 
Bedc. 1 5 7 
 
 for study. " The office," as he expressed it, " demands 
 thoughtfulness, and thoughtfulness brings with it dis- 
 traction of the mind, which impedes the pursuit of 
 learning." The peaceful tenor of his monastic life was 
 apparently uninterrupted by absence or travel. His 
 time was occupied in doing good, preaching the gospel, 
 and with high consecration, fulfilling all the functions 
 of the religious life he had embraced. He seldom or 
 never moved beyond the limits of his own monastery, 
 and yet, from its dark cloister, he surveyed the whole 
 world, dispensing to men the gifts entrusted to him. 
 He applied himself to every branch of literature and 
 science then known ; and " besides study, and writing- 
 comments on the Scriptures, he treated on several sub- 
 jects — on history, astrology, orthography, rhetoric, and 
 poetry." The names of his literary friends include 
 Cuthbert, afterwards Abbot of Jarrow, to whom he 
 inscribed his " Art of Poetry ; " Eusebius, or Huetbert, 
 to whom he inscribed his "i)e Ratione Temporum^' 
 and his " Interpretation on the Apocalypse ; " Constan- 
 tine, to whom he inscribed his book " De Divisione 
 Numerorum ;" a.nd Nothelm, then priest at London, 
 and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbur}', to whom 
 he wrote his " Questions on the Books of Kings," etc. 
 As Ceedmon was happy in the patronage of the 
 Abbess Hilda, so Bede was fortunate in the friendship 
 of Ceolwulf, king of the Northumbrians, in one of 
 whose provinces — Bernicia — he lived. The king, him- 
 self a man of singular learning, and a very great 
 encourager of it in others, seems to have suggested to 
 
158 The Scottish Church. 
 
 Bede the writing of that work on which his fame 
 principally rests — the " Ecclesiastical History," the 
 papers of which our author submitted to his royal 
 ]iatron for perusal. It is perhaps to some extent due 
 to the influence that Bede acquired over his royal 
 patron and admirer that, as we read in the Saxon 
 Chronicle, about three years after Bede's death, Ceol- 
 wulf resigned his crown, and became a monk at 
 Lindisfarne. In his last illness he was attended by 
 Cuthbert, who had been one of his pupils, and after- 
 wards became abbot of the monastery. From an 
 early period of his life he seems to have been subject 
 to a complaint which William of Malmesbury thus 
 characterises : " He suffered in his stomach and drew 
 his breath with pains and sighs." The Christian piety 
 Avith which he suffered before his death has been the 
 \miversal theme of panegyric. The whole scene of 
 his increasing malady, his devout resignation, and 
 fervent prayers for all his friends, together with his 
 paternal admonitions for the regulation of their lives, 
 and his uncontrollable anxiety to dictate to the boy 
 who was his amanuensis, even to his last moments, 
 are beautifully recorded in a letter written by Cuth- 
 bert. In that letter it appears " He was nnich troubled 
 with shortness of breath, yet without pain;" and, 
 towards the close, he passed his life, "cheerful and 
 rejoicing, giving thanks to Almighty God, eyery day 
 and night, nay, every hour, till the day of our Lord's 
 ascension," 2Cth May, 7'}5, — his last on earth. In his 
 last days he was engaged translating the gospel of St. 
 
