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A 6 
 
 LESSONS OF MIDDLE AGE 
 
By the same Author, 
 
 The RECREATIONS of a COUNTRY PARSON. First 
 Series. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Second Series. 3s. 6d. 
 
 The COMMONPLACE PHILOSOPHER in TOWN and 
 COUNTRY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 LEISURE HOURS in TOWN. 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 The AUTUMN HOLIDAYS of a COUNTRY PARSON. 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 The CRITICAL ESSAYS of a COUNTRY PARSON. 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 SUNDAY AFTERNOONS at the PARISH CHURCH of 
 a UNIVERSITY CITY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 The GRAVER THOUGHTS of a COUNTRY PARSON. 
 First Series. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Second Series, 
 3s. 6d. 
 
 COUNSEL and COMFORT SPOKEN from a CITY 
 
 PULPIT. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 CHANGED ASPECTS of UNCHANGED TRUTHS: 
 
 Memorials of St Andrews' Sundays. Crown Svo. 
 
 35. 6d. 
 
LESSONS OF MIDDLE AGE 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF VARIOUS CITIES 
 AND MEN 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON" 
 
 CC^/a 
 
 U4AT 
 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 ' » ». » », » » 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 1869 
 

 edinburgh : 
 
 printed by ballantyne and company, 
 
 Paul's work. 
 
 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGB 
 OF AN ANCIENT CITY, . # . . . I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONCERNING TEN YEARS : WITH SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THINGS LEARNED IN THEM, 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE REST OF IT, ...... 54 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ORGAN IN SCOTLAND, .... 74 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONCERNING ROADSIDE STATIONS : WITH SOME 
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE TERMINUS AD QUEM, . 86 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGR 
 PRESBYTERIAN SERMONS FROM ARCHIEPISCOPAL 
 
 CHURCHES, ....... 104 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CONCERNING BEARDS: BEING THOUGHTS ON PRO- 
 GRESS, SPECIALLY IN SCOTLAND, . . . 131 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CONCERNING THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING A CAN- 
 TANKEROUS FOOL 5 WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON 
 THE TREATMENT OF INCAPACITY, . . . l6j 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONCERNING THE TREATMENT OF SUCH AS 
 
 DIFFER FROM US IN OPINION, . . . 1 80 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AMONG SOUTH-WESTERN CATHEDRALS, . • 211 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONCERNING THE HEADS OF BATTERING-RAMS J 
 WITH SOME THOUGHTS TOUCHING THE RE- 
 VIVIFICATION OF MUMMIES, .... 225 
 
Contents. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TACE 
 
 GLASGOW DOWN THE WATEK, . . . .237 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN MAY, ..... 265 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 30J 
 
% 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF AN ANCIENT CITY. ' 
 
 HAS it happened in the reader's experience, that 
 there was some place which used to have for 
 him a sort of mystic charm and fascination about it? It 
 was not like other places : it was " an unsubstantial, fairy- 
 place : " like the Vale of Avalon, like the Alhambra at 
 Granada, like the Mosque of St Sophia ; like Mecca or 
 Damascus to the man who has never been there. You 
 remember the curious feeling that arose in you when you 
 first saw that place. And how strange a thing it seemed, 
 if it was appointed to you to grow familiar with it ! 
 Perhaps the mystic charm vanished, when you came to 
 know it better ; as the divinity that hedges a prince ceases 
 to invest him to the view of his familiar friends. Perhaps 
 the peculiar fascination was felt more and more deeply, 
 as time went on : no familiarity having power to exorcise 
 the genius of the place. 
 
 It has happened to the present writer, that after having 
 had his home and work in various scenes and atmospheres, 
 he has at length been appointed to abide in a place which 
 from his early years has had to him that mystic charm. 
 
 A 
 
2 Of an Ancient City. 
 
 And to very many besides him this place is in like manner 
 transfigured. It is a gray old city of six thousand inhabi- 
 tants and of more than a thousand years j not without its 
 share of toil, worry, and gossip ; but through all the 
 prosaic details of modern life and care, there comes a 
 solemn undertone from past centuries ; as over the laugh 
 of the lads gathered in the evening at the street corners, 
 and the rattle of omnibus wheels running down to the 
 railway station, there may be heard by such as listen for 
 it the deep murmur of the surrounding sea. It is a city 
 of solemn ruins and ivied walls ; of innumerable ancient 
 remembrances, tragical and pleasant ; once of fiery storms 
 and strifes, of heroic courage and martyr endurance, but 
 now of academic quiet ; of scarlet gowns and black caps j 
 of dear associations in the mind of many a country clergy- 
 man, looking back through the softening haze of years on 
 the season of his college life. Thus was it first shown to 
 the writer. It was here his father studied : and that good 
 man, though he lived to near fourscore, never saw it again 
 after his student life was ended. Providence set him far 
 away from it j and he ever spoke of it as a kind good 
 man would speak of the abode (long unseen) of some ot 
 his most hopeful years. What talks have I listened to, 
 ever since I can remember, between men with gray heads, 
 looking back with a fond enthusiasm on this home of 
 their departed days ! It was a memorable hour, in which 
 I first beheld the spires and colleges of the quaint and 
 ancient city. And thus beholding it, did not the thought 
 strongly press itself on the writer's mind, that if the 
 
Of an Ancient City. 3 
 
 opportunity ever came of finding his home and duty here, 
 that opportunity would be impossible to be resisted ? In 
 all the land, it seemed as though this were his appointed 
 place, where he could be at home as in no other. 
 
 At length the day came when the cure of this city and 
 parish became vacant by the sudden death of a certain 
 great preacher and accomplished man j and the greatest 
 honour that ever befell the writer in his lifetime came to 
 him when he was thought worthy in some humble degree 
 to take that eminent person's vacant place. The evening 
 came whereon the writer was informed that two gentle- 
 men were in his study desiring to see him j and entering 
 to them, without the faintest thought of who they were 
 or what was their errand, he found he had come, as we 
 often do thus unexpectedly, to a great turning-point in 
 his life. One face was familiar 5 the other was unknown : 
 but the purpose of that visit was speedily made apparent. 
 The writer had formed ties elsewhere, hard to break ; 
 but, after a little time of great doubt and perplexity, he 
 was led to a decision never for a moment regretted j 
 and so he came here. It is two years ago : two years 
 exactly, since he came 5 yet, though now knowing every- 
 body, knowing all about the place, knowing thoroughly 
 its life, its ways, its tendencies, the mystic glory has not 
 gone from it at all. It is still as strange as ever to think 
 his home and charge are in the sacred city, which bears 
 the first-called apostle's name. It is a gray old place 
 indeed ; and when you look along the chief street, look- 
 ing towards the east, by winter moonlight or in summer 
 
4 Of an Ancient City. 
 
 sunshine, its aspect is dreamy as that of no other place the 
 writer knows in this hard-working country of liberal 
 politics and literal sentiment. In these days the autumn 
 fields round it are yellow with harvest ; and at sunset, the 
 level September sun falls brightly on the recent houses of 
 light-coloured freestone, and on the dark masses of the 
 ancient ruins and spires. If you had walked out two 
 miles to the west this afternoon, over a track of velvety 
 turf leading through sandy downs beside the sea, and 
 then turned and looked back on the scene glowing in the 
 sunset, you would have thought involuntarily of the 
 imagery of the Apocalypse. For there indeed was a 
 Golden City, bounded by a sea of glass mingled with 
 fire. 
 
 Yet you come to it by a railway, as though it were an 
 ordinary place : a curious railway of a single line of rails. 
 That is its usual communication with the outer world. 
 Our little railway turns off from the main line six miles 
 away : coming first through rich fields, lacking trees and 
 hedges, but great in their agricultural value ; winding 
 down to the bank of a little river, which the flowing tide 
 makes a large one ; crossing it by a wooden bridge set 
 alongside a stone one centuries old, which will doubtless 
 see the end of a good many wooden bridges : then skirting 
 a broad lagoon, beautiful at high water, dreary at low $ 
 then passing through sandhills and downs, till you come 
 to a little wooden station of inexpressible shabbiness. 
 There omnibusses wait : just like other omnibusses. They 
 will convey you and your baggage where you will ; tra- 
 
Of an Ancient City. 5 
 
 versing various streets and pausing at various doors ere 
 they reach that which is your destination. 
 
 This is again a bright sunshiny day, but with the crisp 
 air of the latter half of September. If you had gone forth 
 at eight in the morning, you would have been aware of 
 that peculiar quality in the still atmosphere which one 
 associates with ripened harvest fields silently waiting the 
 sickle, or with the yellow stubble environed by trees and 
 hedges still green. Pleasant are the pictures recalled by 
 that quiet autumnal air ; bracing is its effect on body and 
 mind. And if you had scrambled down a steep bank, 
 and from the side of a jutting rock entered the clear ocean, 
 you would have been effectually wakened up, and have 
 returned with active step to the work of the day. Though 
 this be the season of universal holiday-time, we are all 
 at home. For the calls of duty so tie the writer that 
 he cannot get away ; on Sundays his presence is needful. 
 And the household is the more reconciled to abide in this 
 place, by the reflection that truly there is no better place 
 to go to in these weeks of autumn. But it is holiday-time 
 with the children ; lessons are all forgot. And although 
 it is an end hard of attainment in one's own parish, 
 the writer is intermitting his work as much as may 
 be ; and trying to cast off all thought of the regular 
 round of duty. The Sunday comes, and he must preach 
 to a great congregation j mainly of strange faces. Most 
 of the inhabitants are gone for the time ; but instead of 
 leaving behind them an empty church, whence the clergy- 
 man may likewise be absent, (as was the pleasant fashion 
 
6 Of an Ancient City. 
 
 in another city, left behind,) they leave their places to be 
 filled up by manifold visitors. For this ancient city, of 
 gray walls and green ivy, of stern rocks, broad sands, and 
 wide sea, has become so much the autumnal resort of 
 people from other places, that only the other day the 
 writer had the mortification of reading an advertisement 
 wherein it was described as " this rising and fashionable 
 watering-place." Surely a sore degradation of the solemn 
 University-seat and Cathedral city of fifteen hundred 
 years ! 
 
 But kings and queens come no more 5 and archbishops 
 and princes are gone. The stirring days of this city's 
 history are fled ; and such days are not likely to return. 
 We have our University still, not without its famous names ; 
 and from amid the ruins and ivy, the world both of 
 science and of theology has heard the utterance of the 
 most advanced thinking of the day. But the Cathedral 
 church is a ruin -, though a lovely ruin even in its stern 
 desolation ; and all the Cathedral staff has been long since 
 swept away. The country, as Dr Samuel Johnson said, 
 is " sunk into Presbyterianism." The stately services, the 
 long processions, the gorgeously arrayed dignitaries of 
 Roman days, have wholly disappeared. I do not believe 
 that such a thing as a cope or chasuble exists where there 
 used to be so many. No censer has swung here, neither 
 has any brave witness for the truth been here burnt at the 
 stake, for hundreds of years. Bitterly bad the ancient 
 church must have been in Scotland, to have been so 
 utterly cast down and cast out ; to have driven a whole 
 
Of an Ancient City. 7 
 
 nation into the very extremity of the opposite extreme 
 from it. And the extremity was extreme. Hideous have 
 our churches been ; irreverent beyond expression our rural 
 congregations 3 from the days of the Reformation till 
 within a very few years of the present time. Anything in 
 any way associated with the old worship and government,, 
 however good in itself, has been summarily rejected by 
 many. I have known good Christian folk who utterly 
 repudiated a sentiment so harmless, and indeed so praise- 
 worthy, as " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and 
 to the Holy Ghost." Not but these words expressed the 
 feeling that was in their hearts ; but they would rather 
 that feeling had been expressed in some other way. Yes : 
 as for ecclesiastical pomp, there remains not here even the 
 palest shadow of the ancient way. The ancient way has 
 been wiped out for ever. Would that what in it was 
 beautiful and right had been spared : the magnificent 
 church, the noble organ, the voices audibly blended in 
 common supplication, the uncovered head in the sacred 
 precinct, the knee bent in prayer ! Even the mediaeval 
 houses, mostly of wood, are gone ; only three dwellings in 
 the city date from pre-Reformation days. The moral 
 atmosphere is entirely changed since the days of the city's 
 glory ; and even of material features, not much remains 
 the same, unless the rocks, the sea, the sky. Doubtless 
 that broad blue expanse on which I have just looked, 
 ceaselessly fluctuating -, the low hills across the bay, fourteen 
 miles off; and the long stretches of light yellow sand; look 
 to me, in this clear September sunshine, as they did five 
 
8 Of an Ancient City. 
 
 hundred years since to the cardinals and kings who gave 
 this place its splendour ; as they did two thousand years 
 since to the savages that here chased the wild boar. 
 
 It is an evil, inherent in the present order of things, 
 that there is no standing still. When you have got all 
 your belongings as you would wish to have them, it is sad 
 that they will not remain so. Your carpets wear out, 
 and the morocco of your chairs : year by year your books 
 get shabbier j and even if you can afford to bind the 
 friendly volumes, you obliterate the old familiar faces, 
 thus doing. Worst of all, your children grow older, and 
 you have lost the little boy or girl of former years. It is 
 all well, what you have got, in the confirmed vigour of 
 body and mind; but still something is lost, something 
 that was very dear. And your own feeling towards 
 most things changes : thus comes that change within 
 which makes the greatest change on things without. 
 We grow accustomed to things; they cannot strike us 
 now as they strike a stranger. Would that things would 
 keep their first fresh feeling and racy enjoyableness ! 
 But it goes off; and doubtless the edge of what is painful 
 grows blunted as well as the edge of what is pleasant. 
 These are the latter years : this is the time you used 
 vaguely to look forward to, long ago. On the whole, 
 they are the best days you have ever seen : thankfully 
 does the writer acknowledge that for himself. Yet he 
 has got on so far, that the haze of beauty is gathering 
 round the past. And from this better time he looks 
 back with a special interest on the days when he was a 
 
Of an Ancient City. g 
 
 country parson, wandering much in leafy lanes, sitting 
 much beneath the shade of great green trees. O the 
 magnificent beeches and gnarled oaks, now far away ! 
 For the trees here are few. People have got so much 
 into the way of saying that the keen sea air would kill 
 them, that they have not planted them : though they 
 grow beautifully where they have the chance. In the 
 quadrangle of that college which I see when I look up 
 from my writing, there are two fine elms of graceful 
 form ; and where two elms grow, how much more would 
 two hundred ? But, not having been planted, of course 
 they do not grow 5 and it is to be confessed that the coun-. 
 try immediately surrounding the ancient place, is not 
 without a certain aspect of bleakness. There are trees, 
 indeed, and well-grown ones : it was a slanderous tongue 
 that told Dr Johnson that there was just one tree in the 
 city and another about ten miles off; but there are not 
 trees enough to give the region that warm and rich shade 
 which makes the glory of many other places. In its 
 grandest days there never could have been here the 
 beautiful close, with its rich foliage, which you may see 
 round certain Anglican cathedrals. The archiepiscopal 
 palace here was a fortified castle, frowning sternly on a 
 bare cliff rising from a lonely sea : able to stand a siege, 
 as it had to do now and then. And the cathedral, great 
 in size and severe in the beauty of un decorated Gothic, 
 stood boldly forth, on its rocky foundation, to the north- 
 easter fresh from the German foam. A keen and sharp 
 air must have been felt, on many days, even by such as 
 
io Of an Anciejit City. 
 
 paced the cloisters 5 and the Gregorian music of matins 
 and vespers must often have been blended with the roar 
 of foaming waves. 
 
 Wherein, then, lies the charm of the ancient city ? 
 Well, it is hard to say. Doubtless it is there, and you feel 
 it 5 but it exhales, it vanishes, it is gone, when you try 
 to analyse it. It is not the beauty of the surrounding 
 country. For though the wide sea is grand, and the 
 broad sands unrivalled, yet the inland landscape is com- 
 paratively featureless -, featureless by comparison in a 
 country whose features are in many places so beautiful, 
 in some so sublime. It is an undulating landscape that 
 stretches around, bare of hedges, bare of trees j nor are 
 the hills high enough to be heathery. There are wide 
 prospects in all directions : the eye grows accustomed 
 here to look at vast stretches of view. There are real 
 mountains to be seen in the distance, if you look across 
 the bay : and turning to the east, there is nothing to 
 break the expanse of water till you get to Denmark. 
 But close around the city, there are no great avenues of 
 green shade, making twilight on the bright summer day; 
 and though there are two little streams, there is nothing 
 nearer than several miles that deserves to be called a river. 
 There are no hedge-rows, fragrant with honeysuckle and 
 wild roses ; the blossoming hawthorn does not perfume 
 the air of June. It is an austere beauty that is here 
 resent ; and the sea is the great thing after all : with 
 blue waves in sunshine, and black waves in storm. The 
 charm is mainly in antiquity ; in the gray age of the look 
 
Of an Ancient City. 1 1 
 
 the place takes, when you see it in the light of its old 
 associations - } in its academic tone ; in its monastic quiet j 
 and, to some degree, in making believe very much. For 
 if you be one of those to whom the days spent in a visit 
 to an English cathedral city are a perpetual feast ; who 
 gloat over the old houses of wood ; who pervade every 
 nook of the close ; who are aware of a sanctity thrown 
 over all the scene, from the vast house of prayer, with its 
 gigantic towers, its solemn bells, its long aisles, its ancient 
 oak, its windows like the Northern sunset, its white-robed 
 train, its sublime music ; to whom anything Gothic has a 
 charm unspeakable j and if it be appointed to you to live 
 in a country where there are no cathedrals and no ecclesi- 
 astical pomp, but where the sense of beauty is outraged 
 by ninety-nine churches in every hundred, and where 
 you are surrounded by good folk most of whom cannot 
 even understand how some natures crave for the beautiful 
 in architecture and are revolted by the hideous j then here 
 alone in that country have you some faint echo of the 
 thing you rejoice to see. And if you be one who delight 
 in pacing academic courts, with their flavour of antique 
 learning and hopeful youthfulness together j if Oxford be 
 in your memory a glorious vision of t&wer, spire, quad- 
 rangle, and grove 5 and if even the less charming town 
 by the Cam, with its canal-like river and its magnificent 
 avenues behind the colleges, be cherished in remem- 
 brance 5 then here you have some shadow, befitting a 
 poorer kingdom, of the like learned haunts. Here are 
 various collegiate quadrangles, all of them Gothic, one 
 
12 Of an Ancient City. 
 
 of them cloistered,, wherein one may walk up and down 
 and mildly rejoice j here you may pass under ancient 
 archways, where the learned and the heroic have gone 
 before you. Here you may look upon the graceful leaf- 
 like form of the pointed window j and come after much 
 instruction to know by example what is meant by Byzan- 
 tine architecture, what by Norman, what by Early Eng- 
 lish, what by Decorated, what by Perpendicular. Simple 
 and humble are some instances of these ; very grand some 
 others j but if you had lived in places where for months 
 you never saw a pointed arch, nor indeed a round one 
 unless in a bridge, you would know how to value all 
 these things. The love of Gothic art, starved elsewhere 
 in this country, here finds some food : in what you may 
 esteem a humbler Canterbury and Oxford both in one. 
 
 Such is the scene from which the writer sends forth 
 this volume of essays. Several others have gone before 
 it ; and this, he may say with some confidence, is the 
 last. There is little time now, for the production of such 
 pages : though they have found many readers and gained 
 many friends. And the writer has insensibly drifted away 
 from that stage in which to write these essays was natural 
 and pleasant. Graver duties await him, fitted for grave 
 middle-age 5 nor is he without the hope that, ceasing 
 from these pages, he may, by abundant labour, be able to 
 produce some work of such weighty thought and deep 
 insight as no human being shall ever care to read. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONCERNING TEN YEARS : WITH SOME ACCOUNT 
 OF THINGS LEARNED IN THEM. 
 
 THIS afternoon, I went and saw several sick persons, 
 rich and poor, whom it was my duty to go and 
 see. Some of them dwell in very handsome houses \ 
 some in very poor little cottages. It is pleasant, when 
 one has to visit sick folk who are poor, to find that it is 
 not necessary (as it often is in towns) to climb long and 
 unsavoury stairs, but that the humble friends to be visited 
 abide in real quaint country cottages, which the advancing 
 city has yet spared. Pleasant to me is the little bit of 
 grass in front, and the old untended hedge of thorn ; 
 pleasant the lowly dwelling of one story, with its weather- 
 stained walls and its roof of red tiles -, pleasant its homely 
 interior, that carries one's thoughts back to a certain 
 country parish long unseen. Capriciously, the advancing 
 tide of building here and there spares such a place ; in a 
 little while to be engulfed by the great stone and mortar 
 sea. 
 
 In such a place, this afternoon, an aged grandmother 
 told me an instance of the extraordinary precocity and 
 
14 Concerning Ten Years: with some 
 
 understanding of a little grandson, who stood casting bash- 
 ful yet wistful looks at the visitor from beneath a great 
 mass of uncombed hair. Each Sunday that little man 
 attends divine service at a certain church, concerning 
 which I desire to say, that if any intelligent reader chooses 
 to send me ten thousand pounds, or even five thousand, 
 to expend on the beautifying of it, the wish of that 
 intelligent reader shall be faithfully and lovingly car- 
 ried into execution. On returning from church on a 
 forenoon on which it happened that the present writer 
 did not preach, that fine little man with the great head 
 of hair has been known to use such words as the follow- 
 ing : " We hadna our ain minister the day : it was anither 
 man that preached." I listened to the good old grand- 
 mother, relating these facts, with the reverence and in- 
 terest with which, for many reasons, I always listen to 
 anything told concerning little children by those most 
 nearly related to them, who cannot have much of life to 
 come. It is a contrast that never ceases to touch, and 
 that is always most suggestive, childhood and as^e side by 
 side : the little feet that may have so many weary steps 
 before them, and the aged ones whose long rest must be 
 near. I suppose the lines you may read here are very 
 commonplace, and I don't know who wrote them ; but I 
 read them in a newspaper ten years ago, and I cannot 
 forget them, though I have forgot all the rest of the 
 poem : — 
 
 They lie upon my pathway bleak, 
 These flowers that once grew wild, 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 1 5 
 
 As on a father's careworn cheek 
 
 The ringlets of his child : 
 The golden mingled with the gray, 
 And chasing half its gloom away. 
 