Bede. 159 
 
 John. " Go on quickly," he said to his amanuensis to 
 whom he was dictating — " I know not how long I 
 shall hold out." On the morning of his last day on 
 earth, having spent the previous night in thanksgiving, 
 one of his disciples said to him — " My dear master, 
 there is still one chapter wanting ; do you think it 
 troublesome to be asked any more questions ? " His 
 answer was — " It is no trouble. Take your pen and 
 make ready, and write fast." In the afternoon he 
 summoned the brethren of the monastery on whom he 
 bestowed " the gifts which God had bestowed " on 
 him. The scene was affecting. They all mourned 
 and wept, especially because he said " they should no 
 more see his face in this world." " It is time," said 
 he, " that I return to Him who formed me out of 
 nothing. I have lived long. My merciful judge well 
 foresaw my life for me. The time of my dissolution 
 draws nigh, for I desire to die and to be with Christ." 
 Having said much more, he passed the day joyfully 
 till the evening, when his amanuensis said — " Dear 
 master, there is yet one sentence not written." He 
 replied, "It is well, you have said the truth. It is 
 ended." And thus, on the pavement of his little cell, 
 singing " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and 
 to the Holy Ghost," when he had named the Holy 
 Ghost he breathed his last ; and so departed to the 
 heavenly kingdom, one whose name is the greatest in 
 the ancient literature of Britain, and the most distin- 
 guished scholar of his age. I shall conclude this 
 lecture with short extracts from two hymns composed 
 
i6o The Scottish Church. 
 
 by him in Latin, like most of his other works. The 
 hymn from which the first extract is taken is entitled 
 " Hymn for the Holy Innocents," and consists of six 
 stanzas, the last of which is here given in the transla- 
 tion of John Mason Neale : — 
 
 " O city [Bethlehem] blest o'er all the earth, 
 Who gloriest in the Saviour's birth ! 
 Whose are his earliest martyrs dear, 
 By kindred and by triumph here. 
 None from henceforth may call thee small, — 
 Of rival towns thou passest all, 
 In whom our Monarch had his birth, 
 city blest o'er all the earth. " 
 
 The following extract is from a hymn on the ascension 
 of our Lord, translated by Elizabeth K Charles : — 
 
 ' ' A hymn of glory let us sing ; 
 
 New songs throughout the world shall ring ; 
 By a new way none ever trod » 
 
 Christ mounteth to the throne of God. 
 
 May our affections thither tend, 
 And thither constantly ascend. 
 Where, seated on tlie Father's throne, 
 Thee reigning in the heavens we own ! 
 
 Be thou our present joy, O Lord ! 
 Who wilt be ever our reward, 
 And as the countless ages fiee, 
 May all our glory be in thee ! " 
 
SHORT LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES GEMMELL, 
 
 10-15 GEORGE IV. BRIDGE, 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 London : . . . . Hamilton, Adams, & Co. ; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. 
 
 Edinburgh : Olfver & Boyd ; J. Menzies & Co. 
 
 Glasgow: , • - J. Menzies & Co.; Porteous Brothers. 
 
 THE only history OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF 
 DIVINES. By the late Wm. M. Hetherington, D.D., 
 LL.D., Free Church College, Glasgow. Edited by Dr 
 Robert Williamson, Ascog. With Notes and Facsimiles 
 of Title-Pages of the Original Editions of the Confession 
 of Faith, the Catechisms, Larger and Shorter ; and the 
 Directory for Church Government and Ordination of 
 Ministers. Fourth Edition, in 1 vol. , crown 8vo, cloth, 
 price 6/. 
 "The value of the present edition has been greatly enhanced by the care 
 and judgment with which Dr. Williamson of Ascog has readjusted its con- 
 tents, and added what brings their information into accord with the light 
 of the latest discoveries."— Free Church Record. 
 
 "Besides making such corrections as were rendered necessary by the pub- 
 lication of a portion of the Minutes above referred to, the editor has appended 
 to this fourth edition a few additional notes, several facsimiles of seventeenth 
 century title-pages, and two suitable and sufBcient indices, additions which 
 will considerably enhance the interest and value of the work."— Scotsman. 
 
 important work on defence op church establishents. 
 STATEMENT by the late THOMAS M'CRIE, D.D., 
 Author of "Life of John Knox," etc. With Preface by 
 George Smeaton, D.D. , Professor of Exegetical Theo- 
 logy, New College, Edinburgh. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 
 5/. 
 