 But besides the general consideration which would have 
 made the important narrative interesting, it had chanced 
 that on the same day an analogous history had been re- 
 lated to me in a very different scene. In a very hand- 
 some drawing-room, not very far away from the little red- 
 tiled cottage, a young mother had bewailed to me the 
 increase of slang, even among the very young : adding as 
 an instance the following information. Her son, aged 
 five, and her daughter, aged eight, had a little quarrel. 
 The daughter desired to make it up again : the boy was 
 obdurate in the sense of ill-usage. On which the little 
 girl said persuasively, holding out a friendly hand, " Come, 
 Frank, and extend the flapper of friendship ! " And the 
 little boy was instantly melted and won by so touching 
 an appeal to his better feelings. 
 
 If the metaphysical reader is under the impression that 
 these incidents are related with the design of enforcing 
 or illustrating any principle, all that need be said is that 
 the metaphysical reader is very far mistaken. The writer 
 is slowly but surely approaching his proper subject, by a 
 path which, though apparently devious, is in truth straight 
 as an arrow. These brief narratives are to be esteemed 
 in the light of a rapid glance to right and another to left 
 as he proceeds ; but their relation to the matter to be 
 discussed at great length in the following pages is one 
 
1 6 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 which it would take too much time to set forth satisfac- 
 torily. And, that it may not be set forth in an unsatis- 
 factory manner, I have been led, after much reflection, to 
 resolve not to set it forth at all. 
 
 Having seen various sick persons till about five o'clock, 
 I then ceased from that interesting but sometimes very 
 trying duty ; and proceeded to take a short rapid walk in 
 the waning light. It was a frosty afternoon, one of the 
 earliest of November : the air was crisp, and all the 
 western sky was red : ruddy was the glow cast on the 
 windows of that suburban lane, and upon the faces of 
 the passers-by. Certain circumstances, not of general 
 importance, made the writer's thoughts turn upon that 
 great, familiar, and unutterably touching matter, of the 
 lapse of time. Never again, after to-morrow's sun has 
 risen, will he be able to call himself the same number of 
 years old that to-night he still may. But the special 
 thought suggested was this, How differently different 
 people take the lapse of time, and bear their years. 
 There were many trees, small and great, by the sides of 
 that suburban way. And what struck one » was this. 
 Some had their leaves quite green, even to-day, when 
 most leaves are crisp and sere, and when many have 
 fallen. And beholding a quite green tree, thick with 
 leaves, and a bare withered tree of the same species, side 
 by side, one could not help thinking, Now that tree is 
 like Smith, and that other like Brown. Brown is 
 withered ; Smith is green. Each is of the other's age in 
 fact j but how different in appearance ; and yet more in 
 
Account of Things learned in them. iy 
 
 feeling. Yet the fact doubtless is, that though Smith 
 and Brown belong to the genus human being, and to the 
 species clergyman, they differ constitutionally and essen- 
 tially. They differ, even as that tall acacia, with its 
 drooping leaves, green as in June, differs from that russet: 
 beech that shows a ragged bulk against the sky, and that 
 has strewn this pathway deep with rustling leaves. Yes, 
 there are not many things in which people differ more 
 from one another, than in the fashion in which they take 
 the lapse of time. 
 
 There are folk who begin to feel as though winter had 
 come, early in September. There are those who, at that 
 month's middle, or even its end, think that it is almost 
 summer still. I have been told by a lady who began 
 early to feel as if old, how once, when some one had. 
 spoken of her as young, she interrupted that person, and 
 (in all good faith) exclaimed, " Oh, no 5 you don't know 
 how old I am : I am nearly a quarter of a century !" Of 
 course that was a solemn way of putting the case; a 
 quarter of a century sounds as though it denoted quite a 
 different number from jive-and-twenty. We do not now 
 esteem the age thus gravely denoted as a venerable one ; 
 but probably many readers can remember a time when. 
 they thought four-and-twenty (for something was lacking; 
 of the quarter of a century) very old. For young or old is 
 a matter relative to your position. My friend Smith, who 
 is a clergyman, related to me that when he came to be 
 thirty-eight, he esteemed himself as very old indeed. But 
 a sudden change was wrought in his feeling by the fact,. 
 
1 8 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 that a certain famous University made him, at that age, 
 a Doctor of Divinity. This circumstance, which might 
 have tended to number him (in his own judgment as 
 well as in the judgment of others) among the grave and 
 reverend seniors of his profession, had just the opposite 
 effect. For, as he said with great force of reason, 
 " Though I am old for a human being, I am young for a 
 Doctor of Divinity !" And if a man be enabled to think 
 himself young quoad hoc, he will readily proceed to think 
 himself young simpliciter. 
 
 And now, my friend, you and I are going to look back 
 from this calm and mild November evening, over ten 
 years. We are going to compare our experience of that 
 time, and of what it has left behind it. 
 
 There is a part of our life, in which ten years teach us 
 more than we shall learn (if we see them) in the next 
 thirty, not to say forty. It may be pleasant, and not 
 quite unprofitable, to sum the gains of that time in the 
 matter of knowledge acquired. You do not expect. or 
 wish me, indeed, to name the greatest lessons those ten 
 years past to-night have left behind them ; or the most 
 vital influences they have exerted. This is not the time 
 or place. Yet we can think of some not unfit to be 
 mentioned here. 
 
 How do you think and feel about Money, middle-aged 
 reader, as compared with the way in which you thought 
 and felt about it ten years ago ? 
 
Account of Things learned in them, 1 9 
 
 Most readers of the English language remember little 
 Paul Dombey's question, What is Money ? They re- 
 member likewise how his father vainly tried to give that 
 thoughtful little man an answer which might satisfy him. 
 But there is nothing which more effectually delivers us 
 from all speculative difficulties than the want of money j 
 and any human being who would be too thankful if he 
 could be assured he would always be able to pay his 
 way, will generally be quite content with the definition 
 of money as pounds, shillings, and pence. We all know 
 the small round things which people are so anxious to 
 get, and which can get their possessors so much. We 
 know, likewise, the crisp, rustling, clean bits of thin 
 paper which in England represent gold and silver; and 
 some readers probably know the dirty, sticky, and occa- 
 sionally ragged squares of vegetable tissue which in Scot- 
 land do the like. Then the great question of greenbacks 
 suggests itself to the perplexed mind; and a vision, in- 
 distinct and far-extending, of the many odd materials 
 which in different portions of the earth serve as a circu- 
 lating medium. But into such matters we shall not be 
 tempted aside ; and more need not be said, than that we 
 all know what is meant by money. 
 
 It is all very welL for Dr Newman, who never knew 
 in all his life what it was to be unable to pay his baker, 
 or to buy shoes for his children, to be rent asunder by 
 such matters as the establishment of the Jerusalem 
 bishopric : or even to bring himself to daily doubt whether 
 in this world there be anything except himself — perhaps 
 
20 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 not that. But a poor clergyman with six children, an 
 ailing wife, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year, feels 
 these things not at all. " The hound that is chasing the 
 game," says the Spanish proverb, "does not feel the 
 fleas." And one good that comes of the want of money 
 is, that it keeps us from feeling the want of certain other 
 things. Fanciful wants are real to the man who has 
 every real want supplied and anticipated. It was a Duke, 
 with limitless estates, and who could command everything 
 in this world that wealth and rank can obtain, who arrived 
 at the condition of mind in which his earnest desire was, 
 the Thames at Richmond should run dry. " Oh, that 
 weary river, always running, running, and I so tired of 
 it ! " You might gradually bring any human being to 
 that, by thoro uglily supplying each successive want he 
 felt. And on the other side, by cutting orF the supply 
 of the simplest wants, you might have made the Duke 
 content, for the while, with very little. Wreck his yacht 
 off some savage coast : half drown him : let him struggle 
 to shore with life pretty nearly extinct : then pick him up 
 and take care of him. And in half-an-hour, how thank- 
 ful the man that wanted the Thames to cease running, or 
 that cried for the moon, will be for a dry blanket and a 
 tumbler of hot grog ! » 
 
 Not for long, of course. No human being will be con- 
 tent for long. We all want something more. You want 
 something more, my friendly reader. I wish you may get 
 it. I want something more too. I want that ten thousand 
 pounds already named. Don't you wish I may get it ? 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 2 1 
 
 These things, however, although important and inter- 
 esting in a high degree, ought to come in later in this 
 discussion. I write of money. Not that I am going to 
 set forth its praises. That is sufficiently done in all books 
 of Political Economy. These works, for the most part, 
 leave us with the impression that to increase in material 
 wealth is a nation's great end. A very venerable autho- 
 rity has informed us that the love of money is the root of 
 all evil. Doubtless that is so. We have all seen many 
 things that make it plain. And yet, the moderate desire 
 to get money is the root of much good. Why does the 
 London cabman turn out on a drenching rainy day, and 
 (himself exposed to the elements) convey you in luxury, 
 seated on the greasy plush, and with your feet in the 
 musty straw, whither you would ? It cannot be because 
 he loves you so much ; for he never beheld you before. 
 No ; it is the sixpence a mile. And to him the accumu- 
 lating sixpences mean food and shelter : his cup of tea, 
 his jug of beer. The like simple principle prevails in all 
 other cases. People take trouble to serve you because 
 you pay them for it. 
 
 There are many people who would do almost anything 
 for money. I speak of people who maintain a reputable 
 character. There are too many w,ho would get money by 
 any means whatever 5 who, to that end, would cut a throat, 
 would swindle a poor wretch out of his last shilling, would 
 forge a will, would marry an infamous woman. But of 
 these last I am not thinking now. I think of people who 
 go to church and the like, and think themselves extremely 
 
22 Concerning Ten Years: with some 
 
 good and respectable. I have known one or two farmers, 
 paying a rent of a good many hundreds a year, who would 
 tell you a lie to get half-a-crown by it. I have known, 
 too, many persons, in a humbler rank, whom it would 
 have been very unsafe to trust with untold copper. And 
 there are respectable households where the pervading 
 atmosphere keeps ceaselessly though silently saying, ' ' Get 
 money 5 rightly if you can; but get money." You have 
 not come to that, my reader : but perhaps you may be 
 willing to confess that ten years' experience has made you 
 stand a good deal in awe of money. You have seen what 
 it can do : you have seen what the want of it can do. 
 How much evil, what misery and destitution, what sin 
 and ruin, every clergyman in a large town parish has seen 
 come of the want of money ! Let it be said, that the utter 
 want of it is in most cases the consequence of sin, as well 
 as the cause of sin and misery : but, sad to say, the conse- 
 quence often falls on those who have nothing to do with 
 the cause. Here let me say that if you had seen and 
 known what I have seen and known, you would wish to 
 see the boasted liberty of the British subject sharply 
 interfered with in two not uncommon cases. When the 
 father of a family of poor little children is a skilled work- 
 man, who could maintain them, and maintain himself, in 
 comfort and respectability if he chose to work steadily: 
 and when he does not choose to work steadily, but earns 
 enough to keep himself generally drunk, leaving his wife 
 and children to starve by cold and hunger; I don't hesi- 
 tate to say that I wish that man was treated as Virginian 
 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 23 
 
 1 
 
 slaves used to be, 2nd made to work under the lash to 
 earn that which may support those he is bound to main- 
 tain. A man who does not know how to use freedom 
 has no right to it. After a certain length of time of such 
 accursed heartlessness and cruelty and selfishness as I have 
 known, let that man's liberty be forfeited ; let him be 
 taken and made to labour as a slave in public charge ; and 
 let what he earns be applied to support his wife and chil- 
 dren. It would be a mercy to himself : but the truth is, 
 I don't care a straw for himself. Charitable people are 
 placed in a cruel dilemma by such cases. If you support 
 the poor hungry children, you are just encouraging their 
 blackguard father to go on in his evil ways. And on the 
 other hand, you cannot let them perish: you will not 
 willingly let them suffer. My other case in which a 
 righteous interference with personal liberty is demanded, 
 is that of poor creatures who have acquired an invincible 
 habit of drunkenness. After a while, they cannot retrieve 
 themselves and reform. In their sober moments, they 
 speak as reasonably as mortal can of the insanity which 
 possesses them : they tell you truly that they cannot help it. 
 The sight of a whisky-shop or a gin-palace is to such an over- 
 whelming temptation. As regards drinking, their case 
 is hopeless as was Sir Walter Scott's as regarded writing. 
 When that great man knew it was killing him to write, 
 he could not cease. You remember his sad comparison. 
 <f Molly might as well put the kettle on the fire, and say, 
 • Now, don't boil ! ' ' Now, such wretched drunkards as 
 I have mentioned, would, when in their right mind, be 
 
24 Concerning Ten Years: with some 
 
 thankful to put themselves under some irresistible power j 
 thankful for some iron hand that would come in and save 
 them from themselves. Surely the day will come when 
 the law will come in and save them. Already, the law 
 will not allow a woman to walk on a rope a hundred 
 feet from the ground, and the like. It will abridge your 
 liberty by taking care of you against your will, physically. 
 Why not morally? 
 
 Well, of course, we can all see reasons why. But in 
 this particular case, let the experiment be made. 
 
 I remember how, reading as a young lad Paley's Moral 
 Philosophy , I used rebelliously to rise up against many of 
 the great man's, statements in the famous chapter on 
 Human Happiness ; and especially against the declaration, 
 that Happiness consists in Health. For it seemed very 
 plain, that though the absence of health may keep you 
 from being happy, it is by no means sure that its presence 
 will make you happy. I do not take up the further con- 
 sideration, that some of the happiest people we have 
 ever known, managed to be happy without health. But 
 as with Paley's health, so is it with money, as regards hap- 
 piness. The presence of money, everybody knows, will 
 not make you and keep you right : but the want of it, as 
 a general rule, will make you and keep you wrong. You 
 may remember how Thomas Campbell the poet, after a 
 hard struggle with straitened circumstances lasting through 
 several years, thought he could bear any earthly trial 
 more easily than the want of money. " Take any shape 
 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 25 
 
 but that!" he said to misfortune. Think of Hazlitr, 
 walking London streets, meeting a friend, and saying, 
 " For God's sake give me a shilling : I feel a raging tire 
 within me : I have eaten nothing since yesterday morn- 
 ing ! " You may see from what is told us of many great 
 men, that their saddest and most humiliating troubles 
 have come of the want of money. Little of the genius of 
 poor Robert Burns appears in the letters he wrote entreat- 
 ing the loan of a few pounds. 
 
 But I do not think of Otway and his roll ; nor of 
 Chatterton starving 5 nor of Johnson and Savage 5 nor of 
 the awful glimpses of Grub-street authors we owe to Pope. 
 I do not think now of bare garrets which I know 5 nor of 
 poor little neglected children, often hungry, always ragged. 
 The want of money pinches as painfully a good way fur- 
 ther up the social scale. The straits of gentility are not 
 undeserving of pity ; though they may not get it in due 
 measure. Can you imagine an instance of more thorough 
 misery than that which Mr Thackeray gave us in the 
 Book of Snobs, describing poor Major Ponto and the extra- 
 vagance of his contemptible jackass of a son ? 
 
 " I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, but 
 in such a rueful attitude of despondency that I could not 
 but remark it. ' Look at that,' says the poor fellow, 
 handing me over a document. ' It's the second change 
 in uniform since he 's been in the army, and yet there 's no 
 extravagance about the lad. But look at that ! by heaven, 
 Snob, look at that, and say how can a man of nine hun- 
 dred keep out of the Bench ? ' He gave a sob as he 
 
26 Concerning Ten Years: with some 
 
 handed me the paper across the table ; and his old face, 
 and his old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and 
 his lean shanks, looked, as he spoke, more miserably 
 haggard, bankrupt, and threadbare." 
 
 Now that is the kind of poverty and wretchedness of 
 which I want you to think. Major Ponto, if he could 
 have made up his mind to retrench his establishment, to 
 send his lazy son to Australia or New Zealand, and to 
 cease trying to keep up a false appearance of means he 
 did not possess, would have had a revenue more than 
 amply sufficient to procure for him and his the " bread 
 to eat and raiment to put on." And possibly many 
 people who have much less than nine hundred a year 
 would find their pecuniary difficulties depart, if they 
 could make up their mind to go down some steps in life. 
 The poor clergyman already named, with six children and 
 a hundred and fifty pounds a year, would be a compara- 
 tively wealthy man if he were to live exactly as labourers 
 do j and especially if he gave up finally the endeavour to 
 bring up his children as ladies and gentlemen. If his 
 daughters went out as servants, and his sons became day- 
 labourers, the whole family would always (bating some 
 great misfortune) have plenty to eat, and garments that 
 would exclude cold. But then, as you know, it comes 
 to this : that the poor clergyman cannot make up his 
 mind to all this : he will pinch himself blue, and his wife 
 will wear her fingers to the hone, rather than give up the 
 battle to keep the place in life, the degree in the social 
 scale, which belongs to even a very poor clergyman, if he 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 2 7 
 
 faithfully do his duty. And forasmuch as this retreat to 
 a lower level, where only the bare wants of nature will 
 be felt, is a thing not to be, there remains just the battle 
 with limited means 5 that terrible battle of self-denial, 
 anxiety, and sordid, ceaseless calculation, that has broken 
 the spring of many hearts, and cut short many lives. A 
 well-meaning lady has recently published a little volume 
 which professes to explain how a house may be managed 
 on £100 a year. And here is her not very encouraging 
 picture of what the wife in such a house must be : — 
 
 " All who marry on ^200 a year must be educated for 
 such a limit, or must educate themselves for it. They 
 must be early risers, methodical managers, have an inti- 
 mate knowledge of wholesome cookery and useful needle- 
 work -, must be economical of time, careful of waste 
 pieces, of dripping, of suet, of bones, and of cinders, 
 which are all of the greatest use in household manage- 
 ment." 
 
 Well, thinking of the want of money, and of the straits 
 and anxieties which come of it, one thinks of such a per- 
 son as the father or mother of that family ; and of sorry 
 schemings to make the most of <( waste pieces, dripping, 
 suet, bones, and cinders." One thinks of people with an 
 income a great deal larger, who, in relation to their 
 different position, may have just as hard and ceaseless a 
 battle, though not exactly in the same ways. Think of 
 Sydney Smith at his dismal Yorkshire living. It was 
 ^400 a year, and he had various methods of adding 
 something to it; yet you know how, for all his cheerful 
 
28 Concerning Ten Years: with some 
 
 temperament and his " short views," he would sometimes, 
 as he sat in the evenings looking over his accounts, and 
 planning how to pay them, fairly break down, bend his 
 head upon his hands on the table, and burst out, " Ah ! 
 I see I shall end in gaol ! " There must have been a 
 constant heavy pressure always on that brave heart, before 
 Sydney Smith, with his stout nervous system and his 
 splendid circulation, yielded thus ! And I don't know a 
 picture that touches me more deeply, than that of man 
 or woman, the father of a family or its widowed mother, 
 sitting up after the rest have gone to bed, adding up 
 accounts which there are very scanty means to pay, and 
 scheming hard to make ten shillings do the work of 
 twenty. Cannot you see such a one, not able to add the 
 figures rightly : casting up some column of figures ten 
 times over, and ten times getting a different result from 
 all the rest : looking with pure terror for what the awful 
 amount will be : and all this with trembling hands, a 
 throbbing confused head, and a heart far heavier than 
 lead ? All this may be borne with little outward appear- 
 ance. But rely on it, it is telling. It is wearing the 
 poor heart out. It is sapping life. 
 
 How the least movement will jar at such a time miser- 
 ably on the shaken nerves ! A little child stirring in the 
 room will make the figures incapable of addition ; even 
 the poor cat is apt to be angrily ordered out. And then 
 the awful prospects of the future : the sickening calcula- 
 tion of what will become of the children : the scheming 
 how to pare a little closer, anywhere : I believe firmly 
 
 
Account of Things learned i7i them. 29 
 
 that not the poor beggar on London street or country 
 highway, suffers such anxiety and misery about the pro- 
 curing of the means of subsistence, as do many most 
 reputable folk, maintaining a highly respectable appear- 
 ance before the world. But yearly the poor head is 
 getting under water : the strength to work and to bear is 
 being sapped; and the ceaseless dread of impending mis- 
 fortune takes possession. 
 
 " Is your mind at ease ?" (t No, it is not." Of course 
 you know the story of poor Goldsmith's last hours. It 
 was the want of money that killed that delightful writer 
 at the age of forty-five. He did not see how to pay his 
 debts, or how he was to live. There was little spring 
 left in his constitution, and so he could not stand an illness 
 which a hopeful heart would have made little of. Let us 
 listen to Mr Forster. 
 
 " A week passed : the symptoms so fluctuating in the 
 course of it, and the evidence of active disease so evidently 
 declining, that even sanguine expectations of recovery 
 would appear to have been at one time entertained. But 
 Goldsmith could not sleep. His reason seemed clear; 
 what he said was always perfectly sensible : ' he was at 
 times even cheerful 5 ' but sleep had deserted him, his 
 appetite was gone, and it became obvious, in the state of 
 weakness to which he had been reduced, that want of 
 sleep might in itself be fatal. It then occurred to Dr 
 Turton to put a very pregnant question to his patient. 
 * Your pulse,' he said, * is in greater disorder than it 
 should be from the degree of fever which you have. Is 
 
30 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 your mind at ease ?* ' No, it is not,'' was Goldsmith's 
 melancholy answer. They are the last words we are to 
 hear him utter in this world. The end arrived suddenly 
 and unexpectedly/' 
 
 I remember well how a physician told me of a poor 
 fellow, an unbeneficed preacher, who came to consult 
 him about some illness he had. Suitable remedies were 
 prescribed ; and it did not seem that much was the matter ; 
 yet the poor man did not get better. In fact, he was 
 living in a little lodging he could not pay : he had not a 
 friend in the world who could help him : all his hopes in 
 life were blighted : and all the doctors in Britain and all 
 the medicines in the Pharmacopoeia could make nothing 
 of such a case. But the physician was wealthy as well 
 as kind : and he devised means, not medical, which with 
 wonderful speed restored that poor fellow to health and 
 hope. Do you remember how it is recorded of Thackeray, 
 that in one of his latest visits to Paris, a friend called for 
 him, and found him putting some sovereigns into a pill- 
 box, on which he wrote, Dr Thackeray's prescription : 
 one to be taken occasionally. And on the friend asking 
 the meaning of this, the kind-hearted great man replied, 
 that he had a poor friend in a drooping state, who could 
 not mend by all means tried ; and he thought he had hit 
 upon the right medicinal gum. Let us trust Dr Thack- 
 eray's prescription proved most effectual. Of one thing 
 we may be quite sure : to wit, that the treatment of that 
 poor patient did great good to the Doctor himself. And 
 he has gone where it will not be forgotten. 
 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 3 1 
 
 Then it is not merely that the want of money may 
 make people miserable: it may make them bad. No 
 doubt Becky Sharpe thought quite rightly when she 
 thought she could have been very good if she had had 
 five thousand a year. Trouble and sorrow often do 
 human beings great good ; but not when they come in 
 the shape of the want of money. A poor anxious middle- 
 aged father of a little family, if he go on for three or 
 four years with the dread or reality of debt lying with a 
 dull weight on his heart, and ever watching to save the 
 occasional sixpence : screwing himself in the matter of 
 clothes, never buying a book, walking long distances be- 
 cause he cannot afford to ride, toiling on when the doctor 
 has told him he must definitively give up all work for a 
 time : will not merely come to have wretched sleepless 
 nights and horrible dreams, likewise occasional attacks of 
 that dreadful pressure on the brain which, unchecked, 
 means apoplexy or insanity, and the ever-growing irri- 
 tability of the nervous system which points to paralysis 
 ■or angina pectoris. Worse things will come. His whole 
 .moral nature will be deteriorated. He will grow frac- 
 tious and ill-tempered, soured and envious : he will say 
 bitter and malicious things ; he will come to hate those 
 who are better off than himself. Let the present writer 
 (who is indeed a Doctor, though not of medicine) offer 
 a prescription suitable to that perilous time. At such a 
 time it is good to try to help or comfort somebody. 
 This may be done without giving that money which you 
 have not got. Let me tell vou a story which I never 
 
3 1 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 forget, which was told me long ago by a dear and wise 
 friend. On a certain morning, as he was on his way, 
 walking to a place several miles off, he met the postman : 
 and from that terrible . unconscious arbiter of destiny he 
 received a certain letter. With a shaky hand he opened 
 it, when the postman had departed ; and therein read 
 certain tidings, briefly told, which (as he fancied) utterly 
 blighted his hopes for this life. Such fancies are com- 
 monly wrong ; and in his case the fancy proved signally 
 so. Having put the letter in his pocket, he went away 
 up a lonely hill, all by himself, pursuing his intended 
 path. The ground felt indistinct under his feet ; and all 
 sounds strange to his whirling brain. But in a very soli- 
 tary spot in the bosom of the hill, he heard a curious 
 noise ; and turning aside to see, he found a poor sheep 
 lying on its back, frantically struggling. Jt had got its 
 fleece entangled in some long tough sprays of bramble : 
 these had got twisted round it ; and after each new 
 struggle it sunk into a state of exhaustion that showed 
 death was not far off if relief did not come fast. My 
 friend was roused from his gloomy stupor. Here, said 
 he, is a creature as miserable as myself. With a clasp- 
 knife he speedily set the sheep at liberty. The poor 
 sheep got on its feet, and its life was saved. My friend 
 told me his heart was a good deal lightened by this little 
 opportunity of helping a fellow-creature. And from that 
 day, whether owing to the sheep or not he could not say, 
 his affairs revived : his fortunes looked up : he became a 
 very prosperous and successful man. 
 
Account of Things learned in them. $3 
 
 So much for Money. 
 
 A good many years ago, the writer was standing in the 
 Court of Chancery, in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Lord Truro 
 was Chancellor. The time was 3.30 p.m. The present 
 Attorney- General, then Mr Roundell Palmer, was speak- 
 ing. He made a pause at the end of a paragraph in what 
 was doubtless a very able speech. Then, after the pause, he 
 resumed -, but he was speedily cut short. For the Chan- 
 cellor, suddenly rising, said, with a bow, " Ah, I see you 're 
 going upon another ah ah — : " and then bowing again, 
 scuttled out of court in a manner characterised rather by 
 rapidity than by dignity ; leaving the counsel to gather 
 up his papers and put the.m in his bag and depart. This 
 procedure was the occurrence described in the Times as 
 the rising of the court. It was less imposing to witness 
 than to read of. 
 
 Now, intelligent reader, why do I look back over more 
 than ten years, and recall that incident of the past ? 
 Simply for this reason 5 and let me beg your attention to 
 it. I, like the Attorney- General, have now finished one 
 portion of my subject. Like him, I have made a brief 
 pause. And now, in the words of Lord Chancellor 
 Truro, I am going upon another topic, or head of discourse. 
 You see I have ventured to complete the sentence which 
 the Keeper of Her Majesty's conscience left in obscurity. 
 It is all very well for a great man like him to do these 
 things. But in print, there is no more established verity 
 than this : If a sentence have been once begun, it is highly 
 expedient to finish it. 
 
34 Concerning Ten Years: with some 
 
 As we go on, through successive years, we find that life 
 is a longer thing than we had fancied. There is a great 
 deal of spending, wrote Thackeray, in a thousand pounds : 
 and we find out that (short as life seems) there is a great 
 deal of living in three score years and ten — yes, and even 
 in the odd ten years. Thus, as we grow older ourselves, 
 we come to understand better what an immense deal old 
 people must be remembering. I doubt not, middle-aged 
 reader, that this is one of the convictions that have been 
 profoundly impressed on you by these last ten years. Ten 
 years ago, you thought yourself nearly as old as any- 
 body. You know better now. I am sure you feel 
 a growing disposition to defer to your seniors. Your 
 own little experience of what a human being may go 
 through in a not very long life, has opened your eyes 
 to the meaning of a life of fifty, of sixty, of sixty-five 
 years. 
 
 Eleven years ago, I went to a certain place, to buy a 
 fire-proof safe. I don't mind frankly confessing to you 
 that its use is to hold the parchments which are the title- 
 deeds of my various estates, which have at different times 
 been purchased with the great sums yielded by my excel- 
 lent writings, all of which are worthy of your attentive 
 consideration. The safe likewise contains the crosses and 
 orders which I have received from the Emperor of China, 
 the King of Bonney, and other foreign potentates. I 
 remember vividly the words of the friend from whom I 
 bought the safe. He advised me to take a good big one : 
 bigger than I needed at that period : for, said he, you will 
 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 35 
 
 find that you are always putting something more into your 
 tire-proof safe. 
 
 That statement proved to be true. But I have learned, 
 since then, what is the great box or safe into which you 
 are always putting. It is your memory. No matter how 
 full that receptacle is already, every day you are obliged to 
 put something more into it. At last, as you know, old 
 people find that the box (as it were) bursts open, and lets 
 out the last things put in 5 while the things put into it 
 many a year ago remain safe in its depths. 
 
 If you, my reader, being thirty-five, are standing along 
 with a friend whose years are sixty-five, at the top of a 
 hill, you each command precisely the same extent of 
 scenery. At least, if there be a difference between the 
 scenes present to each of two men so placed, the difference 
 arises solely from causes in the men themselves. Perhaps 
 your less worn eyes can see farther and more clearly than 
 those of your elder friend, which have seen more service. 
 Or it is just as likely that the senior in years has the advan- 
 tage in power of vision 5 the young men of this genera- 
 tion, whether from over-application or from the prevalent 
 use of gas-light, don't seem to have so good eyes as their 
 fathers. You will hardly believe it, but my friend Smith 
 tells me that he has known an educated man cast up to 
 another man (suffer the Scotticism; it is expressive), as 
 something to his disadvantage, the fact that by hard study 
 he had become near-sighted. " You are half-blind, you 
 know," was the kind and sympathetic remark. Of course, 
 there is no reply to such a charge. Yet I have witnessed 
 
36 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 a fair retort extinguish a like assailant. " Here comes 
 Brown/' exclaimed Blockhead in a railway carriage sur- 
 rounded by his fellows : " Here comes Brown with his old 
 bald head." et Yes," said Brown, promptly but with 
 entire composure : " the outside of my head is rapidly 
 becoming as ill-furnished as the inside of yours has always 
 been." The severity of the statement lay in its sober 
 truth. And this, to follow associations as Mrs Nickleby 
 was wont to do, reminds me of a parallel reply which I 
 once heard with pleasure. Mr Carper, a pompous and 
 stupid vicar, began to relate to an assembled company, in 
 the presence of a man who had been his curate but who 
 was now a neighbouring rector, some turgid and foolish 
 sentences from sermons which that man had preached 
 in his days of immaturity, crudity, and curacy. The ex- 
 curate bore it good-naturedly for a while. But at length 
 he said, " Well, Vicar, it is good in you to remember so 
 much of my sermons : for I confess, though I heard you 
 preach each Sunday morning for a good many months, I 
 cannot remember a single sentence ever I heard you say." 
 The assembled people were plunged into deep thought. 
 Dead silence prevailed. You could see each was consider- 
 ing whether he could remember a sentence spoken by the 
 vicar. Nobody could. For indeed that individual's 
 sermons were constructed on that economic principle, that 
 he might safely preach next Sunday to any congregation 
 the sermon he had preached to it last Sunday; and not a 
 soul would know a word of it. 
 ' But back, my devious muse, to whence you deviated. 
 
Account of Things learned in them. $j 
 
 All this came of saying that when two men stand together 
 on the same hill-top, each has the selfsame prospect before 
 him. Any difference in the prospect actually appre- 
 hended, comes of the different eyes with which they see 
 it 5 for there is just the very same thing for each to see. 
 But though the prospect of space is the same to the men 
 who stand together in space, how different is the prospect 
 of time to the men who stand together in time ! Stand- 
 ing here, on this third of November, how different the 
 view that spreads before the man of thirty-five, from the 
 view that spreads before the man of sixty-five ! You 
 look round, and you see tolerably distinctly a period of a 
 little more than twenty years : beyond that limit there 
 are special events looming through the mist of years ; 
 mountain tops rising above the tide of time. But think, 
 to what vast recesses his view penetrates, who remembers 
 a career of more than fifty years. What a tremendous 
 deal he has come through ! Your own briefer course has 
 battered you not a little : is it not wonderful to see how 
 well your friend is looking after his long way ? The old 
 heart has kept beating away all that time ; the teeth have 
 eaten (no wonder some of them are gone) : the eyes have 
 read, the hands have written ! It is a wonderful thought. 
 And it is only gradually, and through the process of years, 
 that you fully take it in. At five and twenty, you fancied 
 you knew everything : you could not see why your views 
 and opinions might not be received as just as good as 
 those of a man of twice your age. At five and thirty, if 
 you have confidence in a man of sixty-five as a wise and 
 
38 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 good man, there is hardly any opinion of your own that 
 you would not feel shaken if he expressed to you his 
 deliberate disapproval of it. For you have found that 
 opinions and beliefs ripen into maturity, just as grain and 
 fruits do, through time ; and only through time. And 
 the best-weighed belief of the ablest man in middle age 
 can no more be esteemed as a mature belief, than the 
 green corn of July (beautiful as the crop and the season 
 may be) can be ranked as ripened grain. As sure as the 
 yellow ears of September are the ripe wheat, the con- 
 sidered and conscientious convictions of a wise and good 
 man above sixty are the sound and mature ones. And if 
 you be wise and good, you will come to these in the end. 
 You know, too, whether there ever were truer words 
 said than these : that the way to many opinions and 
 beliefs is through their opposites. Have you not, in 
 several things, got to just the opposite pole of thought 
 and feeling from that which you held ten years since? 
 As the tastes in food and drink, which last longest, are 
 the tastes for things which at the first you disliked . as the 
 music which keeps its hold on you year after year, is the 
 music which at first hearing did not especially strike you, 
 while the lively pretty air that took your ear at first 
 speedily palls and wearies : so is it with our beliefs in 
 a hundred ways. The beliefs which we hold by, and 
 which we never will let go but with life, are those we 
 arrived at through the teaching and maturing of years : 
 while the opinions we held so feverishly and uttered so 
 passionately in the blood-heat season of youth, are gone 
 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 39 
 
 for ever : are looked back upon with wonder, sorrow, 
 shame. 
 
 Thus, as we grow older, we lose independence of char- 
 acter. We grow more disposed to enlist under a banner, 
 and to follow a leader. Is it not true, men in middle 
 age, that in those past ten years you have parted with a 
 great part of that confidence in yourselves by which clever 
 young lads irritate their parents, and the less thoughtful 
 and sympathetic of their seniors in active life ? For my- 
 self, I confess I am cowed by the moral weight of a good 
 and wise man with gray hairs : I should say rather white 
 hairs, for our hairs, my old companions, in so far as we 
 have any left, are fast growing gray. I know two or 
 three men in my own profession, from whom if I found 
 I differed on any one of a large class of questions, I should 
 feel my confidence in my opinion shaken : I should re- 
 consider the grounds on which I hold it : I should soon 
 land in the conclusion that I had been wrong. I don't 
 say that in all matters I should be so guided by even 
 them. And a thing which helps a little to reassure me, 
 is, that I find these good and wise men sometimes seriously 
 disagreeing among themselves. But now that I have got 
 a little experience myself, and so know what it is worth, 
 I venerate those who have got so much of it. It is your 
 young fellow without a penny who talks slightingly of 
 worldly wealth : when a man has made his first thousand 
 pounds, he has learned better. It is so, in a nobler sense 
 and way, with experience. You don't understand its 
 value, till you come to possess a little of it. Then you 
 
40 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 duly respect those who have a great deal more of it. And 
 the upshot isj that while clever men of twenty-five do 
 generally contemn their seniors, sensible men of thirty-five 
 are apt to be very much led by their seniors. You come, 
 gradually, to see good reason for many customs and 
 observances, which you used to laugh at. For most 
 things your fathers habitually did, you gradually come to 
 see good reason. Let me relate the experience of my 
 friend Smith. ee My venerable father," said he, " kept 
 up for nearly fifty years a certain ancient hospitable usage. 
 In my early manhood I used to laugh at it, once a year 
 as it occurred. I thought it absurd : and no statement 
 of the pros and cons would have made me think it other- 
 wise. But that good man did not argue with me. He 
 bided his time. And now I have come to see that he 
 was right : and I mean to take up that ancient custom 
 and maintain it loyally. Of course my boy will laugh at 
 me by-and-bye." 
 
 Let me sum up all this by uttering a prediction in the 
 ears of my younger readers. They won't believe it : but 
 never mind. 
 
 If you think almost any old usage absurd and ridiculous, 
 some day you will know that it was not absurd or ridicu- 
 lous. If your father was a wise and good man ; and if 
 he maintained some opinion or custom you thought pre- 
 posterous; some day you will come round to hold the 
 like opinion yourself, and to maintain the like usage. 
 
 It does not of necessity follow that the usage or opinion 
 was right ; but you will gradually grow into thinking it so. 
 
 
Accoimt of Things learned in them. 4 1 
 
 A thing into which you have doubtless got an insight 
 in these past ten years, is the rationale of the well-known 
 fact, that most people prefer their own ways, habits, and 
 possessions (if the possessions be good at all) ; and not 
 merely like all these best, but think them absolutely the 
 best. Very naturally, we make our own way the standard. 
 It is the first meridian ; and we measure the distances by 
 which other things depart from it ; and we are too ready 
 to conclude that by just so much they have departed from 
 what is right. If ours be the plumb-line, of course all 
 things that do not square with it must be off the perpen- 
 dicular. And those of us who have travelled a little in 
 foreign countries, but who have not travelled long enough 
 to feel at home in them, know how curious a feeling it is, 
 when we find that every little thing is so different there 
 from the corresponding thing here. It is but that Nature 
 loves variety : and so suggests varied ways to the various 
 races of men. But we are ready to attribute it all to 
 some strange perversity in the moral nature of the people : 
 some malignant preference of evil to good, done just to 
 spite us. And you may possibly have seen proof of the 
 universal love and popularity which the Briton has gained 
 for himself in certain countries of Europe by the strong 
 manifestation of that belief ; and by despising, as unques- 
 tionably wrong and bad, whatever he has not seen before. 
 It is indeed a curious thing to remark how strong is the 
 craving for variety in human nature : how each man has 
 his own little ways; and sternly refuses to let these be 
 appointed for him by another, thinking- the other's little 
 
42 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 ways absurd and evil. It annoys one, when your place 
 in life is given up by you and occupied by another, to see 
 how immediately your successor sweeps away the little 
 arrangements you had brought (as you fancied) to per- 
 fection, and inaugurates a new system of his own. If 
 you, being a clergyman, are preferred to another living : 
 and if after your former charge is filled you come back 
 to visit your successor, you will find that, in spite of a 
 firm determination to like him, there are little irritating 
 circumstances that will provoke you. In the vestry, you 
 will find the looking-glass at which you used to tie on 
 your bands hung in a different place : you will find the 
 position of chairs and tables altered : if you were wont to 
 put on your bands first and then your cassock, your suc- 
 cessor will put on his cassock first and then his bands : if 
 your way was to cultivate entire silence for a few minutes 
 before going into church to begin the service, you will 
 find your successor talking away to the last, and casting 
 back a cheerful smile on you as he walks out of that 
 apartment in his canonicals. And entering the church, 
 what a turn over there will be ! New psalms and hymns 
 are now sung to tunes unknown to you. The choir occu- 
 pies different seats. The pulpit has been heightened or 
 lowered : it has been covered afresh with purple velvet, 
 and the dear old crimson you loved has gone : everything 
 looks different. And even in the enforced uniformity of 
 a service fixed by law (and such may all services ever be !) 
 there is scope afforded for fifty little changes, all of which 
 you think for the worse, all of which your friend thinks 
 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 43 
 
 for the better. Even the Lord's Prayer he will not say 
 as you used to do. He places the emphasis differently ; 
 and (as you think) utters it remarkably ill. As for the 
 parsonage and its belongings, let me not speak of that. 
 The furniture in what was your study is vilely arranged. 
 How could any sane man have his writing-table set in 
 that corner, when yon (after long thought) had found the 
 precise spot where such a table ought to stand, and when 
 you told the man so ? Then as for the garden, what per- 
 versity made potatoes be put where your wife had flowers, 
 and flowers where every man of common sense would 
 have had potatoes ? The trees and shrubs are all altered : 
 the features of the dear old spot are changed : the place, 
 in fact, is spoiled ! 
 
 Ah, my friend, how wrong you are in thinking all 
 this ! It is just that your way pleases you ; and your 
 successor's way pleases your successor. And that which 
 pleases a human being best, is the best thing for the 
 human being. So, when your successor walks you about 
 the well-remembered walks, and shows you eagerly what 
 vast improvements he has made, he is showing a lack of 
 philosophic discernment. And when you sulkily follow 
 him, throwing cold water on his enthusiasm, and refusing 
 to be pleased with anything, you are testifying your lack 
 of philosophic discernment too. Each little change he has 
 made is a little pin he has stuck into you. What more 
 absurd, you think, than taking away that looking-glass in 
 the vestry from the place it held so long ! How ill-chosen 
 those psalms, and how vulgar and unecclesiastical the 
 
44 Concerning Ten Years ; with some 
 
 music ! How horribly he says the Lord's Prayer : and 
 what a mess he has made of the house and the garden 
 and shrubbery ! There, even the entrance gate was 
 green, and he has gone and painted it white. What a 
 perverse, intractable man he is, always wanting in every 
 little thing his own way ! 
 
 And pray, what do you want now ? Just your own 
 way. Is it not fair that your friend should have his 
 belongings in the way in which they best please him ? 
 They are not yours now : and if you cannot be more 
 reasonable and amiable, you had better not come back 
 and see them any more. If you cannot, without being 
 jarred and put out of joint, bear to see little varia- 
 tions from the use you had established, then stay 
 away from the place where you are quite sure to see 
 them. 
 
 Now all this is what a young fellow cannot understand. 
 You arrive at it not through reasoning ; but by the process 
 of the mellowing years. 
 
 I learned something of this in autumn, at the seaside. 
 In a certain great city, I bought a little sheaf of walking 
 sticks, of yellow varnished oak. These I conveyed by 
 land and sea, till they reached the spot where they were 
 to be allocated among the individuals who were to use 
 them. One stick, very large, unwieldy, and uncomfort- 
 able, fell to myself. It had a great thick handle, crooked, 
 and set on at a most awkward angle. I found it at first 
 very uncomfortable to walk with. But in a few days my 
 hand got accustomed to it, and I came to like the stick 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 45 
 
 very much. To others, unaccustomed to it, it remained 
 awkward as before. 
 
 That oak stick taught me a lesson 5 and I gratefully 
 record my obligation to it. The lesson was : Not to be 
 angry with people for preferring their own ways 5 and for 
 declining to let you drive them into other ways which are 
 perhaps absolutely better. For these persons may have 
 grown so accustomed to the old ways, that the old ways 
 are best to them, if not best in themselves, or in the 
 judgment of a disinterested spectator. Preference is a 
 relation between us and the things preferred ; the result 
 of use. Let people be happy in their own way. My 
 yellow stick, the worst possible to many, is truly the best 
 to me. Now I owe this to it : that it has cast a certain 
 dignity about many little habits, and oddities of manner, 
 in various good men, at which in my thoughtless ignor- 
 ance I was ready to laugh. Especially it has taught me to 
 regard with respect the little ways, if not in themselves 
 offensive, of old people. It would be a terrible thing to 
 them to change the ancient way. So, if it make them 
 happy, let them speak oiventulation, of Levvyawthan, and 
 of Kapper-nawm : let them look for a long time at the 
 outside of their letters, wondering from whom they came, 
 and don't you petulantly tell them that the best way to 
 ascertain that fact is to open the letter : let them twirl 
 their thumbs, and enjoy the like innocent pleasures : it 
 would be terrible and cruel to push them out of the dear 
 old ways. The old familiar faces may not be the prettiest 
 faces j but they are the faces we like best to see. It is 
 
46 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 these little knobs and knots which made the walking-stick 
 of life fit the aged hand : and to cut these off would put 
 the whole thing out of gear. 
 
 So I prize the stick, already much named. I would 
 not willingly part with it. It has taught me much. 
 
 Let the following words of wisdom be added. It is a 
 good thing to have things which other people don't like. 
 For in a little while, you will come to like them just as 
 heartily as if they were universal favourites : and two 
 good effects will follow : 
 
 I. People won't steal them from you : 
 
 II. People won't hate you for having them. 
 
 If you had an umbrella which the world at large 
 esteemed as hideous, but which to yourself seemed beau- 
 tiful, how secure your tenure of that umbrella would be ! 
 How much more likely it is that you will get a lost thing 
 returned to you, if you are able to advertise that it is of 
 no use to anyone but the owner ! Such is that great 
 awkward stick, wherewith I walked about at the seaside 
 in autumn. I have tamed the unwieldy beast, and made 
 it useful to myself ; but it would be a long while before 
 it would be of any use to any other mortal. 
 