 " It is a masterly defence of the Principle of Establishments as a Scripture 
 Truth, and the most complete vindication ever given to the world of the 
 position occupied by the Reformed Church of Scotland on the whole subject 
 of National Religion, and of the magistrates' legitimate power in promoting 
 it."— Preface by Professor Smeaton. 
 
 "Apart from the editor's commendation, anything from the pen of so mas- 
 culine a reasoner, and so well practised a writer as Dr. M'Crie must be worth 
 reading ; and whoever wishes to study the important subject here treated of, 
 will do well to have the little book beside Mm." — Scotsman. 
 
2 JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 Now Ready, demy 8vo, cloth, price 9/. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 
 IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 EDWARD REUSS. 
 
 Professor in the University of Strasburg. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 Rev. DAVID HUNTER, B.D. 
 
 " It is a booI< I highly value."— Professiir Bruce, Glasgow. 
 
 "The book is a most valuable and useful one."— Professor IIilligan, 
 Aberdeen. 
 
 "I have long known the book, and found it very stimulating."— Pro- 
 fessor Chartekis, Edinburgh. 
 
 "The work of M. Reuss, the venerable theologian of Strasburg, on the 
 History of the Canon, has all the merits of careful research, comprehension, 
 grasp, and lucid exposition, that mark his other well-known wTitings, while 
 it has also the special merit of handling the subject from a standpoint suffi- 
 ciently different from the other writers who have dealt with it, to give to 
 his book a peculiar and, in suine sense, unique value, and to make the pos- 
 session of it indispensable 1(1 the s-tiuliiit who would acquaint himself with 
 the various aspects of the qu. >tinii> .liMussed. Mr. Hunter has performed a 
 signal service l)y making it ai r -si),!, m tlie Knglish reader in a vei-sion which 
 I cannot doubt, from my Ln-w |..Pj,. ,,t' his (|n;ilific:itiiiiis, will contrast 
 favourably with many tr.in-i ii mk- (,i i Ik i.lir^iciH w.irlv-;, nlike as regards 
 accuracy and idiomatic cliic. -mm s rnr^. " I'li'i'. Hk iv- n, Glasgow. 
 
 '"J'he subject is in itself ii i ; : ; li;:~ .i -j . i iiMnti i. -t ii>r Scotsmen 
 
 in view (if 
 
 very 
 
 readalile, aihl licit i- -.iiii- r _i.."l i, i; -, - 1; : . ,t, « e aiv net aecUS- 
 toine(h The >t:,lc aiiJ lr-,,i,: ,[ i- I -.^ ..r- , i, i . ■ i l„ .nt. 'I'he .■:^|.i|-it ami 
 metlidd ai-e st i;(ll\ ,-ci( iii iii. . I h. im m - -i . -m to^iM,,!,, is iiiaiiitaiiied from 
 the beuiiiMJiii.;, but gathers eliielly aidiiiid the chisiiig chapters."- DUNDEE 
 ADVKKTISEIl 
 
 "Tlieliook ought to be in the library of every clergj-nian and theological 
 student, and indeed will prove invaluable to every thoughtful reader who 
 takes an interest in a subject of such vast importance."— Bdckseluer. 
 
 "A most scholarly and comjjrehensive work. The most complete on the 
 subject we know of."— Christian Age. 
 
 "Tu traiislatiii'.' this bdok tlic liev. David Hunter has done good service to 
 the(ilMj\-, lilacin- witliin the r. aclj of all r.iiL:li>li icadci-s what is now re- 
 ganhMas llic hkki c.nii.ln,' and most scholarly hi>toi-y of the canon yet 
 written. The aim of llic work i- to sIk.w h(.u the caiK.n of Scrijiture we now 
 possc-s (■ iihc 1(, incluilc .,. many l.u,(ks. u hy not more or less. The book is 
 neitlni' cntical imr d.. -malic, Imt iiistciical tliidiiuhout. It is sinqdy a 
 recoi-d ol fad-, left to speak for tie in-eUes. Tile aut hor )icreei\ inu a gradual 
 gl-owth in tlic hi-loiv of the cannii, >ti Ives to make this develoi.inclit clear 
 to others. Wide knowled-. .if clinieh history, impartial judiiineiit of the 
 evidence of facts, keen histeiaal m^jlit are certainly not laekim,' in the 
 "History of the ('an<m." \. a l raii-lati,.n, we tliid evervwhere Liood, idio- 
 matic I'nvlish, while its ac( inaes i, ^naianlecl l,v the fact that all the proof- 
 Slleet- hase I ,, revi.ea \•^ the aul ' Inm^eif,-' l,irii;.M:i \\'..i:l.l). 
 