 And further, when people see you walking with the 
 hideous umbrella, or with the unwieldy stick, they won't 
 know how happy you are with them : and instead of 
 envying you, hating you, and vilifying you, they will 
 sympathise with you and be sorry for you. The average 
 human being is willing to do a good turn to the man 
 whom he esteems as placed on a very inferior level to 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 47 
 
 himself, or whom he regards as a well-meaning odd crea- 
 ture. Now your hideous umbrella may gain you that 
 estimation, with the attendant advantages. It will shield 
 you from the evil eye of envy, hatred, and malice., And 
 in this world that is something. 
 
 Besides, if you are a wise man, you will not think a bit 
 the less of any of your possessions, because stupid people 
 who have no intuition of great truths think it worthless or 
 ugly. You know better. You have a secret treasure 3 
 secret, though you daily place it before many eyes. Be- 
 cause a hundred donkeys had stumbled over a big stone 
 in the road, and only kicked it away in wrath, would that 
 make its value less to you, when you had picked it up and 
 found it was a mass of solid gold ? And though ten 
 thousand men cannot see in your big umbrella what you 
 see, you see it all the same. 
 
 Willingly would the writer expatiate on this subject at 
 great length. There is a vast deal more to be said about 
 it. But I forbear. 
 
 Another thing which my readers and I have learned 
 in these departed years is this. 
 
 When you have a great many things to do, don't lose 
 time and perplex yourself by thinking in what order you 
 shall do them. Begin anywhere : take up just the first 
 thing that comes to hand, and do it. Then do the next 
 that occurs : push on : and so you will come to an end. 
 And you may possibly be surprised to find how soon you 
 have succeeded in mowing down that great array. When 
 
48 Concerning Ten Years ; with some 
 
 you return home, after being three days absent, during 
 which your letters were not sent after you, you will find 
 accumulated on your study table (let us say) fifty letters. 
 For you are not like a poor unfortunate archbishop, who 
 has to write two hundred letters in four days. On read- 
 ing your letters, you find that forty need to be answered. 
 After you have washed, and had a cup of strong tea, go 
 and sit down at your writing-table. Never mind the 
 order in which your letters came, or the order of their 
 importance. All are to be answered. Take the first that 
 comes to your hand ; answer it in the fewest possible 
 words : lay your letters on a handy table (let us suppose) 
 behind you ; and throw the answered document into the 
 waste-paper basket by your side. Treat the next letter in 
 the same way, and it will surprise you to find how soon 
 you will reach the last. If there be one or two letters 
 whose answers need longer thought, and larger space, lay 
 them aside till next morning. But this principle, as to 
 the way of going at the many letters to be answered, 
 holds good of all work. No doubt, sometimes there are 
 things entitled to come first ; but with the common things 
 that spring up every day, and specially with those that 
 accumulate when you have been three or four da3 r s absent 
 from home in your busy season, just begin anywhere : go 
 on steadily : and so shall you reach the end. 
 
 If you come down in the morning of any day, and find 
 that the post has brought an unusual number of letters 
 and other documents, needing care and thought and work: 
 and if further on looking at your record of engagements 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 49 
 
 you find that there is a great number of things to be done 
 on that day, and all inevitable without gross neglect : here 
 is a good plan. Make a list of the things you are to do 
 that day. Those to be done indoors do in any order. 
 As for the things to be done out of doors, let them be 
 written on a separate piece of paper ; and then number 
 them in the order in which they can most easily be done, 
 avoiding needless retracing of the same ground. And 
 I venture to predict, that though the day's work may 
 be hard and long, you will get through it wonderfully. 
 You may not, indeed, clear your list : though perhaps 
 you may : but you will make a great hole in it. And 
 you will not lose energy in paralysing perplexity : you 
 will not be working with half a will, and with the feeling 
 you should be doing something else : as many people are 
 doing, through all their working time. 
 
 I have said it before, but I wish to say it again, that 
 pen ink and paper are the great clearers up of most 
 worried and overdriven minds. If a man have a vague 
 idea that he has a tremendous number and variety of 
 things to do : or that he has a tremendous number and 
 variety of worries and annoyances gnawing the enjoy- 
 ment out of his life 3 let him sit down and write a list on 
 one sheet of paper of all the things he has to do : and on 
 another sheet of all his worries. Well, the lists may not 
 be short : but I venture to say they will be shorter than 
 the man expected. And further, the killing thing, the 
 vague sense of indefinite number and magnitude, will be 
 gone. Oh, it is such a blessing fairly to see the size 
 
50 Concerning Ten Years ; with some 
 
 and shape of anything we are afraid of ! Nobody is ever 
 very much afraid of anything whose shape and size he 
 thoroughly knows. It is the indistinctness, the undefined 
 shape where shape is none, that has ever made ghosts so 
 terrible. If Milton had given an exact account of his 
 Satan's form and dimensions, instead of writing of some- 
 thing "long and large," that " lay floating many a rood," 
 we should not have the shuddering sense of something 
 fearful which we get from the famous lines now. 
 
 My friend Smith, only yesterday, told me the following 
 facts. On Sunday he preached twice, to a very large 
 congregation. This put him into a somewhat feverish 
 state. On Sunday evening, glancing at his record of en- 
 gagements for Monday, he found that they were very 
 many ; and some rather trying and perplexing and even 
 painful. Then in addition, he felt the ceaseless sense ot 
 pressure, and of work that never can be overtaken as one 
 desires, peculiar to diligent clergymen in parishes where 
 the population is numbered by thousands 5 and felt by such 
 even where the population is numbered only by hundreds. 
 Now Smith has so severe ideas as to the observance of the 
 Lord's day, that he would not make a list on Sunday night 
 before going to bed of what he had to think of and do next 
 day. The result was, that he did not fall asleep till past 
 five in the morning 5 and that he came down next day as 
 oppressed and perplexed as mortal could be. Then he 
 made his list, feeling very bewildered and confused. But 
 he told me that though it took him upon that day just as 
 hard pushing as his strength was equal to, from half-past 
 
 
Account of Things learned in them. 5 1 
 
 nine in the morning till half-past twelve next morning 
 (allowing an hour's rest at dinner), to overtake what he 
 had to do j yet he did overtake it all: and at 12.30 a.m. 
 sat down in an easy chair before the fire, feeling very 
 fagged and very thankful : holding all his work in clearly 
 defined perspective. Now, it was the want of clearness 
 of view arising from the absence of the salutary and bene- 
 ficial written list, that gave him the sleepless night, and the 
 awful sense of worry on Monday morning. I rather think 
 that hereafter my friend will esteem the preparation of his 
 list even on Sunday evening (when needful) as a " work 
 of necessity and mercy." 
 
 A thing which in middle age we come to see a good 
 deal of, is what may be called Petty Diplomacy. Have 
 you not found that there is a rooted idea in many minds 
 that it would argue simplicity and want of astuteness, to 
 take the straight and obvious way to the end you want 
 to reach ; and that the deep thing, the experienced- 
 looking thing, is to approach your end by a circuitous 
 course, round corners ? All my respect for my seniors, I 
 confess, cannot reconcile me to this. It appears to me 
 that the notion does generally arise from silliness 5 and 
 sometimes from moral obliquity. 
 
 I remember, when I was a boy, walking with a certain 
 old gentleman in the Regent's Park. The old gentleman 
 and I agreed that it would be desirable and pleasant to 
 ascend Primrose Hill. We determined thitherward to 
 direct our unequal steps. Accordingly, we proceeded to 
 
5 2 Concerning Ten Years : with some 
 
 walk away in quite a different direction. The old gentle- 
 man thought this was deep. He did not know the way- 
 out of the Park to the Hill 3 but he concluded that the 
 wise thing would be to go by a way that did not seem the 
 way j and to approach the height diplomatically. With 
 the directness of aim which characterises boyhood, I 
 pointed out the hill to him, and suggested we had better 
 follow the path that led straight to it. The old gentleman, 
 under protest, and hoping to put me in the wrong, agreed 
 to follow that path : and of course, it led straight to the 
 place we wanted. The old gentleman's experience of 
 life had led him to the belief that the straightforward way 
 to every end, physical or moral, was not likely to be the 
 successful way. Now, of course we all know, there are 
 apparent short-cuts, which lead you a great way round : 
 and apparent circuitous courses which take you straight to 
 what you want to reach. But these are exceptional cases. 
 And I believe that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, 
 petty diplomacy is as needless, as it is irritating to all 
 candid minds. If this essay were not so long already, I 
 should like to say a great deal more on this matter : and 
 to give some account of the means by which my very slight 
 acquaintances Mr Dodger, Mr Trickyman, and old Dr 
 Deepe, fancy they succeed in managing their fellow- 
 creatures. Meantime I forbear : these things must wait 
 another day. But just at present I desire to record, that I 
 have seen more affectation of diplomatic wiles and reserve, 
 in men of no earthly standing, engaged in measures for 
 which not one man in a thousand of the population of 
 
Account of Things learned in them, 53 
 
 Britain cares a brass farthing, or filling up vacant places 
 which would not by their emoluments tempt a respectable 
 butler, than I believe to exist in cabinet, ministers ; and 
 than I know to exist in the very limited number of 
 cabinet ministers with whom I have conversed. Indeed 
 the most wily diplomatist ever I knew was an old woman 
 who pervaded a certain tract of country, providing female 
 servants for the inferior houses therein. Not Lord Bur- 
 leigh, with that significant shake of the head, — not 
 Talleyrand, who from his serene elevation looked down 
 on an individual we all know, calling him Palmerston pour 
 rire } — could equal that awful woman. The deep strata- 
 gems by which she proposed to attain the simplest ends, 
 — the astonishment with which she heard a proposal to 
 ascertain what a human being's feelings towards a certain 
 situation were, by the obvious means of asking the human 
 being, — the solemn and awe-stricken voice in which she 
 said vi, Ah, that would never do," — all these things are 
 among the cherished remembrances of my youth. 
 
 But let us cease, my devious muse. My readers will 
 not stand any more of this. In a subsequent chapter the 
 subject shall be resumed j and carried on at the most 
 wearisome length. Of that you may be well assured. I 
 have not got more than half way through my relation of 
 the gains of departed years. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 THE REST OF IT. 
 
 WHENEVER any preacher begins his sermon by 
 saying, that before proceeding to his proper sub- 
 ject he will recapitulate what he said upon a former 
 occasion, the effect on the writer's attention is most para- 
 lysing. Probably the effect on the attention of most 
 human beings is the like. 
 
 Therefore, I make no reference to that very long essay 
 which you may have read in former pages of this volume, 
 under the title Concerning Ten Years • with some Account 
 of Things learned in them, beyond saying that, after writ- 
 ing a certain portion of that document, the belief became 
 forcibly impressed on me, that nobody could be expected 
 to read any more of it. Thereupon I stopped, promising 
 to continue that essay at another time : and here is the 
 rest of it. I remark that American editors call the rest 
 of a book, essay, or the like, the balance of it. But this 
 chapter will not in any degree balance the former one 5 
 because that was very long, and this will be very short. 
 
 If yon please, you may ascertain, by turning back to it, 
 what was the matter treated in the last paragraph of the 
 
The Rest of it. 55 
 
 former essay. But not from me shall you learn what it 
 was. 
 
 My friend Smith recently related to me an incident of 
 his boyhood, which I am now to relate to you. On a 
 certain occasion, he did for the first time in his recollec- 
 tion, practise what may be called the art of Petty Diplo- 
 macy. He and certain other boys of a certain school, 
 competed for a prize offered by the master to the boy 
 who could, with chiefest oratorical effect, repeat the 
 famous poem of The Battle of Hohenlinden. The contest 
 being over, a little man named Styles was declared to 
 have done best 5 Smith was second. Accordingly Styles 
 was to receive the higher prize ; Smith the inferior. The 
 prizes consisted of little books illustrated with pictures. 
 The pictures in one were printed in bright colours j those 
 of the other were in plain black and white. The master 
 of the school presented the two books to the observation 
 of Styles, telling him to take his choice. Around stood 
 the boys of the school intently regarding. Then Smith, 
 eager to get the coloured book, loudly expressed his 
 admiration for the other 5 declaring it to be much the 
 better of the two. Thus Smith hoped to induce Styles 
 to choose it, and leave the coloured one for himself. 
 Smith records that his primary experience of diplomatic 
 action was discouraging. For Styles at once seized the 
 bright-coloured book, and then said to Smith, " Oh, how 
 nice that you like the other best : for you shall have it. 
 And I like this one best ! " 
 
 We have all seen a great deal of that kind of thing. 
 
56 The Rest of it. 
 
 Sometimes it is successful, sometimes not. It is gratifying 
 to one to find petty diplomacy fail ; — to discern that it does 
 not reach the end designed ; that it is seen through ; and 
 only infuriates those whom it desired to lead unconsciously 
 by the nose. To escape contempt, it is essential that 
 petty diplomacy succeed. Success is the test with it as 
 well as with treason. Smith told me that in after life he 
 had occasion to converse with Mr Deepe, as to a vacant 
 office. Mr Deepe declared himself very anxious that 
 Styles should have it. "Then," says Smith, "of course 
 you will propose Styles for it." Deepe (it should be 
 said) was one of the electoral college, with whom the 
 filling up of that office lay. " Oh, no," said Deepe, with 
 a look of great penetration and astuteness. " There is a 
 way of doing these things. I shall propose Jones for it. 
 I know Jones will refuse it : and this will smooth the 
 way to Styles getting it." Let us trust that Mr Deepe 
 generally fails in attaining the ends he seeks in this manly 
 fashion. And when a man comes to be known for a 
 diplomatist who prides himself on his tact in managing 
 people, his chance of success in managing people becomes 
 small. I have no firmer belief than that straight-forward 
 honesty is in the long run the most efficient means of 
 inducing reasonable people to do a reasonable thing. 
 
 Yet let me confess, I have occasionally felt, for a very 
 short time, a certain measure of awe in the presence of a 
 small diplomatist. One's own simple idea, that the 
 straight path to any end is the best one, and that you had 
 just as well talk out what you think and feel as talk out 
 
 
The Rest of it. 57 
 
 something quite different, is abashed in the presence of 
 what seems a greater depth and reach of mind. Gradu- 
 ally, however, you feel that to compass small ends by a 
 succession of shabby tricks, is a very poor thing ; and even 
 if honesty be not the best policy, it is unquestionable that 
 honesty is the thing for an honest man. 
 
 The recollection of the air of deep mystery and un- 
 fathomable policy one has seen in extremely small men, 
 doing extremely small things, suggests a recollection of 
 the awful majesty of demeanour one has seen assumed by 
 the like extremely small men : likewise of the wonderful 
 way in which many rational people are overborne and 
 imposed upon by a dignity of demeanour which to others 
 is suggestive merely of Mr Carlyle's windbag, or of the 
 proverbial beggar on horseback. There is something 
 annoying and irritating in witnessing this toadyism of 
 infinitesimally small men ; whose airs, one would say, 
 could excite no feeling save a mingled one of amusement 
 and contempt. You may occasionally hear intelligent 
 men speak of such, as though they were the mightiest of 
 the earth. Have not I heard one of the most amiable of 
 men declare that Dr Log was a far greater man than 
 Lord Macaulay ? It is as though a butcher's boy, whose 
 horse trots the fastest of all the horses in Little Pedlington, 
 should be quite sure that the Queen had often expressed 
 her admiration for that fast-trotting though broken-kneed 
 nag. My friend Brown tells me that once on a time a 
 really clever friend, who had narrowed his mind by undue 
 concentration of it on a region of very small interests, and 
 
58 The Rest of it. 
 
 by setting before himself a deplorably petty end of ambi- 
 tion, came to call for him. Brown was busy at his desk, 
 and asked his friend to wait for a minute. His friend 
 took up from the table that volume, bound in red, 
 called the Men of the Time ; and eagerly sought for the 
 names of seven or eight individuals whom he esteemed 
 as great. Not one of them was there. The friend sat 
 down and gasped 5 and manifestly felt the earth crumbling 
 away beneath him. Yet I have no doubt all this did him 
 good. 
 
 Now, it is bad to toady even a duke, who represents a 
 grand old lineage, and whose personality is surrounded by 
 a crowd of stirring associations. It is bad to toady even 
 an archbishop, who is perhaps a very great man, and 
 assuredly a very lucky man. At the worst, the arch- 
 bishop is to be looked at with the like interest to that 
 with which you look at the man who has drawn the 
 thirty thousand pound prize in a lottery. But it is 
 infinitely more wretched, degrading, and disgusting to 
 toady Dr Bumptious or Professor Donkey. Yet you may 
 have seen, no one can tell why, such mortals flattered, 
 caressed, and petted like spoiled children, though they 
 never did any good to any one but themselves in all their 
 days. Let me add, that toadyism is never so offensive 
 as when it is flavoured with religious language. Then it 
 becomes the most hateful of cant. Thus it was when a 
 hoary reprobate who had served the devil diligently as 
 long as he had strength to serve anybody at all, having 
 professed some penitence in the last hours of life (\\ hich 
 
The Rest of it. 59 
 
 penitence did not prompt him to make any amends for 
 the wicked things he had done), was greasily held forth 
 from a certain pulpit as a noble Christian character. 
 Toadyism never reached a height more revolting than 
 when it led Bishop Porteus to declare that George II. 
 was removed to heaven because he was too good for 
 earth ; unless indeed where it says something analogous 
 concerning some respectable tradesman or sharp attorney. 
 Then (let me confess), I hold it worse. To profess great 
 admiration of the height and grandeur of a mole-hill, is a 
 more offensive thing than to profess great admiration for 
 Mont Blanc : even if you ascribe to Mont Blanc the 
 qualities in which it is especially deficient. 
 
 Do you know this feeling? Let me speak to very 
 busy men. 
 
 To have been excessively over-driven for many weeks -, 
 pressed by a host of cares, toils, worries ; and then almost 
 suddenly to get to the end of them, and enter on a little 
 time of relief and rest j yet not to be able to feel relieved 
 and restful ? You know that if you have been struggling 
 through the dense underwood of a forest, the moment 
 you emerge from the wood into an open glade, you feel 
 you are free from the entanglement. Likewise if you 
 pass through a railway tunnel, the instant you get out of 
 the dark you get into the light. But after you have got 
 out of the moral tunnel, you often feel yourself surrounded 
 by its darkness just as much as when passing through it. 
 After escaping from the moral underwood, from the 
 
60 The Rest of it. 
 
 briars, nettles, and elastic branches that come with un- 
 friendly whack against your face, you feel all these little 
 inconveniences plague you as much as ever. Do you 
 know this ? 
 
 Sometimes, even to find that you have, for the time, 
 very little to do, will not relieve you from an oppressed 
 sense that you have a great deal to do. That is, if you 
 have really been working very hard for a long time. As 
 amputation of a leg will not keep you from feeling pain 
 in it, so though you have no work, you will feel the pres- 
 sure and worry of work that is gone. In my childhood, 
 in a certain little village in a fair country not seen for 
 many years, I knew a tailor, an excellent man. Who 
 can forget the man that made his first jacket > That 
 good man had lost a leg. I remember the awe with 
 which I have heard him say that he felt all his toes just 
 as plainly as when he had them, years after the limb to 
 which they belonged had been taken off. It was only 
 by looking during the day, and by touch during the 
 night, that he often assured himself that the limb was 
 not there. 
 
 Don't be sure that you really are very busy, merely 
 because you feel very busy. Make a list of the things 
 you have to do ; of the things you have done in the 
 last week or month. Account for your time, and see 
 what you have made of it. And if what you have done 
 looks much when it is written fairly down, you may be 
 well assured that it was a very great deal when you were 
 actually doing it. Perhaps you may suddenly discover 
 
 
The Rest of it. 6 1 
 
 that you have indeed been very idle though you fancied 
 yourself very diligent. Some men get into the way of 
 saying they are terribly busy, just as the man in the 
 Spectator, though perfectly well, got somehow into the 
 way of always saying he was sick. 
 
 Have you learned the great Fact, of the Superiority of 
 Inferior Things ? I mean the Fact, that you get more 
 enjoyment out of these than out of things vastly better. 
 
 My friend Smith, in the past autumn, went to the sea- 
 side with his children. He had provided for their use a 
 nicely-rigged little yacht (that is, a yacht of two feet in 
 length) -, likewise a little steam-ship, which by clockwork 
 was impelled with wonderful speed. He had fancied that 
 an enduring source of interest for the children was pro- 
 vided in those really pretty toys. But to his mortification, 
 after a day or two the children cast these aside, not caring 
 a bit for them ; and found unfailing pleasure in two great 
 blocks of wood, amorphous in form, which you would not 
 have guessed to be ships unless you had been several times 
 told so. Day after day, these blocks were invested with 
 an intricate combination of strings and sticks, representing 
 rigging. Day by day were the heads of that little house- 
 hold brought forcibly to behold and admire the great 
 works of naval art. The same friend told me that his 
 little boy had received as a birthday present, a very hand- 
 some railway train, of no small size. There were engine 
 and tender, and four or five carriages : skilfully were the 
 carriages coupled each to each ; graceful were the circles 
 
62 The Rest of it. 
 
 in which that train could run j exciting was the sound of 
 its many wheels. But the enjoyment of that artistic toy 
 speedily palled, and it was supplanted by another railway 
 train, in which the forms of engine and carriages were 
 rendered in wooden bricks, skilfully built up. The re- 
 semblance to real life was remote ; and the train could 
 be moved only by laborious management. 
 
 It is a great comfort to the majority of mankind to 
 reflect that inferior things are in truth superior. If a 
 duke with a palace or a castle gains the magnificent, he 
 loses the snug. And to an average mind there is more 
 real enjoyment in the snug than in the magnificent. You 
 look at the magnificent for a little while, and then walk 
 away from it with expressions of admiration j with the 
 snug you are content to associate day by day. You could 
 not choose for a familiar friend a man twenty feet high. 
 You could not sit down by the evening fireside and read 
 Fraser in a gallery two hundred feet long. I know a 
 man who has an enthusiastic love for church architecture. 
 It pleased Providence to give him for his own a very plain 
 church. After a while, an inexpensive internal improve- 
 ment was made upon the east end of that edifice at the 
 cost of not very many scores of pounds sterling, which 
 was successful in greatly elevating the character of the 
 entire interior. What an amount of real hearty enjoy- 
 ment my friend got out of this little thing ! Yes, more 
 than many a man gets out of a church which leaves no- 
 thing to be desired 5 more than he himself would have 
 got out of that, if it had pleased God to give it to him. 
 
The Rest of it. 63 
 
 When the young barrister, Walter Scott, devised and 
 erected a little rustic gateway at his country cottage, and 
 went out after dark with his wife, with a lantern, and 
 surveyed it with great satisfaction and pride, don't you 
 see that the pleasure he derived from that small matter 
 was at least as keen as ever he derived from the grander 
 decorations of Abbotsford ? And the man of simple and 
 moderate tastes, who has a hundred square yards of velvety 
 grass environed by warm evergreens, and fragrant in early 
 summer with two lilacs and one hawthorn, may walk up 
 and down a gravelled path, not so long as a quarter-deck, 
 and enjoy his domain more keenly than a peer enjoys his 
 park of six miles in circumference, which is so very big 
 that one never can have a really familiar acquaintance 
 with it all. There can be no doubt that very diligent 
 cultivation bestowed on a very little bit of this earth will 
 draw forth from it a most unusual crop of vegetables. 
 So will prolonged and earnest contemplation of a little 
 expanse of grass draw from it an incalculable amount of 
 enjoyment. I know a man, the incumbent of a Scotch 
 country parish, whose church you would on a cursory 
 inspection take to be a little shabby barn, with a belfry at 
 one end of it. After the longest inspection, indeed, you 
 could never persuade yourself that it looked like a church. 
 Yet the man whose duty it was to conduct the worship 
 of that building, regarded it with a satisfaction with which 
 I doubt if Dean Stanley looks at Westminster Abbey. In 
 the gable of that shabby church there was a really beau- 
 tiful Norman door. And if you train yourself to take all 
 
64 The Rest of it. 
 
 your friends to see a Norman door 5 and if, being alone, 
 you often sit down on a gravestone and look at it ; it is 
 amazing what a deal you will get out of that door, espe- 
 cially if it be the only door within miles at which it is 
 conceivable that a lover of architecture would look twice. 
 However much the Dean of Westminster may admire 
 some one door in the great Abbey, he cannot bestow 
 upon it sufficiently prolonged and intent consideration to 
 draw forth all its latent power of pleasing. For there are 
 a hundred other things there equally worth looking at, 
 and in such a case you do but skim the enjoyment which 
 any object yields you ; you cannot drink it all in. 
 
 There is a happy compensation in all this. For as most 
 people must put up with inferior things, it is comfortable 
 to think that inferior things are in fact superior. There is 
 a racy aroma, a peculiarly sapid twang about little things 
 and few things, which great things and many things want. 
 
 There are facts which, though existent, need manipu- 
 lation to make them apparent. When you were a little 
 boy, and saw a carpenter planing a piece of mahogany, 
 don't you remember how disappointed you were to see 
 how very colourless the wood looked ? There was no 
 appearance at all of the rich, deep colour you had been 
 accustomed to associate with that wood. To your friend, 
 the carpenter, you expressed your mortification : saying, 
 that in what looked like a piece of dark deal, there was 
 no vestige of the character and markings of mahogany 
 at all. But your friend told you these things were all 
 there, though they were not yet made apparent. Let 
 
The Rest of it. 6 
 
 that wood be oiled and rubbed, and the latent nature 
 will come out. The fact will become manifest. 
 
 Are there not some moral facts which need a little 
 handling to make us aware of them? It seems to me 
 that the peculiar handling which is needful to make us 
 feel some things is to say we feel them. If you want 
 really to enjoy your holiday rest, be sure you frequently 
 say how much you are enjoying it) for if you don't say 
 so, perhaps you won't. Half the pleasure of a fine, crisp, 
 frosty day consists in telling people how enjoyable it is. 
 The satisfaction was in your mind latent : it is brought 
 out by talking of it as the markings of mahogany are 
 brought out by oil and rubbing. A person who fre- 
 quently tells the most groundless story comes at last to 
 believe it himself. George IV., one would say, must have 
 come really to believe that he led the decisive charge at 
 Waterloo, when he attained the sublime impudence of 
 declaring that he did so to the Duke of Wellington. So 
 singular is the reflective power of assertion upon belief. 
 If you go out upon a raw, gloomy day, and resolutely 
 declare to a number of people that it is fine, cheerful, 
 winter weather, you may ultimately persuade yourself 
 that it is so. Not always indeed. Sometimes the making 
 strong declarations of what a man does not really feel to 
 be true, serves only to make him feel himself a more 
 wretched impostor. "We all know several people who are 
 constantly telling us things to their own advantage, just 
 because they know they are not facts, but wish us to 
 think them so- 
 
 E 
 
66 The Rest of it. 
 
 Is this true ? 
 
 Confidence that you are taking the right way to do a 
 thing tends greatly to make the way you are taking the 
 right one. Did you ever hastily put a key into a lock and 
 find it would not go in, or would not turn round ? Then 
 you thought it must be the wrong key ; and felt that you 
 could not open the lock with it though you tried several 
 times. But you took the key out and looked at it. You 
 saw it was the right key after all. Now you tried con- 
 fidently, and succeeded at once. In went the key 
 smoothly : back went the bolt. 
 
 Are there not analogies in life ? Is not half the battle 
 there, to go at things confidently — sure that you are taking 
 the right course ? A man who thinks he is sure to fail, is 
 sure to fail. All attempts that have been made to reason 
 sailors out of their superstitions, as to unlucky days of sail- 
 ing and the like, have resulted only in confirming their 
 superstitions ; for the men who sailed on a Friday, in a 
 ship launched on a Friday, and called The Friday by a too 
 intelligent owner, went in the firm belief that they were 
 doomed men. You can see how, in times of urgent peril, 
 this conviction would utterly paralyse them ; and so one 
 does not wonder that the ship never was heard of any 
 more. If you think it to be the wrong key, you cannot 
 open the lock with it 3 though, in fact, it is the right key. 
 If you sail away in the belief that you are knocking 
 your head against the whole universe, you are nearly as 
 sure to be smashed as if you were actually doing so. 
 
 You don't feel things at once, whenever they happen. 
 
 
1 he Rest of it. 6 7 
 
 You become aware of them gradually. There are many- 
 cases in which you do not feel relieved till a good while 
 after relief has come. If the saddle has lain long and 
 heavily on the back, you fancy it is there still, after it has 
 been taken off. On the other hand, there are moral 
 blows which you do not mind at first. You get a letter 
 conveying very bad news ; just as heavy news as you are 
 likely to receive in this world. And as you slowly fold 
 the letter up, and replace it in its envelope, you are sur- 
 prised to find how well you have borne this bitter blow. 
 But hour after hour through the long day the trial seems 
 greater and sadder. You are aware that the stroke did 
 you more harm than you had fancied at first. And when 
 at night you go to your sleepless bed, and toss about in 
 utter misery, you are conscious that you are not bearing it 
 w r ell at all. 
 
 "We see a physical sight at once ; a moral spectacle 
 takes time to make itself perceptible. I don't suppose 
 that a chancellor can assume the chancellor the minute 
 he receives the great seal. It gradually dawns upon him 
 what a big place he fills. It is so with lesser positions in 
 life. My friend Smith tells me that when he became 
 incumbent of a large parish (it was his first), he did not 
 feel, for many days, and even weeks, that he was such. 
 When the people about his church, and the humble 
 parishioners, treated him with great deference, he felt 
 ashamed. Gradually he assumed authority, as he felt 
 himself fairly seated on that humble throne. One of the 
 most imposing sights I ever beheld was the Bishop of 
 
68 The Rest of it. 
 
 Oxford pronouncing the blessing after preaching. It was 
 a very large church. It was densely crowded — passages 
 and all — by people who had come expressly to hear that 
 eminent prelate. The prayers were got through in a very 
 slovenly manner : and when the Bishop ascended the 
 pulpit, there was that audible sigh and stir of the congre- 
 gation which testified that here was the thing for which 
 they had come to church that afternoon. The Bishop 
 gave a very eloquent and rather misty sermon of an hour 
 in length, about half as good as I have several times heard 
 preached by a man who was esteemed as well paid with 
 eight hundred a year. He got thoroughly warmed with 
 his subject, and arresting the attention of most of those 
 present, ended amid perfect stillness. Then, having prayed 
 in the usual words, he laid down his little Prayer-book, 
 and stretching forth his hands, uttered the benediction in 
 the invariable form. It was most impressively done. 
 And it was especially impressive to me, who am accus- 
 tomed to hear the blessing pronounced by men who do it 
 humbly — as well aware how much their blessing is worth. 
 It was fine to hear it said by a man who honestly believed 
 that a bishop's blessing is worth something, and said to 
 a great crowd, in which many people believed that too. 
 But I don't think that, for many days after the dis- 
 tinguished individual was raised to the Episcopate, he 
 could possibly have pronounced the blessing with the like 
 authority. He must have grown accustomed to his place 
 before he could assume it so well. 
 
The Rest of it. 69 
 
 People talk about being settled in life : people think 
 that when they attain a certain place, they are settled in 
 life. Well, perhaps they are settled so far as concerns 
 worldly position. That is, they hold the same office year 
 after year, have the same income, live in the same house, 
 know the same class of human beings. But in opinion, 
 in feeling, in moral atmosphere, how far people are from 
 being settled — how they drift away and away ! You 
 might as well think to remain steadily fixed at a spot 
 midway in the fathomless Atlantic as think to remain 
 morally fixed in this life of never-ceasing change. There 
 is a change in feeling even where there is no change in 
 fact. As a fish, swimming in the sea, gets into a warmer 
 stratum of water, and in a little into a colder again, so do 
 we, after being for a little in a cheerful, amiable, charitable 
 frame, get out of that into a discontented, envious, bitter, 
 self-seeking, and malicious temper. It would be a nice 
 thing, if, when we are at our best, we could throw out three 
 anchors, and settle ourselves there. But we cannot. 
 
 I confess there is something that strikes me as very 
 terrible, when we find conscientious men stating as an 
 objection to the subscription of religious tests by the 
 clergy and others that a man cannot, at four or five and 
 twenty, say what he may have come to believe by the 
 time he is four or five and forty. It is a terrible thing to 
 think, if one really must think it, that the fact of one's 
 holding most firmly to-day the great verities of the Chris- 
 tian faith, is no warrant against the possibility that some 
 
jo The Rest of it. 
 
 day he may reject them all, and perhaps begin to write 
 free-thinking articles and books : perhaps become a secu- 
 larist lecturer. I should fancy that most men who en- 
 tirely believe the truth of Christianity, would much rather 
 be knocked on the head at once than live on to abjure it, 
 if that was to be the result of their living on. Let us 
 hope that however taste, feeling, political creed, aesthetic 
 sensibility, may change, yet in the graver matter of our 
 highest belief, year after year (if we are to see them) 
 may bring no alteration. And let me say, that if our 
 beliefs be what they should be, I have the firmest convic- 
 tion that they will only grow stronger and deeper with 
 advancing years. 
 
 There is such a thing as a masterly inactivity, or what 
 seems such. Now and then the course of nature favours 
 lazy and dilatory folk ; and gives some colour of reason to 
 the advice in the Spanish proverbial saying, Never do 
 to-day what you can put off till to-morrow. Sometimes 
 we take great trouble to do something which, if we had 
 waited till to-morrow, we should not have needed to do 
 at all. The necessity for it would have passed away. A 
 person who is very careful in putting books and papers 
 away in their proper places, finds occasionally that he has 
 locked up something that comes to be wanted, and so has 
 the labour of seeking it out again. A lazy, careless, un- 
 tidy person would have escaped that labour. 
 
 But that is a chance. The case is analogous to that of 
 a man who takes poison ; and then finds that, by extra- 
 
The Rest of it. 7 i 
 
 ordinary luck, it suits his constitution or his disease, and 
 cures him instead of killing him. As a general rule, the 
 right thing is to do things at once. The system of the 
 universe does in the main favour people who go upon 
 that tack. And it tends to clear all our views of things, 
 and it conduces to a condition of quiet unexpressed con- 
 tent, to do things at once. Nobody can be comfortable 
 with a long score of little neglected duties running up 
 against him. Besides, duty is never little. Wherever 
 the moral element exists, the matter is great. Though a 
 hair's breadth may make the difference between right and 
 wrong, the difference between right and wrong is never 
 a little difference. 
 
 Still, as there are horses that need the spur, and horses 
 that need the bridle, so there are human beings that need 
 to be poked up, and others that need to be reined in. 
 There are men who fly at their work and hold at it with 
 a tension of the nervous system, which does not greatly 
 accelerate or improve the work, but which makes it very 
 killing for the worker. I have known a student who had 
 six months in which to do a certain amount of reading, 
 and who had got through it all in two. I have known a 
 clergyman who could not be quite at peace, unless he 
 fixed on Sunday evening on his text for next Sunday 5 and 
 began to write his sermon on Monday morning by ten 
 o'clock. In short, there is such a thing as taking any 
 duty very heavily and anxiously : there is such a thing as 
 taking it very lightly and hopefully. And I fear that 
 those who are burdened for the race of life with an 
 
72 The Rest of it, 
 
 anxious and eager heart, must just bear the burden as 
 long as the race lasts. 
 
 There is a case in which the man most impatient to be 
 at his task, ought steadfastly to deny himself the relief of 
 getting at it. It is where you have many things to do in 
 the day. You know the uneasy, restless desire to be at 
 work, wiping off part of the great score. You know the 
 vague remorse with which one thinks that the minutes are 
 running away, and no progress made. But you must 
 definitively stop, and before beginning any portion of the 
 task, sort it. Arrange it in the order in which it can 
 most easily and swiftly be done. Here is a most econo- 
 mical expenditure of time : it may save itself ten times 
 over. If you have a list of many things to be done upon 
 any day (and some folk have such a list for every day), 
 you will be eager to get out and get at it. No ; sit down 
 quietly. Refuse to mind the quickened pulse, and the 
 whole physical and mental system chafing like a race- 
 horse at the starting-post. Deliberately consider in what 
 order these twenty things shall be done : number them 
 accordingly. And when you have fairly gone out, keep 
 to the plan chalked out. Let it be as the law of the 
 Medes and Persians. You will find this best in the long 
 run. 
 
 A thought which will sometimes occur to very hard- 
 working men is, What is the use of all this ceaseless 
 driving on ? We all know men who flagrantly neglect 
 their duty ; taking life very easily while you are taking it 
 so hard': and yet, how well they manage to get through » 
 
The Rest of it, 73 
 
 Nobody tells them what everybody thinks of them. And 
 you may find men scandalously unfit for the place they 
 hold, yet entirely satisfied with themselves : much more 
 self-satisfied than laborious men, for laborious men know 
 how much more they wish to do if their day were but 
 increased to forty-eight hours, and if they could but be in 
 two or even three places at a time. Generally men who 
 are outrageously incompetent have two or three people 
 who tell them they are remarkably competent 3 and thus 
 act as buffers to keep off the shock and pressure of public 
 opinion. Then, incompetent men stand by one another. 
 An incompetent man is always glad, in a public assembly, 
 to mention how able, laborious, and self-denying is another 
 incompetent man. He hopes to be repaid in kind ; and 
 besides this, he is doing what he can to lower the standard 
 of competence. If a man of five feet two inches desires 
 to be considered very tall, he will gladly go into any move- 
 ment that may lead to a general belief that men of five feet 
 two are very tall men. 
 This is all. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ORGAN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 THIS is a rainy day. In the morning, at eight 
 o'clock, if you had walked down from this house 
 through a green shady lane, with rich hedges and great 
 trees on either hand, you would, at a distance of half-a- 
 mile, have suddenly come upon the sea, looking leaden 
 and sullen. Entering the sea, you would have found it 
 very cold. There was no rain then ; but in an hour the 
 clouds gathered, the wind moaned in a wintry way, and 
 then drenching showers fell, wafted in from the Atlantic 
 by the rainy south-west. Now the trees are green, the 
 hedges are green, the ripening corn-field hard by is 
 beginning to grow yellow, the roads that pass near are 
 deep with mad. The sea, a grim expanse, is three 
 hundred feet below ; the ground slopes steeply down to 
 it. Above, there are moorlands, now looking quite black. 
 On the whole, it is a day on which to record certain facts 
 which have lately come within the scope of the writer's 
 observation. 
 
 Here is a little staircase. It is steep and dark : the 
 
The Organ in Scotland. 75 
 
 steps are of wood. Let us ascend it. Now where are 
 we ; and what do our eyes behold ? 
 
 We are in a gallery in a church. It is a cruciform 
 church, with short transepts. It is a Gothic edifice. The 
 open roof is supported by beams of dark oak ; the plaster 
 between the beams is painted blue. We may discover 
 three windows filled with stained glass 5 one is a rose 
 window, two are lancets. This gallery, situated at the 
 extremity of the longest limb of the cross, is filled by a 
 large and handsome organ. A small boy is blowing, 
 solemnly working a long handle up and down. Some 
 one is playing on the instrument 5 there are the magnifi- 
 cent tones, so rich, sweet, soft, majestic. I reflect how 
 my slight acquaintance, Dr Bumptious, in tones that set 
 one's teeth on edge, has often declared in my unwilling 
 ears that the human voice is far finer than any instrument. 
 Just listen to his human voice (in so far as his voice can 
 be called human), and you will be well assured of that. 
 
 But surely there is nothing particular or remarkable in 
 a Gothic church, nor yet in an organ gallery. Yes, my 
 reader 3 but there is something very remarkable in finding 
 an organ here. Look from this gallery towards the other 
 end of the church, in the subdued light of stained glass 
 and dark oak. What do you see there ? No altar, no 
 reading-desk, no creed nor commandments nor Lord's 
 prayer emblazoned : none of the things to which you are 
 accustomed. There is just a pulpit and nothing else. 
 You know what that means. This is a Scotch parish 
 church. The Church of Scotland has no bishops and no 
 
j6 The Organ in Scotland. 
 
 liturgy. This is a Presbyterian place of worship. And 
 let me tell you, it is a great sign of the times to see this 
 organ here. 
 
 This is a week-day. There is no service. It is a day 
 of practising. Let me relate some facts as to the Sunday 
 services of this church. 
 
 Last Sunday was the first of our holiday-time : our 
 first Sunday here. And in a somewhat rainy and stormy 
 morning, several figures might have been discerned leav- 
 ing this dwelling about 10.30 a.m. Having walked a 
 mile and a half along a breezy way, parallel with the sea 
 and far above it, they might have been seen descending 
 a path which leads to the church already mentioned. 
 As you draw near the place, the tinkling of a some- 
 what feeble bell falls upon the ear. It is not the worst 
 bell which has summoned the writer to church. He 
 remembers a day on which, at the appointed hour of 
 worship, a man appeared at the church door and violently 
 rang a dinner bell of small dimensions. Entering the 
 church, among many more, you discover that the build- 
 ing, which holds five hundred and fifty or so, is well 
 filled ; indeed, almost crowded. As the bell ceased, the 
 pealing organ began, and played a pretty voluntary. 
 Though the organ has been here for no more than five or 
 six Sundays, and though a good many of the congregation 
 probably never heard an organ in church in their lives till 
 this organ came here, the people took it all as a matter of 
 course. They have got quite accustomed to it. I ara 
 
The Organ in Scotland. yy 
 
 not going to give you a description of the service of the 
 Scotch Church : though the most eloquent of living 
 historians, after being present at a Scotch service for the 
 first time, told the writer that the thing which mainly 
 impressed him was, what an odd service it was. Only 
 let it be said, that public worship begins with the singing 
 of a psalm. And here, knowing the moral atmosphere, 
 and understanding what prejudices and prepossessions 
 must have been got over before such a thing could be, it 
 was very strange, to hear the organ play over the tune 
 first, and then to see the congregation rise to their feet, 
 with one consent, and sing the psalm with a somewhat 
 too powerful accompaniment. For the mode, hallowed 
 to many Scotch hearts by old associations, is to sit still 
 while you sing : thus indeed diminishing the power of 
 your lungs to half ; but still finding abundant compensa- 
 tion in the thought that thus you are bearing testimony 
 against the corrupt mode of the unreformed church on the 
 southern side of the Tweed. But how fine and cheering 
 was that great volume of sound, that Sunday morning 
 when the writer first heard an organ in a Scotch church ! 
 Every one sung out with heart and voice : the choir, 
 placed in the organ gallery, was quite drowned by the 
 congregation 5 walls and roof seemed as vibrating ; and 
 the whole thing quickened devotion, and prepared one 
 for the following prayers ! Just one thought did intrude 
 into the mind, that should have been wholly filled with 
 God's praise : under the circumstances an excusable 
 
yS The Organ in Scotland. 
 
 thought. The thought was as follows : Now I have 
 heard some men, whom no one proposed to shut up in a 
 lunatic asylum, say that this is wrong ! 
 
 Of course the great principle on which all objections to 
 the use of the organ in public worship go, is this : The 
 uglier and more disagreeable anything is, the likelier it is 
 to he the right thing. 
 
 But no more now about that service : which was the 
 very first Sunday's service at which the writer ever heard 
 an organ in a Scotch church. 
 