 "\\''areulad Ihal at last llie reiacaeli ..f lhi> c..nntr\ i> Imiiil;- removed, 
 and thai m ,.o excelleul and ac( male a Iran. lain. a as Ihis hv Mr. Uimtcr, 
 which has received the aiitliors revision, l^nglish readers are enabled to find 
 one of the very best, most unbiassed, and distinctly scieiitittc works upon the 
 Canon."— Scotsman. 
 
JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. J 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, price 4/6. 
 
 MODERN MISSIONS AND CULTUREj 
 
 THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONS. 
 
 Dr. gustav WARNECK, 
 pastor at rothenschikiibach, near elslkbex. 
 
 Translated from the German by 
 
 THOMAS SMITH, D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EVANGELISTIC THEOLOGY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 " What the author has done, is the vindication of missionaries from many 
 baseless charges, aud the proof that, among many failm-es, missions have 
 wrought lasting and most important beneficial results. Sensible, and far 
 from uninteresting. " — Scotsman. 
 
 " In the translator's e.x;cellent introduction to the work, special reference 
 is made to Mr. Henry Stanley Kew man, wlio went to India a few months 
 ago, mainly with the view of visitini: tht- missions of his own body, the 
 Society of Friends. Dr. Smith has pL-rfuiuied an eminently seasonable task 
 in translating the book of the good German pastor, which contains a vast 
 amount of well-digested and trustwortliy information, all tending to confirm 
 the belief that, among the culture forces of the world, Christianity is the 
 most intrinsic, the most fundamental, and the most inspiriting." — North 
 British Daily Mail. 
 
 "Those uiterested in Foreign Missionary Works will be pleased with this 
 book, since it aims at promoting greater unity on the part of so-called Chris- 
 tian people. The translator, while accepting the conclusions of the German 
 Doctor, as 'sound and conviiicjiiL;,' vigurously answers some disparaging 
 remarks passed on the educatinual iin thud of conducting missions, a system 
 very successfully applied in lii.lia liy the late Dr. Dutt'."— Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "Dr. Thomas Smith was a vahied cn-adjutor of Dr. Duff in Indian Mission 
 Work, and in a preface to 'Modern Jlissions and Culture,' states that he had 
 contemplated writing a book upon Missionary Enterprise. After, however, 
 reading Dr. Warneck's treatise, he saw that his object would be attained in 
 translating it. Dr. Warneck elaborately discusses mission work in all its 
 bearings. The book is full of instructive facts and criticisms, and should be 
 carefully studied by the members of our Chiu'ches." — Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 "This is a most fascinating volume. From the first page to the last it 
 sustains the reader's interest, and gives an admirable account of the relations 
 of Missions and Cultm-e. Xu siiili iiiiiiortant missionary volume has been 
 issued in recent years. We ucit- spi c ially impressed by the judicial spirit 
 which reigns throughout it, and the aiiinirable good sense which characterises 
 many of its remarks. Dr. Sinitli has done liis part of the work with great 
 faithfulness."— Presbyterian Churchman. 
 