 A little more than nine years ago, an article written by 
 this hand appeared in a certain Magazine ; an article en- 
 titled The Organ Question. About that time people in 
 Scotland were beginning to think that, considering the 
 atrocious badness of church music generally in this coun- 
 try, it might be desirable to do something towards im- 
 proving it. Let it be said, with thankfulness, that in the 
 last nine years, a good deal has been done, both in town 
 and country, to that end. Ladies and gentlemen have, 
 in many cases, come to believe that there is nothing 
 degrading in becoming members of amateur choirs ; and 
 the consequence is, that in many churches you have voices 
 of such refinement and cultivation to lead the praise, as 
 could not be got previously except at very great expense. 
 You have the words sung, properly pronounced. And 
 instead of the abominable tunes, full of flourishes and 
 repetitions, which ambitious Scotch precentors were fond 
 of singing, you have ecclesiastical music, simple, grave, 
 easily joined in by all with ear and voice. Bran-new 
 
The Organ in Scotland. 79 
 
 tunes, by pushing music-masters, have been in great 
 measure forbidden j and music centuries old, as much 
 better than those as Canterbury Cathedral is better than 
 Salem Chapel, has come into use. Of course, early in 
 the progress of the movement, voices here and there asked 
 whether the organ might not be had. Yet so keen was 
 the prejudice against that noble instrument in the minds 
 of many who had broken away from the belief in the infalli- 
 bility of a Pope or a Church, only to substitute for that the 
 belief in the infallibility, even in matters aesthetical, of John 
 Knox and a few more, that though the writer felt that the 
 general use of the organ in Scotland was a thing quite as 
 sure to come in time as the flowing of the tide, he said, 
 at that time, that the existing generation of Scotchmen 
 would not live to see it. But though some good people, 
 who are entitled to credit for entire sincerity, and whose 
 dread of removing the old landmarks was not wholly un- 
 reasonable, did as it were go down to the seashore and 
 'order the tide to cease flowing, stating that if it continued 
 to flow it would be guilty of perjury, blasphemy, ingrati- 
 tude, and even of bad taste, yet the tide quietly and 
 surely progressed. And now, it is matter for wonder, 
 when you find an educated Scotchman or Scotchwoman, 
 under fifty years old, who is not clearly in favour of the 
 organ : in favour, that is, of allowing congregations who 
 want an organ to get one, and congregations who don't 
 want an organ to do without it. Things have advanced 
 much more rapidly than anyone would have believed 
 possible ten years since. In Edinburgh, there is but one 
 
So The Organ in Scotland. 
 
 organ in use in a parish church ; but in Glasgow, which 
 is assuredly the capital of the wealth and enterprise of 
 Scotland, there already are in use, or will be in use within 
 a few weeks, no fewer than seven or eight. The Tron 
 Church, whose walls used to re-echo the eloquence of 
 Chalmers, has for many months had instrumental music : 
 and I can testify from experience that the praise there is 
 almost overwhelming, for its vast volume and heartiness. 
 The congregation is for the most part of a humble class ; 
 just of that class where one might have expected linger- 
 ing prejudice against the "Kist fu' o' whistles; " but the 
 large church is densely crowded, and every soul sings with 
 might and main. The sound is as of thunder. Country 
 churches progress more slowly : I believe this church by 
 the seaside is almost the first which has started the true 
 organ : not the harmonium, which is but a poor substi- 
 tute. But without any gift of prophecy, one may safely 
 predict that in a few years the organ will excite no more 
 surprise in a Scotch church than now it does in an English 
 one j and that every congregation will have an organ 
 which wants one, and can afford it. 
 
 Now, does any reader of this page desire to know how 
 the phenomenon of the organ gallery and the organ 
 appeared in this church ? How is it that on any Sunday 
 you may find the congregation here devoutly worshipping 
 with the aid of that grand instrument which some years 
 ago appeared to many in Scotland as a thing to be 
 longed for but not to be had ? 
 
 Well, things have gone on rapidly within the last three 
 
The Organ in Scotland. 81 
 
 <i> 
 
 or four years. I remember, as yesterday, the day when 
 one of the magistrates of the northern metropolis told me 
 that the previous Sunday he and his fellows had paid an 
 official visit to a certain church ; and that the music was: 
 aided by a harmonium for the first time. One clergyman, 
 greatly daring, and having ascertained that his flock would 
 like it, made that beginning. The question of instru- 
 mental music, thus raised, came before the Supreme 
 Court of the Scotch Church at its meeting in May 18645, 
 and a decision was come to which many regarded as 
 tacitly sanctioning the organ, and which some regarded as 
 doing something else. That uncertain sound would not 
 do, and the General Assembly, in May 1865, having the 
 organ question again brought up, decided that the power 
 of permitting or refusing the use of an organ by any con- 
 gregation, lies with the Presbytery of th bounds, and 
 recommended that when any congregation did, with 
 something like unanimity, express to the Presbytery its 
 wish for an organ, the Presbytery should give that wish 
 the most favourable consideration. This judgment of the 
 Supreme Court was carried by a majority against another 
 which had been proposed, whose gist was that each con- 
 gregation should be free to have an organ if it liked,, 
 without asking leave of the Presbytery at all. 
 
 So you see what a Scotch minister has to do, if his con- 
 gregation comes in a unanimous way, and says it wants an 
 organ. Go to the Presbytery at its next meeting 5 produce 
 satisfactory evidence of the congregation's wish ; and the 
 permission of the Presbytery has followed as of course in 
 
82 The Organ in Scotland. 
 
 all such cases hitherto. Of course, if a considerable 
 portion of the congregation desires to go on in the old 
 way, it is all quite fair that their bias or prejudice should 
 be considered. The burden of proof must rest on those 
 who want the change. And a usage hitherto maintained 
 under an understood common law, ought not to be altered 
 unless people are nearly unanimous in wishing that it 
 should be altered. If your congregation esteems an 
 organ as an emblem of Baal, you would be very foolish if 
 you try to thrust an organ upon it. But if your congre- 
 gation unanimously desires to have an organ, you would 
 be equally silly if you make any opposition to that desire. 
 The fact is, a clergyman of the Scotch Church who likes 
 the organ, is in precisely the same position as a clergyman 
 of the Anglican Church who would like to put his choir 
 in surplices. It is a pure matter of aesthetics : there is no 
 principle involved. And if worthy people have a keen 
 prejudice against the thing, esteeming it as a rag of Popery, 
 and as the thin end of the wedge whose thick end is Father 
 Newman or else Bishop Colenso; why, you will (if you 
 have good sense and good feeling) yield meanwhile to 
 that prejudice, and try gradually to educate people out 
 of it. " I have no objection to the organ," said a worthy 
 mechanic to a Scotch clergyman, within the last few weeks ; 
 " but I understand that whenever the organ is brought in, 
 there 's to be an attack made on the doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment." A choral service is a fine thing ; but the Angli- 
 can rector who tries to establish it in a church where all 
 the people abominate it, is a great fool. So an organ is a 
 
The Organ in Scotland. 83 
 
 fine thing j but no man of sense will thrust it upon people 
 who revolt at it. 
 
 The following temperate and judicious remarks are from 
 a sermon published by Dr Robertson, minister of Glasgow 
 Cathedral 5 late minister, alas that it must be said. He 
 had not a superior among the Scotch clergy : for manly 
 grasp of mind, for pith and point in treating his subject, he 
 had hardly an equal. Let it be added, that a more genial, 
 kindly, liberal-minded, and honest man, never walked this 
 earth. Here are that eminent man's views about instru- 
 mental music in church : — 
 
 " With regard to church music, every one knows that 
 the question is coming to be more and more considered 
 every day, whether it would not be an improvement to 
 make use of the help of instruments. 
 
 " There seems to be no good reason why this should 
 not be done. Under the ancient Jewish dispensation the 
 harp, the timbrel, and other instruments of music, were 
 used in the service of God ; and there seems to be nothing 
 in the New Testament principles to forbid our making 
 use, in like manner, of such instrumental aid to the voice 
 as may be suitable to the habits and associations of the 
 present day. There are many instruments, certainly, 
 which one would hardly like to hear in church service : 
 our associations being such, that the use of them is not in 
 the meantime, and is not likely ever to become, appropri- 
 ately suggestive of reverent ideas. There is one instru- 
 ment, however, against which this objection does not lie, 
 — I mean the organ. And I do not hesitate to say in 
 
84 The Organ in Scotland. 
 
 public, what I have often said, and heard many of my 
 brethren say, in private, that there appears to be no reason 
 why such congregations as may wish it, should not be 
 permitted to employ this help to the voice. The matter 
 is not so important as to be worth division in congrega- 
 tions : but should any congregation desire it, with a near 
 approach to unanimity, it seems only consistent with a 
 reasonable liberty that they should be allowed to gratify 
 their wish." 
 
 Plain good sense, I know that my readers will say : 
 who could doubt all that? But let me tell you that 
 there are worthy folk in Scotland still, who would accuse 
 the man who should say all that of no one knows what 
 fearful heresy. Happily, they cannot burn him. And I 
 am not entirely sure that they would, even if they could. 
 
 Tact is needed to put the use of the organ before pre- 
 judiced minds in the way least likely to awake prejudice. 
 An esteemed friend of the writer, some time ago, had an 
 organ erected in his church. A voluntary was played 
 before and after service. Some honest people complained 
 of this. They said that this sound was not worship. " I 
 don't say it is," replied their ingenious pastor; " but neither 
 is the shuffling of feet and slamming of pew doors as 
 people are coining in and going out : and don't you think 
 the organ, which drowns these noises, is the pleasanter 
 sound of the two ?" There was no resisting that way of 
 putting the case. And yet that way was perfectly true. 
 Would that every good cause, which needs to be judi- 
 ciously put, had as able an advocate ! 
 
The Organ in Scotland. 85 
 
 Of course, all this movement has been accompanied by 
 some ill-humour on both sides. Excellent men, ultra- 
 conservative in all things, have been known to accuse the 
 advocates of the organ of various forms of heterodoxy : of 
 Socinianism, Atheism, and even of Bourignianism. On 
 the other hand, the advocates of the organ, impatient of 
 an opposition which they esteemed as the result of stupid 
 prejudice, have in many cases been known to describe 
 their opponents as pig-headed blockheads. Excellent 
 men, doubtless, on either side : but controversy tends to 
 wax keen. For we are a perfervid race 3 and sometimes 
 fail to do each other justice. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONCERNING ROADSIDE STATIONS; WITH SOME 
 THOUGHTS ON THE TERMINUS AD QUEM. 
 
 I SAY the terminus ad quern, to distinguish it from 
 the other terminus of the railway. For though in 
 severe accuracy, the terminus of your journey by railway 
 can only be at the journey's end, in popular language the 
 other terminus is the one from which you start ; the be- 
 ginning of your journey. My present discourse shall be 
 of the stations along the way at which one stops for a 
 period longer or shorter 5 and of the terminus at which 
 you finally stop, the journey ended. 
 
 Yet let it be said, in passing, that the word terminus is 
 a hateful word. All words affectedly taken from other 
 languages are hateful. Those from the French tongue 
 are the worst. Doubtless it is to be admitted that there 
 are shades of sense not to be conveyed by single English 
 words, which a French word hits off exactly. Still, I 
 remember how ill it looked to me, when I heard a great 
 preacher vociferating from the pulpit the words en rapport. 
 He rendered them, aung ruppoarrr. 
 
 But who shall ndit with all the world ? Wise men, 
 
Roadside Stations, &c. 87 
 
 much beaten about the head as they go on through life, 
 when they find that all mankind will think in a way they 
 esteem as wrong, come to heave a wearied sigh, turn 
 silently away, and keep their own opinion in their pocket. 
 Now, the world has said that terminus shall be the word 
 to signify the big handsome or the little ugly shed, which 
 has no egress at the farther end for railway carriages : 
 before approaching which the train is drawn up and the 
 tickets collected ; and beyond which the train does not 
 
 go- 
 Not of the material railway is the writer about to tell : 
 
 though upon this evening he might well do so. For upon 
 this day, from early morning to late afternoon, he has 
 journeyed on by as wonderful a railway as you are very 
 likely to see. Alongside the purple Grampians ; through 
 the pass of Killicrankie, glorious yet fatal to the bonnie 
 Dundee ; by the Spey, and by the Garry 5 does that rail- 
 way bear you, till at length you may stop, if you like, in 
 the little cathedral city on the banks of the noble Tay. 
 Having just this minute ascertained the fact from Mr 
 Black's excellent guide-book, I think it proper to say that 
 every schoolboy knows that the Tay is a river three 
 times as big as the Thames : that is, it conveys to the sea 
 a good deal more than three times as much fresh water. 
 
 Go out and see that beautiful ruin of a cathedral, stand- 
 ing within the verge of a ducal park. Mourn over the 
 roofless nave, with its graceful tower at the western end. 
 Mourn yet more, if it be possible, as you enter the choir, 
 and find it vilely fitted up as the parish church. There 
 
88 Roadside Stations ; with so?ne 
 
 are galleries : hideous pews, in which people sit looking 
 across the vault : a fearful pulpit, with two stairs ascend- 
 ing to it, one useless stair to balance the practicable one. 
 Climb that practicable stair, enter that pulpit, and con- 
 sider how you would like to preach from it. Then you 
 may return to an old-fashioned hotel, and have tea. If 
 ever you shouid have tea at that hotel, having dined 
 many hours before, tell them to give you grilled fowl 
 with your tea. From personal knowledge, the writer can 
 say that the grilled fowl there is eminently and meri- 
 toriously good. 
 
 But my roadside stations are moral ones : moral is my 
 terminus ad quern. I purpose to speak of views and feel- 
 ings and beliefs as to which we fancy we have reached 
 the terminus, while in fact we have only stopped for a 
 little while at a roadside station. We say to ourselves, 
 Now, my mind is made up ; and I shall always think 
 and fee] as I do. Ah, that is not so ! We are gliding on 
 with a silent current, that bears us away and away. Well 
 says Dr Xewman, in words which the experience of very 
 many will help them thoroughly to understand, " It is the 
 concrete being that reasons : pass a number of years, and 
 I find my mind in a new place. How r The whole man 
 moves." 
 
 True, true ! I have come to think that the terminus 
 of our views and feelings is no other than the terminus of 
 the whole path through this life. We shall be changing 
 to the end : not always or in all things for the better. 
 You have sometimes travelled through a fair country, and 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern, 89 
 
 stopped at places amid green trees, and by rustic water- 
 falls, under bright skies : but as the day declined, you 
 entered on a bare treeless tract, and at length concluded 
 your journey in chill and darkness at midnight in the 
 thick air and blank ugliness of some great manufacturing 
 town. Now, in our views and moods and feelings, we 
 run risk of doing just that. Oh let us stay where the 
 trees are green, the skies bright, the waters clear ! Don't 
 take us into a moral Manchester or Leeds, if it be pos- 
 sible to stay in a moral Wells or Salisbury ! 
 
 Yet before going on to these things, let us give a 
 thought, kindly reader, to the fashion in which we fancy 
 that as to our place in life we have got to the terminus, 
 when in fact we are merely stopping, in a little while to 
 move, at a roadside station. Have not we all done this ? 
 The writer, for one, more than once. Did he ever think 
 to leave that beautiful city wherein he wrote full many a 
 page of sermon and of essay ; or to leave that plain and 
 indeed shabby church, wherein, twice on each Sunday, 
 he preached for six years ? Sore, indeed, he felt, when 
 friends from other lands freely expressed to him their 
 mind concerning that edifice : specially when a dear friend, 
 rector of an English parish which has a beautiful church, 
 being asked what he thought of the church which bears 
 the Mellifluous Doctor's name, said, " Well, I don't regard 
 it so much as a church, but rather as a place of shelter 
 from the weather!" But the force of circumstances 
 pushed him on : and after all, that pleasant resting-place 
 proved to be no more than a roadside station. Perhaps 
 
90 Roadside Stations ; with some 
 
 the quaint and ancient city, cathedral city and university 
 city in one, which is now his charge, may prove the like 
 too. It was indeed the terminus of each of the good men 
 who went before me : and it may very well be mine too. 
 Not in this country's bounds will you rind a fairer scene, 
 or more congenial duty. Some folk do not care for such 
 things : but to the author it is a very real and tangible 
 privilege to be one of those who conduct the service of a 
 church, on the ground contained within which Christian 
 men, in different ways indeed, have worshipped for eight 
 hundred years. Once that church had thirty clergymen : 
 now it has but two. Once, its chief official was termed 
 an archbishop : now, its two incumbents bear each the 
 title of minister. But the archbishops were sometimes 
 murdered ; and sometimes hanged. From such perils the 
 humbler existing dignitaries are happily free. And Car- 
 dinal or Lord Primate had oftentimes the care of the 
 nation on his hands : while the duty now-a-days is not 
 national but parochial. 
 
 It is well, doubtless, that people should fancy their 
 stopping-place for the moment, their terminus. You do 
 many a thing, very proper to be done, because you fancy 
 that, which otherwise you would not do at all. And very 
 unwillingly the conviction forces its way sometimes, that 
 the present is but a wayside station. Has it not come to 
 the heart, now and then, like a sharp dagger? Even 
 when not so bad as that, it is often bad enough. You 
 make a pretty house. You paint it to your mind : and 
 on your lobby floor you lay down encaustic tiles of pleas- 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 9 1 
 
 ing pattern. You set up your book-cases, not unfre- 
 quently having such made for little corners, so that they 
 will not do anywhere else. You accumulate and arrange 
 your household gods. You grow, morally, into the shape 
 of the room in which you write and read for many years. 
 What associations cluster round that abode ! Was there a 
 room, whence it was very long before the smell of fresh 
 wood would go : the room where through some cold 
 winter days a sweet smiling little face lay in the little 
 coffin ? A thousand ties bind you to a dwelling even in 
 a town : remembrances of words and looks that are gone ; 
 of unexpected glad news, of silent unutterable sorrow ; of 
 youthful shouts and laughter, of maturer smiles and tears. 
 But in town you have but the indoor associations : in the 
 country there are the evergreens you planted, the walks 
 you devised, the roses you trained and the ivy, the green 
 grass mowed unceasingly, beside which you have often 
 stood under an umbrella and watched it gaining a more 
 emerald verdure under a soft summer shower. How that 
 gravel has been beaten by your feet : what races you have 
 run, chasing your little children over that turf: how it 
 gladdened you to come back after a little absence to this 
 place, which was to you the centre of all the world ! And 
 now you are to be pulled up by the roots from all the 
 holds to which the roots have fastened themselves. Yes, 
 it takes a tremendous pull from the great locomotive of 
 circumstances, to move you from the roadside station 
 which you had taken for the terminus ! And it is always 
 a strange thing, and a sad thing, to recall that scene. 
 
92 Roadside Stations ; with some 
 
 Many are the lines in Philip Van Artevelde that linger on 
 the ear and heart, and come back like an unwearying 
 refrain to a hundred things one thinks of: none more 
 than these : — ■ 
 
 There is a door in Ghent, — I passed beside it : — 
 A threshold there, worn of my frequent feet, 
 Which I shall cross no more. 
 
 In the years spent under that roof with his gentle 
 Adriana, Artevelde doubtless thought he had reached the 
 terminus ; but a tremendous tug moved him on from that, 
 and from the sunshiny garden of roses he had to go to 
 wild moorlands, black and bare. But if you want to read 
 the most touching of all accounts of how a man took a 
 roadside station for the terminus, you may find it in a 
 book where there is sublimer poetry than Mr Henry 
 Taylor's : turn up the twenty-ninth chapter of Job. Yes, 
 the patient patriarch recalls fondly the wayside station : 
 tells of all the things that made it so pleasant : tells how 
 certainly he counted on its being the terminus : tells how 
 he was pushed away from it into dreary desolation. Read 
 all that : it is too long to quote 3 and this is not the place. 
 But as for the dwelling you left, some day you go back 
 again to see it. Probably you feel it would have been 
 better if you had not. Perhaps your walks, once so trim, 
 are grown up with weeds. Perhaps the dear old ever- 
 greens have grown, unpruned, into awkward monsters, in 
 which you cannot recognise the old features at all. Per- 
 haps, where there was green turf, the delight of your heart, 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 93 
 
 overhanging branches and hateful hens have destroyed it 
 all. Perhaps you sit down for half-an-hour, alone, on the 
 steps once your own, and recall the past. Then you shake 
 your head several times : and leave the spot, to return no 
 more. 
 
 if Artevelde had gone back to that dwelling, not to 
 be revisited, you see what a gush of remembrances would 
 have rushed over him, and broken him down for the time. 
 Yes, it is a curious thing, to go back from what you 
 meanwhile esteem your terminus, to see a roadside station 
 whence you departed, long ago. For though the present 
 location you hold be a great deal better, the old one will 
 yet pierce you through. There was a man, the son of 
 the clergyman of a little Scotch country town, who left 
 his native scenes, and went to a certain great metropolis. 
 There, by great industry, great ability, and great good 
 luck, he pushed his way : till he arrived at a place as 
 honourable and elevated as a British subject can hold. 
 But, having reached that dignified terminus, he returned 
 once on a time to visit the roadside station in his life 
 where he had spent his early years : and he silently 
 walked about the old ways. Then, he entered the house 
 of an old friend : a lady who had known him all his life. 
 Said she, " Well, Lord C, you have been seeing the old 
 place: what do you think of it?" And the good man, 
 in the zenith of fame and success, could answer only by 
 covering his face with his hands and crying like a little 
 child. That is what you think and feel, going back to a 
 wayside station long since left for ever. " A day like this 
 
94 Roadside Stations ; with some 
 
 which I have left, Full thirty years behind/' is always a 
 wonderful day to look back upon, however ordinary it 
 was when it was passing. 
 
 All this is introductory to my proper subject. It is as 
 concerns our opinions and feelings that I 'desire to think 
 of roadside stations and the terminus ad quern. Many 
 opinions, many feelings and affections, which we thought 
 we should keep all our life, we outgrow. We come not 
 to care a brass farthing for things,, places, people, we 
 thought we should care for all our days. You, young 
 fellow, who were engaged to be married thirteen times, 
 fancied that each new engagement was the terminus ; in 
 fact, it was merely a station at which you stopped a little 
 while. You, old party, about to be married for the 
 seventh time, have learned that all the previous marriages 
 were no more than roadside stations. You honestly 
 deemed each the terminus in its own day. You would 
 have indignantly repudiated the suggestion that it was 
 anything else. You, gentle young girl, when your judi- 
 cious and matter-of-fact parents broke off your engage- 
 ment with a lad who had not a penny wherewith to bless 
 either himself or you, thought you would never get over 
 that dreadful disappointment : you would wear the willow 
 through life. Ah, life is very long : much longer than 
 young people have any idea : by-and-by you will think 
 better of it, and judge a great deal more wisely : you will 
 be pulled out of that eminently unsatisfactory rut in which 
 at present you are stuck 5 and will advance prosperously 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 95 
 
 along the rails again, to the halting-place of your next 
 engagement (let us trust) to a sensible, amiable, and com- 
 petently-wealthy man. And, going to more philosophic 
 thoughts, you know how the most vital changes pass on 
 our opinions on all things. It is not that you reason 
 yourself out of your old views, or into your new ones : it 
 is just that you grow into them. You glide away. You 
 fancied yourself securely anchored ; but you were drifting 
 all the while. When Dr Newman published hard things 
 against the Church of Rome, he fancied that these views 
 so expressed were his terminus. Others, looking at him, 
 saw what he did not himself see, that his position was no 
 more than a small refreshment station, with eight minutes 
 allowed, at the top of a very steep incline 5 and that in a 
 little while the train would be tearing away at great 
 speed to what Dr Newman now thinks right and what he 
 then thought wrong. No one can read his Apologia, 
 especially in that second edition in which the undue bitter- 
 ness with which he resented the attack of " a popular 
 writer of the day" is in great degree mitigated and 
 removed, without having the firmest assurance of that 
 eminent man's entire honesty of purpose : and few (may 
 it be said?) can read it without wondering that he ever 
 dreamt that the manifestly provisional and temporary 
 views he held, and which he was ever modifying, were 
 those which would endure with him : wondering that he 
 took for the terminus what you could see with half an eye 
 had the rails stretching far ahead; — what was, in short, a 
 roadside station. 
 
9 6 Roadside Stations ; with some 
 
 I cannot but say that it seems to me that any opinion 
 that differs very much from the usual way of thinking, 
 even if the opinion be magnanimous and right, is likely to 
 prove a roadside station. A continual force, constant as 
 that of gravitation, is ever bearing on the man who holds 
 the exceptional view : and that force will probably beat 
 him in the end. Goethe, Schiller, Coleridge, Southey, 
 Wordsworth, all started by thinking very differently from 
 mankind at large, and ended by thinking very much as do 
 people in general. Shakspeare, with all his immeasurable 
 depth of thought and power of mind, did not hold excep- 
 tional opinions. His views are the glorification of sound 
 common sense. He is the embodiment of a supremely 
 wise Mrs Grundy. If, in taste and philosophy, you have 
 come to hold by him, you may trust that you have reached 
 the terminus, beyond which you will not go. 
 
 A young fellow once told me that he had finally made 
 up his mind that he never would argue with anybody on 
 any topic. Argument, he said, never affected opinion ; 
 because general opinion does not found on reason, but on 
 sentiment and constitution ; and people get angry when 
 argued with, but are not convinced. " I never," he said, 
 " would take the trouble of expressing my own views, 
 however sure I might be that they were right : I would 
 keep them to myself: it is all no use and no matter." 
 When I heard him say all this, I thought to myself, 
 " Ah, you are stopping at a little station high up in the 
 hills : in a little while you will move on, and glide down 
 to the place held by ordinary beings." So he did : and, 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 97 
 
 indeed, went on farther than most people do. If you 
 should fall in with him now, you would find him keenly 
 disposed to an argument, and eager to thrust his views 
 upon you. I do not know whether he expects his fellow- 
 creatures to be convinced by his reasons 5 but at least he 
 makes sure that they shall hear them. 
 
 So with a young fellow who was used to declare that 
 he had no ambition 5 that he did not care for success, 
 standing, or fortune. He honestly thought he did not : 
 for the grapes we cannot get do really seem sour ; they 
 are not falsely called so, in many cases. You know it, 
 my reader : you have no estimate at all of the thing you 
 can never reach 5 or you estimate it slightly. But let 
 success come, or wealth, or reputation : and you will go 
 down the ringing rails till you reach the level of the 
 ordinary way of thinking among ordinary folk. It is 
 exceedingly pleasant, after all, to succeed, to grow rich, 
 to be well esteemed. Not but that the best and noblest 
 that is in our nature is brought out by disappointment and 
 failure, rightly met, rightly used. Poor and shallow will 
 that character be, which has been formed in the unbroken 
 sunshine of a lot in which all goes well. Yet we should 
 all like to be formed into something good, with just as 
 little trituration as may be. And on this matter, as on 
 others, we may say, without hesitation, that all eccentricity 
 of judgment, unless you are a great man like Mr Carlyle, 
 or a fool, is just a roadside station at a considerable height, 
 from which you will most assuredly glide away. Not of 
 necessity to what is better. From unselfish magnanimity 
 
98 Roadside Stations ; with some 
 
 you may pass on to baseness ; from geniality to bitterness ; 
 from industry to laziness ; from tidiness to slovenliness ; 
 from a condition in which your outward aspect is deco- 
 rously neat, to another in which you wear a shocking bad 
 hat, a great woollen comforter round your neck, a baggy 
 cotton umbrella, and no gloves. From a state wherein 
 you think well of most of your fellow-men, you may 
 advance to one in which you think ill of all. From that 
 in which you give a penny to every beggar that asks one, 
 you may proceed to that in which you will threaten such 
 with the police, or bid them go to their parish. 
 
 Now here let it be said, that there are some really 
 good people who are standing at the station of never 
 giving anything to the poor ; of always suspecting impos- 
 ture, and repeating the weary tale of the two or three 
 cases in which they have been imposed on in a pretty 
 long life. Would that I could unscrew their breaks, let 
 their wheels freely revolve, give them a tug with a power- 
 ful locomotive, and take them away from that to some- 
 thing far wiser and better. 
 
 To this end, let me record my experience, on two suc- 
 cessive days, of two little ragged boys. 
 
 At 8 o'clock p.m., at this season, it is quite dark. Id 
 that darkness did the writer issue from a very seedy little 
 railway station, on the outskirts of a large and horribly 
 ugly town. A black bag, of considerable weight, was 
 sustained in the writer's left hand. A small boy, with a 
 face that looked sharp and hungry in the gaslight, waiting 
 outside the gate, begged urgently to be allowed to carry 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 99 
 
 the bag j and receiving it, placed it on his head. Had it 
 been daylight the fear of Mrs Grundy might have pre- 
 vented me from walking by the boy's side and conversing 
 with him : but in the dark, and in a place where one 
 was unknown, such fear was needless. Eleven years old : 
 Name, Patrick. Father and mother living. Had one 
 sister. The people who get into cabs, and hire porters, 
 without ever thinking that the cabman and the porter are 
 human beings, with human ties, cares, and sorrows, would 
 be startled, if they talked to such, to find how like to 
 themselves these mortals are. Yes, Mr Justice Talfourd 
 was right : the thing that separates class from class, is 
 want of sympathy. Father, a labourer at the docks : 
 drank all he made. The little boy was trying to do 
 something for his mother. His father and mother never 
 went to church. He never went to school, but on the 
 Sunday evenings. Could not read the Bible. Stayed at 
 the railway station all day, for the chance of carrying 
 things. Got four and sixpence a week, often. What 
 was the largest sum you ever got for carrying one thing ? 
 Ninepence : even a shilling. Poor little fellow : the 
 question was too trying : I saw the sharp look as he 
 named the latter great sum. It is not fair to subject the 
 moral principle of human beings to a breaking strain. 
 Probably I ought to have cross-examined him with seve- 
 rity as to the occasions on which he received the amount 
 named. But I resolved rather to indulge myself in the 
 sight of a hungry and dirty face, looking happy. So I 
 said, My little man, I want to give you more than you 
 
 LofC. 
 
ioo Roadside Stations ; with some 
 
 ever got before for carrying a bag : here is eighteenpence ! 
 Lively was the child's satisfaction. But that is not the 
 point. If you train yourself just to think that ragged 
 boys feel very much as you yourself do, you will discover 
 that there is something infinitely touching and heart- 
 moving in the view of the little figure, with torn trousers, 
 stoutly walking on before you over the muddy streets 
 with a leather bag on its head. When you come in actual 
 contact with the poor, and see them and talk with them, 
 it is a very different thing from any description, no matter 
 by whom written. 
 
 But the most remarkable little boy I have seen for a 
 long time, I met the next day. As a small party of 
 travellers sat on the deck of a nearly empty steamer, a 
 ragged boy appeared, bearing one of those wooden boxes 
 in which figs are sold. But the figs were gone, and in 
 the box there were two brushes : with these he offered 
 to brush human boots. It was no later than 8.30 a.m., 
 and no one's boots needed brushing. So his aid was 
 declined. But lingering, with a disappointed face, he 
 said, "You might encourage trade." The boy was just 
 ten years old. This was not a joke : it was said with a 
 solemn and anxious countenance. Somebody sought for 
 some pence to give him. u No," he said, " I don't like 
 to take money for doing nothing." Who could resist 
 that? The one man of the company set his foot upon 
 the old fig-box : and one foot was speedily made re- 
 splendent. "Very well indeed," were his words: "thank 
 you." To which the little man earnestly said, as he 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 101 
 
 rubbed away at the other foot, "It's me that should 
 thank you, for giving me the job." Then, being inter- 
 rogated what he got for cleaning a pair of boots, he said, 
 sometimes a penny, sometimes twopence. Of course he 
 got a good deal more : and went and showed his coin 
 with pride to a gentleman near, who had said a kind 
 word to him. 
 
 The most Medusan cynic that ever could have benefited 
 this world through quitting it by being hanged, does not 
 see more plainly than I do how supremely little all this 
 is to tell. But how diiferent it is to look at the actual 
 human face, and to come to know even a. little about any 
 human being ! And knowing the poor as the writer has 
 learned to know them, you will feel that there is some- 
 thing unutterably revolting in the use of those deprecia- 
 tory terms which thoughtless people often employ to 
 signify their less fortunate creatures. Such a term as 
 the canaille is loathsome for a weightier reason than that 
 it is not an English word. And when you come to know 
 something of the anxieties, sorrows, and cares of the poor, 
 of their sad calculations as to the disposal of their scanty 
 means, of their wonderful shifts in the matter of food and 
 clothing, of what sickness is to them, — you will under- 
 stand better the force of that most Christian sentiment of 
 a heathen dramatist, who thought that forasmuch as he 
 was a man, he had something to do with what concerns 
 any human being. 
 
 There is a respect, in which I have sorrowfully seen a 
 
102 Roadside Stations ; with some 
 
 man move on from what both he and I had judged his 
 terminus, to a further station. There is a station which 
 when you reach it, you will naturally conclude to be a 
 terminus, but which may prove to be no more than a 
 roadside station. It is that of good sense. I mean that 
 mood of mind and heart, the result of experience and of 
 advancing time, on reaching which a man says to himself, 
 Well I have lost a good many things as I have come along, 
 and have been battered about both head and heart : but I 
 have got this in exchange for all, that at least I shall not 
 make a terrific fool of myself any more : I have drawn 
 up, finally, in the sober terminus of reasonable expecta- 
 tions, rational purposes, and sound sense. And doubtless, 
 in many cases, this station proves to be a terminus : the 
 man who has entered it does not pass through it into 
 onward tracts of flighty folly. Truth and soberness, once 
 reached, are oftentimes a possession for ever. But not 
 always. Probably you never saw anyone exhibiting him- 
 self as a more egregious ass, than one who had passed 
 through sobering trials which had indeed sobered him for 
 a while, but whose impression had died away. You 
 thought of Don Quixote's astonishment when the pacific 
 Rosinante began to kick up his heels : surely all that had 
 been taken out of the creature long ago ! A man with a 
 bald head and gray hair, whirling about in a waltz with 
 a fat middle-aged woman with a good many false teeth, 
 presents a surprising and humiliating appearance. A man 
 exhibiting a frantic exhilaration in the prospect of his third 
 marriage, is a lamentable object of contemplation. 
 
Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 103 
 
 I fancied that I had a great deal more to say. But 
 now, on consideration, I cannot think of anything. This 
 point in my treatise, which I had deemed no more than 
 a roadside station, has suddenly taken to itself the charac- 
 ter of the terminus ad quern I 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN SERMONS FROM ARCHIEPISCOPAL 
 CHURCHES* 
 
 IF you chose to come with me, on this sunshiny day 
 midway in November, along this path that runs by 
 the verge of this bright-blue sea, I could take you to as 
 solemn a burying-place as you are likely to find. That 
 not very melodious bell that just at this minute fills the 
 air, is summoning to work the students of a College 
 which forms part of a certain ancient and famous Univer- 
 sity. On your right hand, over a lofty wall, you may 
 discern buildings of unpretending Gothic : that is the 
 College. And on your left hand, at the base of a cliff of 
 no great height, spreads the sea. When we have pro- 
 ceeded but a few steps, we shall behold, on our left, the 
 ruins of a considerable castle, whose seaward walls rise 
 
 * I. Lectures and Sermons. By the Rev. John Park, D.D., 
 Minister of the First Charge, St Andrews. Edinburgh and 
 London: Blackwoods. 1865. 
 
 2. Sermons and Expositions. By the late John Robertson, D.D., 
 Glasgow Cathedral. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. J. 
 G. Young, Minister of Monifieth. London: Strahan. 1865. 
 
Presbyterian Sermons. 105 
 
 sheer from the water. Castle and palace in one, that 
 abode was the home of the Cardinal Archbishop, the Pri- 
 mate of the land. Once there was a day, when many soft 
 and comfortable cushions were carried up to the roof of 
 that tower, and upon these the Cardinal reclined in much 
 ease and state, while there, a little to the east, the faggots 
 were lighted which consumed a true and single-hearted 
 Martyr. And a day followed, not long after, whereon, 
 just after breakfast, the slain body of the Cardinal was 
 hung by one leg from that window, to the end that all 
 might be assured that his energetic life was fairly ended. 
 Let us pass on, thankful that the days of burning theo- 
 logians who think differently from ourselves are gone. 
 The people, in this age, who would burn their opponents 
 if they could, are confined to misrepresenting their views, 
 Writing malignant letters about them in the newspapers 
 (anonymously), and generally telling lies to their preju- 
 dice. Imperfectly, indeed, are some, who we trust are 
 really good men, delivered from envy, hatred, and malice, 
 and all uncharitableness. 
 
 But we forget them, entering this grand churchyard. 
 Here, on the shore, and within hearing of the waves, the 
 departed generations of the city have gathered for a 
 thousand years. Rising from the green turf you may 
 discern the ruins of a noble cathedral : there are the sky- 
 framing windows, the bases of many shafts, a western 
 turret, and the eastern gable. Hard by, also within the 
 churchyard, stands the lofty tower of a still older church, 
 with a little bit of what was its choir : if you desire to do 
 
106 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 a kind thing, you will believe that it has stood here for 
 fifteen centuries. What most strikes a stranger, walking 
 about and looking at the gravestones,, is the multitude of 
 professors, principals, and clergymen, that are buried 
 here. Many, indeed, there are that have passed from the 
 quiet walks, the quaint streets, the academic halls, of the 
 ancient city, to its burying-place. And among those 
 buried here, there are none worthier than two who were 
 laid here since 1865 began : one in January, the other in 
 April : the authors of these two volumes of posthumous 
 sermons. There are various points of resemblance be- 
 tween the positions of these distinguished and most amiable 
 men. Each was the Presbyterian incumbent of a cathe- 
 dral and archiepiscopal city. In the old days, the Church 
 in Scotland had two archbishops : the Archbishop of St 
 Andrews was primate, his companion dignitary was tne 
 Archbishop of Glasgow. The National Church of Scot- 
 land now knows no archbishops or bishops. But old 
 names cling to old things and places : the noble church 
 at Glasgow, which has now no cathedra, yet keeps its 
 ancient name of cathedral ; and in it the services were 
 conducted by Dr Robertson. There, when the bells 
 ceased on a Sunday, no surpliced train came in procession 
 to the stalls of the choir : a single minister, in robes of 
 sober black, issued from the chapter-house, and ascended 
 the pulpit, and began the simple service of the Scotch 
 Church. Yet, though the devout Anglican might miss 
 his own magnificent choral worship, I think that if he 
 had heard Dr Robertson preach, he would have been 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 107 
 
 assured that very few among the dignitaries of the great 
 Establishment south of the Tweed were worthy of being 
 placed second or third to him. As for the ancient metro- 
 politan city, its cathedral is in ruins. There, amid the 
 surrounding expanse of green graves, pervaded by the 
 never-failing murmur of the sea, those desolate remains 
 testify to the power of a too eloquent sermon preached 
 by John Knox. But the ancient parish church of the 
 Holy Trinity was ranked as pro-cathedral when episco- 
 pacy was restored for a while under the Stuarts : a grand 
 monument to Archbishop Sharpe holds a conspicuous 
 place in it ; and in that vast building Dr Park preached 
 for eleven years. Both died at St Andrews : Dr Robert- 
 son after lingering illness, which had for several months 
 laid him aside from duty, at the age of forty-one 5 Dr 
 Park, in a moment, at the age of sixty-two. And here, 
 not far apart, they are buried. 
 
 Would you wish to know something, High-Church 
 Anglican reader, of the kind of instruction preached by 
 two of the most eminent of Presbyterian ministers, in 
 these churches where you might probably say they had 
 no right to be ? Probably you are aware (if you are a 
 decently-informed human being) that the average standard 
 of preaching is considerably higher in Scotland than in 
 England : as indeed ought to be the case in a church 
 whose clergy are educated to write sermons, and whose 
 worship makes instruction at least as prominent as devo- 
 tion. But in these two volumes, you doubtless have 
 specimens of Scotch preaching at its very best. Let me 
 
108 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 counsel you to read them. And suffer a few words 4 by 
 way of introduction to them, from one who does not 
 pretend to look at either book with the unbiassed estimate 
 of a stranger. 
 
 Let the metropolitan city and its minister come first. 
 
 Just once did I hear Dr Park preach. It was fifteen 
 years ago, when a student at college, that chancing to 
 arrive at the pretty town of Dumfries on a Fast-day 
 (which in Scotland means a week-day on which there is 
 service at church, but on which at home, especially in the 
 houses of the clergy, there is a better dinner than usual), 
 I was told, as an inducement to go to church, that the 
 great advantage that afternoon awaited the congregation 
 of the parish church of St Michael, of hearing Mr Park, 
 minister of Glencairn. I remember well the first look of 
 the preacher, entering the church. It was certainly dis- 
 appointing. Very dark, with a sad and downcast aspect, 
 he did not at first look the man he was. But coming to 
 know the face better, you could see in it great power, 
 thoughtfulness, and kindliness. The sermon he preached 
 is not in the published volume, which is matter for regret. 
 It was a very fine one : the text was, He shall be a priest 
 upon his throne. I recall the church, as it looked that 
 afternoon : the overwhelming energy of the preacher, the 
 thorough heart with which he threw himself into what 
 he said, the beautiful little bits of life-like description, the 
 occasional touches of pathos : the breathless silence and 
 attention in which the large congregation bent forward, 
 and gazed and heard. No doubt, it was one of Dr Park's 
 
from A rchiepiscopal Churches. 1 09 
 
 very best appearances : not every day could any preacher 
 be sure of getting so thoroughly into the spirit of his dis- 
 course, and warming up to that true emotion which can- 
 not be counterfeited. But I thought then, and think yet, 
 that I never was more impressed by any preacher. And 
 when, early in 1854, he was removed from the charming 
 but retired valley in Dumfriesshire to the academic shades 
 of St Andrews, it was matter of general congratulation 
 that he had found a charge worthy of his great powers. 
 
 But Dr Park was much more than a great preacher. 
 He was one of the most accomplished men in Scotland. 
 Only the engrossing duties of the sacred profession hin- 
 dered his rising to fame as a poet, a painter, and a musician. 
 His musical faculty was exquisite. His enjoyment ot 
 high-class music was intense. He has left behind him 
 much music of his own composition, some of which, it is 
 to be hoped, will be published. And though, for obvious 
 reasons, he would not in ordinary society touch the instru- 
 ment, the few friends who have heard his inimitable 
 performance on the pianoforte, can testify that he had it 
 in him to become one of the first of practical musicians. 
 Only once the writer heard him, ten years ago. Beet- 
 hoven was at that time his favourite composer : and he 
 played much of his music with perfect skill and great 
 gusto. Landscape-painting he had much enjoyment in : 
 I remember his saying that he thought the happiest pos- 
 sible life was that of a landscape-painter. He spoke of 
 the more thorough appreciation of natural beauty which 
 such a one has, through his eye being trained to remark 
 
no Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 all the details of scenery. Two or three charming songs 
 are all that has been published of Dr Park's poetical vein ; 
 but these, and many passages scattered through his ser- 
 mons, show that in him the poet had been born, though 
 the force of circumstances hindered his development. 
 
 Here is his volume of Lectures and Sermons. Dr Park, 
 I believe, had published nothing during his life ; and 
 this book was elicited by the strong desire expressed 
 by many, after his sudden death, that some little portion 
 of the material to which they had listened might be 
 preserved and perpetuated. In most cases, such dis- 
 courses would be placed at a disadvantage through not 
 being prepared for the press by their author. But Dr 
 Park wrote with such elaborate care, that probably he 
 would not have desired to alter a word of these composi- 
 tions. And the volume has had the advantage of being 
 edited by Dr Tulloch, the accomplished and eloquent 
 Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews. 
 
 What are the characteristics that strike one, now we 
 can deliberately read the sermons ? Voice and manner, 
 with all their power, are gone : and doubtless the sermons 
 of every great preacher lose very much in losing these. 
 Losing these, many sermons lose just what vivified them. 
 
 Well, there is a certain massive force of mind, that 
 impresses one everywhere in this book. Here and there, 
 you find the scruples of well-meaning weak people 
 brushed aside with a certain impatient contempt. As for 
 instance, speaking of the use of the Lord's Prayer : 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 1 1 
 
 I make these remarks partly because some of us may have heard 
 the use of this prayer objected to on the pretence that the name of 
 Christ Himself is not in it. But surely of all fastidious scruples 
 about not having the mere name of Christ in everything, that is one 
 of the least defensible. Why, my friends, it was Christ Himself who 
 authorised us to use this prayer : and therefore we cannot use it in- 
 telligently at all but in His name, as by His authority. 
 
 The writer, who had been accustomed to regard the 
 objection thus indicated to the use of the Lord's Prayer as 
 an extraordinary instance of vulgar wrong-headedness, 
 learned to think differently of it on finding that it was 
 esteemed as of force by Archbishop Whately. But a 
 wonderfully clever man may doubtless sometimes think 
 wrong. 
 
 Something analogous maybe found at p. 185, speaking 
 of the laws of nature : and at p. 189, speaking of Fatalism. 
 At p. 324 there is a sly hit at a certain great Church : 
 
 One commentator says : It means that you should make friends 
 in the Church by paying them money for admission to Christian 
 privileges, which they call everlasting habitations ; and you may 
 readily guess where that commentator comes from. 
 
 Then there are occasional little bits of exquisitely 
 beautiful and correct description. Take this as a speci- 
 men : 
 
 "Also by watering" (that is, by the change of its vapour into 
 water) "He wearieth the thick cloud." Again how beautiful! 
 You must have often marked that, my friends. You have seen the 
 thick black cloud, hanging almost like a solid wall in the sky: and 
 yet, as the still, vapoury-looking streams of rain fell from it, it grew 
 wearied as it were, and was gradually worn out from the face of the 
 heavens. 
 
 And then again, "He scattereth his bright cloud." You have 
 
112 
 
 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 seen that, too, when after heavy rain, on some warm summer day 
 especially, the weather clears again, and bright fleecy clouds are 
 floating in the deep-blue sky, but are soon broken up into shining 
 fragments, and little films, and gold and silver, which at length 
 gradually disappear like flakes of flame dissolving in the air around 
 them. 
 