 "Professor Smith has done a great service in introducing Dr. Warneck's 
 book to the English reader. In days when we have so-called cultui'e set even 
 aliove the Gospel, it is well to have it thoroughly discussed, and shown that 
 tiiere can be no morality wthout religion, and that Christianity is chief 
 among the culture forces of the world. This is what Dr. Warneck has done. 
 But he has done a great deal more : he has surveyed the mission-field, he has 
 noticed the objections against missions to the heathen that crop up every 
 now and then in the unbelieving press, he examines them and shows their 
 baselessness. It is, therefore, a book for the times, and will be read with 
 interest and profit by the multitudes of good people who desire to see heath- 
 enism speedily take its place among the things of the past, and who believe 
 Christianity to be the divinely appointed means for bringing about the 
 achievement."— Christian Treasury. 
 
 " Shows, by the statement of interesting facts, the great influence of mis- 
 sions in the successful promotion of the educational progTess, and the civili- 
 sation of heathen countries."— Dundee Courier. 
 
4 JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 Demy 8vo, cloth, with Illustrations, price 7/6. 
 
 LECTURES AND SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 MA RT YRS. 
 
 CONTAINING SERMONS AND LECTURES BY 
 
 RICHARD CAMEROX. | ALEXANDER SHIELDS. 
 
 ALEXANDER FEDEX. I .ToHX LTVIXG.STOXE. 
 
 DOXALD CAKOTLL. .ToHX WELLWOOD. 
 
 WILLIAM (ilTIIKIE. | JdllX WELSH. 
 
 MICHAEL BRUCE. | JUIIX GUTHRIE. 
 
 With Preface by John Howie, of Lochgoin ; and Brief Biographical Notices 
 of the Authors of the Sermons, by the Rev. James Kerr, Glasgow. 
 
 lLLUSTKATrii\s.— Grassmarket of Edinburgh— Canongate Tolbooth— Martyrs' 
 Mdiiuiniiit. (iitvfriars — The House where Cameron was born— Xetherbow 
 I'liit, Fjilinlmijih — Greyfriars' Churchyard — Monument at Airsmoss— 
 
 Buthwell Bi-id-e. 
 
 "These sermons were first published by the celebrated John Howie, of 
 Lochgoin, in 1779. This edition having long since become very scarce, if 
 obtainable at all, it was a good thought to have it reprinted. This has been 
 done under the careful editorship of the Rev. James Kerr, of Greenock. . . . 
 Xo one that values the contendings of Scotland's martyrs should be without 
 a copy."— Covenanter. 
 
 "This volume is fitted to prove a genuine memorial of the humble, yet 
 truly illustrious band who jeoparded their lives for Christ's crown and the 
 
 nation's weal The book is altogether very creditably got up, and e.x- 
 
 tends to 674 pages of closely printed matter."— R. P. Witness. 
 
 THE TRUE PSALMODY ; The Bible Psalms the Church's 
 only Manual of Praise. With Prefaces by the Rev. Di.s 
 Cooke, Edgar, and Houstox, and Recommendations 
 from Eminent Presbyterian Divines. Crown 8vo, cloth, 
 220 pages, price 2/. 
 
 "The 'True Psalmody,' is a book that is calculated, we firmly believe, to 
 convince any mind that is open to conviction, that the use of hymns is wholly 
 unwarrantable. It is seldim in these days of 'liberal views'— that is, of 
 wholesale corruption of doctrine and worsliip— that we meet with a new 
 publication tliat we heartily and unreservedly commend."— The Reformed 
 Presbyterian Witness. 
 
 SELECT SERMONS by THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., 
 LL.D. With a Tribute to his Memory by the late Dr. 
 LoRiMER. New edition, crown 8vo, cloth, 2o3 pages, 
 price 1/6. 
 
 "Judiciously selected, and will serve, as far as printed words can serve, to 
 convey to a new generation an idea of tlie power and eloiiuence which en- 
 tranced their fathers. It is fitting, too, that Dr. Lorimer's funeral sermon 
 should escape any hostile criticism. From an evangelical and Free Church 
 point of view, the sermon is a noble eioc/e. "—Scotsman. 
 
JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. O 
 
 Demy Svo, cloth, in 2 vols., price 3/6 each vol. (sold separately). 
 
 MODERN SCOTTISH PULPIT. 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 SERMONS BY PBESBYTEBIAN MINISTERS. 
 
 "There are weighty doctrinal discourses, scholarly expositions of Scripture, 
 ably maintained theses, pointed practical exhortations, and fervent evan- 
 gelical appeals They possess all the cliaracteristics ot what has been 
 
 isnown as distinctly Scottish preaching."— Daily Review. 
 
 "Scotch Sermons axe not all bad, though the name has gained an unen- 
 viable notoriety ; for here are discom-ses 'as sound as a bell.' Sydney Smith 
 called Scotland 'the knuckle-end of England;' but as to gospel preaching we 
 have always regarded it as the choicest part of the three kingdoms ; and so 
 it is, and so shall be, by the gi-ace of God."— Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 " Presents excellent specimens of the modern evangelical preaching at its 
 best."— Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 "These sermons represent the talent of the living Chm-ch in every part of 
 the country."— Perthshire Constitutional. 
 
 "One and all of them, we believe, give forth a certain sound on the great 
 ■ ■ oi the gospel."— Original Secession Magazine. 
 
 WORKS BY^EV. HUGH MARTIN, D.D. 
 
 THE ATONEMENT ; in its Relation to the Priesthood and 
 the Intel-cession of our Lord. 2nd edition, demy Svo, 
 cloth, price 7/*J. 
 "A volume wTitten with remarkable vigour and earnestness." — BRITISH 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 "Something like theology. We wish our young divines would feed on such 
 meat as this. Dr. Martin teaches a real substition and an efficient atonement, 
 and has no sjinpathy with Robertson and liis school." — Spurgeon. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF CALVARY : Gethsemane— The Ar- 
 rest — The Trial. Demy Svo, cloth, price 7/6. 
 
 "We recommend the 'Shadow of Calvary' to our readers,as an excellent 
 book for Sabbath reading, and we trust it will have a large circulation. It 
 abounds in close heart-searching appeals to the unbelieving and impenitent 
 and with rich consolations to the humble child of God. —The Original 
 Secession Magazine. 
 
 " It will be seen that Dr. Martin holds very definite theological views, and 
 that he is neither afraid nor ashamed to proclaim them. . . . These lectures 
 abounding in powerful appeal and stern warnings, are not deficient in tender 
 ness and reverence." — Scotsman. 
 
 THE PROPHET JONAH : his Character and Mission to 
 Nineveh. 2nd edition, demy Svo, price 7/6 
 
 "To ordinary readers we can thoroughly recommend it as a good, sound, 
 full, practical exposition of the Pi'ophet Jonah." — Daily Review. 
 
 "A good specimen of the author's power of exposition, and is certain to be 
 useful to those who intend to devote special study to the book."— Glasgow 
 News. 
 
 A METHOD OF PRAYER, with Scripture Expressions 
 Proper to bo Used under each Head. By the late Rev. 
 Matthew Henry. 16mo, cloth, price 1/. 
 
JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 THE SAINT'S EVERLASTING REST ; or, a Treatise on 
 the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of 
 God in Heaven. By the Rev. Richard Baxter. Abridged 
 by Benjamin Fawcett, M.A. New edition, 12nio, 
 cloth, price 1/6. 
 
 IMPORTANT WORK ON BAPTISM. [Originally published in 1791.] 
 
 CANDID REASONS FOR RENOUNCING THE PRIN- 
 CIPLES OF ANTlPyEDOBAPTISM. By Peter 
 Edwards. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 2/0. 
 With Note recommending it by — Principals Kainy and Dou<rlas ; Professors 
 M'Gregor, Tlios. Sraitli and Smeaton ; Urs. H. Bonar, Kennedy, Wilson, ami 
 Begg. Principal Lindsay Alexander, Dr. James Jl'Gregor, St. Cuthbert's, 
 Edmburgh ; and Dr. Robert Jamieson, St. Paul's, Glasgow. 
 
 Crown 8vo, 357 pages, price 4/6. 
 
 THE STORY OF DANIEL: 
 
 HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 
 
 P. H. HUNTER, 
 
 MINISTER OF ELIE. 
 
 " The book is a graphic and vigorous historical biography, as engrossing as 
 a volume of Macaulay." — Scutsman. 
 
 "Mr. Hmiter has done his work very thoroughly His volume will 
 
 occupy a place which there has hitherto been no English book to fill." — THE 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 Just Ready, fcap. 8vo, price 1/6. 
 
 OUR MOTHER: 
 
 A LIFE PICTURE. 
 
 BEING A LIFE OF MRS. KRUMMACHER, 
 
 WIFE OE TUE ADTUOR OF "THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR," ETC. 
 
 Translated from the German by a well-known Author. 
 
 "Deep appri(i;iti'>ii i.t" the purity and peace of home-life enables German 
 
 writers to dtiii. t ii ;i- ik. i.ihers can Possesses all the pathos, sweet 
 
 simplicity, ami l"ii\ iciiliiim which characterise the best German story writers 
 The translation is bcaiiuiully done. A capital gift- book. "—Irish Baptist 
 Magazine. 
 
 THE CROOK IN THE LOT: OR, THE SOVEREIGNTY 
 AND ^VISD().M OF (iOD JN THE AFKLK'TloNS 
 OF MEN DISPLAYED ; together with a Christian 
 Deportment under them : being the Substance of several 
 Sermons on Eccles. vii. 13, Prov. xvi. 17, and 1 Pet. v. 
 G. By Rev. Thomas IkKsTOX. lOmo, cloth, price Sd. 
 
JAMES GEMMELL, GEOKGE IV. BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. 7 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 178 pages, with portrait, price 3/. 
 
 LIFE 
 
 ROBERT SMITh'cANDLISH, D.D., 
 
 By jean L. WATSON. 
 
 "A most admirable sketch of the character and work of the late Dr Cand- 
 
 lish This is a most seasonable publication, and should be read by all 
 
 who want to get a concise and coprehensive account of the important prin- 
 ciples and controversies with which Dr. Candlish was so much identified."— 
 Daily Review. 
 
 "In selection, arrangement, and graphic description, the little volume is 
 all that could be desired."— Edinburgh Courant. 
 
 " JIany will rejoice in the ojiportunity of possessing the smaller and cheaper 
 life of the great leader, miw pulili>lK'il, who could not spare the price of the 
 former one. And they will find all the leading events of a remarkable career 
 of one of the most eminent men the I'huieh has ever had recorded in the volume 
 now before us, with a fidelity, sympathy, and brevity that are really very 
 pleasing."— Inverness Advertiser. 
 
 Cro^vn 8vo, cloth, price 21. 
 
 LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS BOSTON: 
 
 PASTOR OF ETTRICK. 
 
 By jean L. WATSON. 
 
 "That the autobiography is so little kno^^-n is much to be regretted ; it is a 
 picture of one of the most momentous periods in the religious history of 
 Scotland ; it is moreover, the mirror of a life spent in high communion wth 
 God, and gifted with a vision penetrating far into the kingdom. Miss Wat- 
 .son's "Life" is based upon this larger work, and abundant extracts are given 
 from it. She has selected her materials wisely, and the result is a book 
 which cannot fail to interest."— British Messenger. 
 
 Just published, crown 8vo, cloth, price 1,6. 
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 ANDKEW THOMSON, D.D. 
 
 By jean L. WATSON. 
 
 " Her biography will be prized."— Scotsman. 
 
 "This interesting but all too brief memoir of Dr. Andrew Thomson vill do 
 much to supply a long felt want. Considering the scanty materials she had to 
 work with. Miss Watson has succeeded in giving us a really valuable and much 
 needed sketch of the life and labours of one of the greatest preachers of this 
 
 country The chapter of ' Personal Reminiscences,' by the Rev. AVm. 
 
 Cousin, greatly enhances the value of the volume."— Daily Review. 
 
 " The compiler of a brief life of the well-known Dr. Andrew Thomson has 
 done her work with conscientious care evidently, .... will be found of in- 
 terest to many as a record of the life of a very able, manly, and large-heai'ted 
 Christian minister."— ABERDEEN Free Press. 
 
8 JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 OUR CHILDREN FOR CHRIST; A PLEA FOR INFANT 
 
 CHURCH ]\I EMBERS HIP, with a full Discussion of 
 the Mode of Baptism. By Rev. Samuel Macnaughton, 
 M.A., English Presbyterian Church, Preston. 12nio, 
 cloth, price 9d. 
 "Free from all controversial bitterness." — Daily Review. 
 " These arguments will no doubt be regarded as convincing by the nume- 
 rous sections of the Cliristian Church who accept the doctrine."— Scotsman. 
 "The book is one of marked ability. In our opinion irresistible."— The 
 Christian News. 
 
 Cr. 8vo, cloth, 203 pp., with Two Portraits and Engraving of Gairney 
 Bridge. Price Is 6d. 
 
 THE EKSKINES : 
 
 EBENEZER AND RALPH. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN KER, D.D., and JEAN L. WATSON. 
 
 " a better prize book for a IT. P. Sabbath school could not be found. The 
 story of the lives of Ebenezer and Haliili Erskine here told is full of interest. 
 But its power to engage attention is not its only virtue. It shows the man- 
 ner of men the founders of the ■liiinniiniition were— how intensely earnest 
 and practical their religion was : lin\v m ./,• their attachment to principle, 
 liow manifist tlioir labours, and liow l..it\ tlnir aini=; : and it therefore com- 
 mands adniinilioii a> wrll aVr\ritr> int-iT-l. ■ liMi.v l;i:vii:\v. 
 
 "This i- til.- ioini^|iroi|iii-ii,iii of a ili~iiir_iij-lir,| I .r. ,ii\iiie and a well- 
 known KiTf clniicli autliorr>s. 'ilicy li:i\c siicicnlid between them in 
 making a very readable book, .... is written in an agreeable and attrac- 
 tive style, which is certain to ensure its popularity." — Edinburgh Courant. 
 
 BY JEAN L. WATSON. 
 
 LIFE OF RICHARD CAMERON. 70 pp. , with View of 
 Monument at Airsmoss, and of Falkland Palace, price Gd. 
 "Miss Watson still continues her praiseworthy efforts to supply lives of 
 'Scottish Worthies' calculated to instruct youthful readers and stimulate 
 them to useful and holy lives Contains a brief and appreciative bio- 
 graphy of Richard Cameron, and a graphic account of the persecutions he 
 endured durmg the memorable covenanting struggle."— Edinburgh Courant. 
 
 LIFE OF HUGH MILLER. 132 pp., ^ith View of Bass 
 Rock on cover, price Od. 
 
 "This is a well-condensed biographical notice of Hugh Miller, stonemason, 
 geologist, and editor."— Daily Rkvikw. 
 
 "Gives on the whole a fair and just view of the salient featiu-es of his 
 character."— Aberdeen Free Press. 
 
 LIFE OF THOMA.S CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D. With 
 View of Kilmany Church. 134 pp. , price Od. 
 
 "The picture she presents of the great Free Churchman is, we believe, 
 essentially just and true, as it certainly is attractive." — Daily Review. 
 
 "Skillfully selected, the crowning incidents of his Ufe, and some of the 
 descriptions rise to eloquence." — League Journal. 
 
BW5395 .P31 
 
 The Scottish church and is surroundings, 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00036 6692