 Touches of tenderness here and there. Take this : 
 
 There is a rest for both the body and the soul, which may be well 
 compared to sleep — gentle, reviving, and refreshing sleep ; pain and 
 care and anxiety are over, for both, for ever. The aching head shall 
 never more be vainly laid on a restless pillow. The anxious mind 
 shall never more count the hours as they strike, and wish perhaps 
 that death itself would come at last to end the weary waking. The 
 gentle time of God's own peace hath closed over the stormy night, 
 and soul and frame, although in different ways, partake the welcome 
 blessing. 
 
 You see the well-read man at every turn ; and there 
 are many instances of that liberality which comes of know- 
 ledge and thought. I have a friend, a very clever friend, 
 well known to many delighted readers, who said (in 
 print) that Heaven, according to the Calvinistic theology, 
 would be as empty as Edinburgh in September. And 
 anything emptier, truly, can hardly be. I wish Shirley 
 would read pp. 266-7. I & ye DUt tne ^ ast sentence: 
 
 Yea, we hope to meet with there, not merely many of those from 
 whom we differ in opinion here, but with many a one for whom at 
 present we have far stronger fears : we hope to meet with many a 
 poor prodigal and many an erring sister there, whom in our hard- 
 heartedness, or in our despair, we had given over as lost for ever : 
 we believe that among the happiest of all heavenly meetings shall 
 such a meeting be. 
 
 Amen ! amen ! 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 113 
 
 Save in such bursts of kindliness and hopefulness, there 
 is no deviation from the ordinary Scotch orthodox theo- 
 logy, — which, let us be thankful, is now generally kindly 
 and hopeful. Dr Park seems to have had no peculiar 
 views. Yet the hearty recognition, at p. 189, of the great 
 Christian festival of Christmas would doubtless offend some 
 good people who think it right to do honour to the birth- 
 day of the Queen, but think it sinful to remember the. 
 birthday of the Redeemer. And the strong expression of 
 reverence for the material church at pp. 268-9, would 
 probably offend (I trust it will heartily) those Scotchmen 
 who walk into a place of worship with their hats stuck on 
 their wrong heads ; and who judge such a place suitable 
 for the drinking of tea, the eating of cookies, the making 
 of jocular speeches, and the applause of umbrellas com- 
 mingled with that of feet. 
 
 Let it be said here, that it is inexpressibly irritating and 
 mortifying, visiting Glasgow Cathedral, to witness a mul- 
 titude of boors walking about its grand interior with their 
 hats stuck on their heads. Nave, choir, Lady Chapel, are 
 pervaded by these unutterably offensive beings. Why do 
 not the Glasgow magistrates, who ought to be intelligent 
 men, try to enforce decency in their great church ? Some 
 months ago, the writer spent a spare hour in Glasgow, in 
 the Cathedral. Two human beings entered the choir, 
 each with his hat on his head. Only three were in that 
 place. So the writer, embracing his opportunity, ap- 
 proached the human beings, and said, in kindly tones, 
 " Will you be so very kind as to take off your hats ? You 
 
H4 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 don't know how painful it is to many people to see people 
 with their hats on in church." The beings confusedly 
 took off their hats, and moved a few yards off. There 
 they conversed together, and recovered heart. Then they 
 firmly stuck their hats on again, and regarded the writer 
 with looks of defiance. What could one do ? You can't 
 make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. You cannot make 
 a vulgar offensive cad conduct himself as a gentleman. 
 Yet it is comforting to think that, even in Scotland, a hat 
 on a head, in church, is an unmistakeable sign. It marks 
 either the ignorant blockhead, or the flippant vulgarian. 
 Happy for the two beings at Glasgow Cathedral that I 
 was not the Emperor of Russia, and that they were not 
 my subjects. For then, wisdom would have been added 
 to them by the subtraction of epidermis. 
 This is my last quotation : 
 
 Antiquarians, searching among the old tombs of the Etrurian 
 kings, have told us that, when they opened for the first time one of 
 these receptacles of royalty, they beheld with astonishment (through 
 the hole in the wall, and amidst the dimness of the sepulchre), the 
 figure of a monarch seated upright upon a throne, in magnificent 
 robes, and with a circlet of shining gold upon his head ; but only 
 for a moment, only for a moment ! For, whenever the light and 
 air entered, the mummy suddenly began to shake, and slowly 
 crumbled down in dust upon the ground, as if the thing were 
 ashamed that the light of heaven should behold in it so wretched 
 a mockeiy of long-departed greatness. 
 
 I do not quote the analogy traced. But is not that 
 vividly graphic ? 
 
 Now let us turn to that ablest, gentlest, simplest, 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 1 5 
 
 kindest of Scotch Churchmen, who served in one metro- 
 politan cathedral church, and who now rests under the 
 shadow of another. 
 
 I wish exceedingly that I could persuade all who shall 
 read this page to carefully read Dr Robertson's posthu- 
 mous volume of Sermons and Expositions. And most 
 earnestly I wish that in perusing the hearty and graceful 
 memoir by the accomplished incumbent of Monifieth, 
 each reader would understand that every word said in Dr 
 Robertson's praise is to be construed literally. In Scot- 
 land, you may not unfrequently find preachers of the 
 smallest possible merit, described in print as among "the 
 most eminent members of the Church." But when Mr 
 Young speaks of his friend, he says less than he might. 
 In some respects, Dr Robertson was unquestionably the 
 first of Scotch theologians. And heartily as Mr Young 
 sets forth his merit, you may see, all through the memoir, 
 a certain reserve, which testifies the writer's resolution 
 not to outrun the reader's sympathy, or incur the faintest 
 suspicion of extravagance. He has thoroughly succeeded. 
 Seldom will you find a more touching story of a hard 
 student's uneventful life. 
 
 There is a little Prefatory Note, written by one who 
 above all others is desirous that these discourses be justly 
 appreciated. Mrs Robertson says : 
 
 The sermons have been printed exactly as they were left by their 
 author, with the exception of a few inconsiderable verbal changes. 
 In reading and judging of them, it should be kept in remembrance 
 that none of them were written with a view to publication- that 
 
1 1 6 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 they were laid aside immediately after being preached, and never 
 revised, or altered in any way. 
 
 Then comes the memoir, extending to 74 pages. Then 
 some discourses written while incumbent of a country 
 parish in Forfarshire. Next, some written while incum- 
 bent of Glasgow, and preached at the Cathedral -, finally, 
 some Thoughts and Expositions designed to have been 
 wrought into a solid theological work. 
 
 John Robertson was born at Perth, in April 1824. 
 He was the only child of his mother, and she was soon 
 left a widow. Robertson came from the same humble 
 rank of society which has yielded many of the greatest 
 Scotchmen. He was a wonderfully precocious and indus- 
 trious boy, never joining in the sports of other children. 
 At school, he gained several friends, whose influence was 
 of value to him as he grew up. He soon became an 
 admirable classical scholar, and a first-rate mathematician, 
 while his acquaintance with English literature was great, 
 and his knowledge of French such that he read Moliere 
 as easily as his own tongue. Having acquired the reputa- 
 tion of a prodigy at Perth, he proceeded to the University 
 of St Andrews, where, in every department of study, 
 Robertson was easily first. Soon after his entering the 
 University, his mother died, and he was left with hardly 
 a relation in the world. His modesty was equal to his 
 merit, and disarmed all envy : the simple, cheerful, un- 
 pretending student, who carried off all attainable honours, 
 was universally beloved. Before taking orders, he had 
 laboured hard to form a good English style : and such 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 1 7 
 
 was his maturity of mind, that the crudeness and extra- 
 vagance which generally deform the earlier sermons of 
 those who ultimately prove the best preachers, never 
 appeared in him. A fact is stated as to Robertson's 
 appointment to his first living, which will seem strange to 
 English readers. The patronage of Mains and Strath- 
 martine belongs to the Crown. But when the people of 
 a Scotch parish, with something like unanimity, petition 
 the Crown in favour of anyone they please, the Crown 
 almost invariably presents to the living the man of their 
 choice. So when a vacancy occurred, the people of 
 Mains and Strathmartine appointed a committee (it may 
 be presumed) of their wisest men, and these desired to 
 hear Mr Robertson preach. 
 
 After making careful inquiries, the committee of the congregation 
 of Mains requested Mr Robertson to preach before them ; and ac- 
 cordingly he preached by arrangement, forenoon and afternoon, in 
 the parish church of Liff, where the committee were present to hear 
 him. The forenoon sermon delighted the committee. During the 
 interval, one of the members of the congregation at Liff, who knew 
 Mr Robertson, congratulated him, telling him the impression he 
 had produced, and that the committee were particularly pleased 
 that he had used no paper. "Well," he said, " I am so glad you 
 have mentioned this, for I am determined that I will accept no 
 parish with an understanding that I am to use no paper. I am 
 quite prepared to repeat the afternoon discourse ; but I shall now 
 read it, that the deputation may not be misled in any way. " It 
 was a characteristic instance of honesty and integrity. Fortunately 
 for themselves, and the parish they represented, the deputation from 
 the Mains liked the afternoon sermon also, though it was read ; and 
 Mr Robertson was forthwith recommended to the Home Secretary 
 as the choice of the parishioners of Mains. 
 
 For the enlightenment of the Saxon reader, Mr Young 
 
1 1 8 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 should have explained what the rustic Scotchman means 
 by using paper : though the sense may be gathered on 
 a diligent perusal of the passage. To use paper, means to 
 take your manuscript sermon with you to the pulpit and 
 read it to the congregation. To use no paper, means that 
 either you preach extempore, trusting to the inspiration 
 of the moment for the words in which to express what 
 you have previously thought out 5 or that you write your 
 sermon and commit it laboriously to memory, and then 
 go and repeat it as though it were spoken extempore. In 
 former days, the prejudice against the paper was extreme, 
 especially in the West of Scotland ; and almost all clergy- 
 men repeated their sermons from memory. Growing 
 intelligence has removed or abated that prejudice: and 
 most of the Scotch clergy now use the paper freely. 
 
 Robertson was very popular in his country parish. The 
 Scotch peasantry are commonly so well educated, that 
 most of them can in some degree appreciate good preach- 
 ing : and the frank, kindly manner of the new minister 
 gained the hearts of his parishioners. Like most of the 
 wisest, best, and most efficient ministers of the Scotch 
 Church, he was a silent member of the Church Courts : 
 
 He seldom spoke more than a few words in the Assembly, and 
 in church courts at all times he preferred to leave the speaking to 
 others. 
 
 This is how he prepared his sermons. Not that it will 
 be of the least use as a rule for other preachers. For 
 each man's mind is a machine with its own peculiar 
 likings, and must be worked in the way that suits itself: 
 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 119 
 
 His ordinary method of preparing for the pulpit was, after select- 
 ing a text, to think over it during the greater part of the week, 
 never losing sight of it when going about his ordinary parochial 
 work, or even when engaged in conversation the most remote from 
 the train of thought he was pursuing. Then, when the subject was 
 fully arranged in his mind, he sat down to write, very often not 
 until Saturday morning. There was often a difficulty with the first 
 few sentences, which he would arrange and re-arrange many times; 
 but when once fairly commenced, he wrote with great ease and 
 rapidity, seldom altering a word ; and it was his custom not to stop, 
 if possible, until he had finished his discourse, as he was accustomed 
 to say that those sermons were best which he had completed at a 
 sitting. 
 
 And this is how he preached : 
 
 He had few of those gifts and graces of oratory which make a 
 powerful though transient impression on the multitude. He used 
 very few gestures, and those he did employ were neither energetic 
 nor graceful. He read with considerable closeness ; and, above all, 
 his voice, though good, was neither sonorous nor powerful. And 
 yet, wherever he went, particularly when he preached to an intel- 
 lectual and cultivated audience, he produced an impression not to 
 be forgotten, which was confirmed and strengthened the more fre- 
 quently he was heard. 
 
 He was fond of rural pursuits, and took great delight 
 in his garden and his flowers. Repeated offers of further 
 preferment failed to withdraw him from his beloved 
 country parish. But at length, in 1858, he accepted the 
 important charge of First Minister of Glasgow : and at 
 the age of thirty-four, received from the University of 
 St Andrews the degree of D.D. His duty, besides the 
 pastoral care of a large parish, was to preach twice each 
 Sunday at the Cathedral Church, whose beauty was a 
 never-failing delight to him. 
 
120 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 One unfailing source of admiration and delight to Dr Robertson 
 was the venerable and beautiful Cathedral church. He had always 
 an eye for architectural beauty and grandeur, and felt himself at 
 once elevated and solemnised by the contemplation of it. He was 
 proud of the noble structure which he was privileged to call his 
 own church, and witnessed during his ministry, with the most lively 
 interest, its gradual restoration. He saw it almost every week grow- 
 ing in beauty, as one magnificent stained glass window after another 
 was inaugurated, till at last the work was completed, and he found 
 himself surrounded by a "dim religious light;'' and though he was 
 by no means so easily reached through the ear as through the eye 
 he was not insensible to the singular charm of the singing in the 
 Cathedral, where the sound is so refined by the lofty roof and 
 towering pillars, and where the harmonies seem to gain some 
 strange hidden power to arrest and satisfy the listening ear. 
 
 But Dr Robertson's day of duty was to be brief. Re- 
 peated attacks of heart-disease laid him aside from much 
 of his beloved work; and in the autumn of 1864, .in the 
 hope that a lengthened period of rest might restore him 
 to health and duty, he went to St Andrews, to the house 
 of his father-in-law, Dr Cook, Professor of Church His- 
 tory in St Mary's College. But the restoration was not 
 to be. And on January 9, 1865, he died, not having 
 reached the age of forty-one. The grief of those among 
 whom he laboured, and of all who heard him, was true 
 and deep, and he did not leave a single enemy. 
 
 The funeral day was the 14th of January 1865, the last day of the 
 second week of the new year. It was one of those sombre gloomy 
 days so common in our climate, and there was something in the 
 feelings of those who assembled to pay the last tribute of respect to 
 the departed in harmony with the aspect of nature. Many had 
 come from great distances to be present — from Glasgow, from 
 Dundee, from Perth. In St Andrews, the professors of both col- 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 121 
 
 leges in their robes, and the students in their gowns, joined the 
 funeral procession, thus distinguishing and honouring the memory 
 of one of the most gifted and able students of their ancient Uni- 
 versity. Along the streets leading to the place of interment the 
 shops were closed, and many of the townspeople were to be seen 
 among the mourners. Around the grave, at the south-east corner 
 of the burying-ground, to lower his honoured remains into their last 
 resting-place, there met a group that suggested many touching 
 memories ; his relatives by marriage were there, four of his elders 
 from Glasgow and the Mains, his old teacher, a fellow-student, and 
 one distant blood relation, the only one he had ; but he had gone 
 to his heavenly Father's house, to join that great, loving, united 
 family of whom our blessed Lord has said, "Whosoever shall do 
 the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my 
 mother. " And so he was laid to his rest, not within the precincts 
 of his own noble church, amidst the din and bustle of that great 
 city where he had last held the ministerial office, but within the 
 solemn shadows of what had once been a mightier and more re- 
 nowned cathedral, with nothing now to disturb its stillness but the 
 murmur of the great ocean that rolls beneath. 
 
 Dr Robertson was a much younger man than Dr Park 5 
 and a much more advanced theologian. And while Dr 
 Park had doubtless done the best he was to do, those who 
 mourned Robertson felt that no one could tell how much 
 promise of further excellence was cut short by his death. 
 His removal was a heavy blow, not merely to those 
 nearly connected with him, but to all interested in theo- 
 logical thought in Scotland. I have heard, him preach 
 several times. He was calm, dignified, wonderfully pithy 
 and forcible and clear. You felt that not a word in his 
 discourse could be altered but for the worse. Manly 
 strong sense, and perfect taste in the choice of language, 
 were what struck one. And that slow circulation, which 
 appeared latterly in a pulse of twenty-five, had doubtless 
 
122 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 something to do with his remarkable composure in preach- 
 ing. Once I was in my own vestry before service, with 
 Robertson, who was to preach. I remarked how calm 
 he seemed, and contrasted his coolness with the extreme 
 nervousness of a yet more distinguished preacher, who 
 had taken the same duty in the same church a few days 
 before. " O," said he, with a smile, " I don't know 
 what to feel nervous means ; but that is because I am 
 crass — Boeotian ! " The simple beauty of his prayers was 
 remarkable. Each minister of the Scotch Church has to 
 prepare these for himself ; and it is frankly to be admitted 
 that occasionally they may be found very bad. Robert- 
 son's were evidently, in great measure, very carefully 
 composed. His opinion was very decidedly in favour of 
 a partial liturgy. Here are his own words : 
 
 It would be a great pity and a great loss were the liberty of free 
 prayer to be withdrawn : but I have stated from this pulpit more 
 fully than I can do now, that, in my judgment, the reasons in favour 
 of a partial liturgy are quite unanswerable. It seems an evil, cer- 
 tainly, that, in respect of what is so solemn and important as the 
 expression of their feelings and desires before God, a congregation 
 should be entirely at the mercy of a man who may be narrow- 
 minded or unsympathising, or deficient in sense or taste, or per- 
 haps, however generally well fitted for the duty, not at the time in 
 a frame of mind for happy utterance. Very beautiful devotional 
 expressions may sometimes indeed flow unpremeditated from the 
 heart ; but it can hardly be denied that, as a rule, our public 
 prayers, in order to be really good — that is to say, connected, well 
 expressed and solemn, as well as suitable to the wants of an 
 assembled body of men — would require to be at least as carefully 
 prepared as the sermons. It seems hard to understand why it 
 should be thought more necessary to study carefully beforehand the 
 words we are to address to our fellow-creatures than those we are to 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 123 
 
 address to our Maker. And I may add, that if this anxious pre- 
 paration is requisite, and that, too, in a kind of composition which 
 all men of taste and sensibility find very difficult, two sermons a 
 week, and four or six prayers, are more than any ordinary man can 
 continue to produce. 
 
 Mr Young gives no account of Dr Robertson's appear- 
 ance. He had a very pleasant face : large and extremely 
 animated eyes : good features, and a dark complexion. 
 Nothing could be more natural and unaffected than his 
 entire address : nothing more genial and kind. He kept 
 up a thorough acquaintance with all kinds of literature. 
 Doubtless religion had much to do with his unruffled 
 amiability and goodness j but there was a noble founda- 
 tion to build on, in a nature from which all bitter and 
 malignant feeling seemed to have been entirely excluded 
 from the beginning. Let me sum up what I have to 
 record of him, by saying what (unlike a certain con- 
 spicuous Anglican clergyman) he never would have said 
 of himself, that he was a great and good man. Read his 
 volume carefully, and you will think so too. 
 
 You may likewise read another volume called Pastoral 
 Counsels, published by him a very little while before he 
 died. Unlike ordinary sermons, you will iind Dr Robert- 
 son's remarkably readable. He certainly wrote as though 
 remembering Sydney Smith's great principle, that every 
 style is good except the tiresome. Dr Robertson is never 
 tiresome. He leads one through tracts of thought so 
 difficult, that in other hands they would have been re- 
 pulsive : yet interest never flags. And if you read a dis- 
 course on Sunday, in the Pastoral Counsels, another on 
 
124 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 Places and Forms of Worship, another on Martha and 
 Mary, or Religious Diversities, and another on Progress, 
 you will find specimens of the most advanced religious 
 thought now current in Scotland. 
 
 It is difficult to select extracts from Dr Robertson's 
 sermons. They are so evenly good, and their merit lies 
 so much in the sustained elevation of each as a whole. 
 Yet let us take a few lines from a sermon, full of pathetic 
 beauty, on Jairus' Daughter. 
 
 But his growing trust receives a terrible blow. While the Lord 
 is still conversing with the woman, tidings arrive. " There came 
 from the ruler's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead, 
 why troublest thou the Master any further?" The great change 
 had taken place. She had entered that unknown world, from 
 within whose mysterious portals no human tears nor human prayers 
 can bring back a friend. What an awful event is death ! How 
 strange and solemn the alteration it produces ! There may be 
 little outward difference to distinguish the last moment of sinking 
 life, from the first moment after the soul has departed. Yet what 
 a real, what a mighty change ! Last moment there was a living 
 spirit here, this moment there is nothing but unprofitable clay ; 
 more beautiful, perhaps, than it was before, beautiful in its marble 
 paleness and statue-like repose, but beautiful with a beauty no 
 longer of this world, a sad and touching beauty that moves to tears. 
 Men feel that they are in a presence in which it behoves them to 
 tread softly, and speak in whispers. 
 
 Mature and admirable as Dr Robertson's early sermons 
 are, there is no doubt that his mind had grown, when he 
 wrote those preached at Glasgow Cathedral. Or if some 
 may object to its being said that the manifest change in 
 some of his theological views is an improvement, as growth 
 is, it may at least be said that the whole man had moved 
 
from Archiepiscopal Chtirches. 125 
 
 to another position. You see how the spirit of the age 
 had affected one of the sharpest observers of the progress 
 of human thought. There is a sermon on False Views of 
 the Nature of God, in which there are many passages 
 setting forth views identical with those in a famous para- 
 graph of Mr John Stuart Mill. 
 
 If you attempt to answer, or rather to silence, these questions by 
 the reply, that righteousness, goodness, and mercy, as they exist in 
 God, or rather as they are said to exist in God, are something 
 wholly different, not only in degree, but in kind, from righteous- 
 ness, goodness, and mercy as they exist in man, then, indeed, you 
 may so far gain your object, but it is at a terrible cost ; you may 
 silence the sceptic, but it is by an argument which would put an 
 end not only to scepticism, but to faith, — which would put an end 
 to all theology, whether natural or revealed, to all possibility of 
 any knowledge of God. 
 
 You may tell me that though God is often spoken of in common 
 language as having hands and eyes and other bodily parts, He has 
 not such bodily parts really, but that the language is a mere accom- 
 modation to our human way of speaking. You may tell me this, 
 and this I can understand, without its being implied, that we have, 
 and can have, no real knowledge of God. You may go higher ; — 
 you may tell me that when we speak of the Divine understanding 
 there is much in this language too that is mere accommodation to 
 our human weakness : and that God has a cognition of His works, 
 which must be so far different in kind from that which is open to 
 the human intellect, I can imagine also, and yet that God may be 
 known in a real sense. But if you tell me that mercy and goodness, 
 and the other moral attributes of the Most High, are wholly and 
 essentially different from those in man which are known by the same 
 names, then I cannot see how religion is to be preserved, — how 
 God can be known at all, — how I can even be sure that there is a 
 God, — above all, how I can possibly be in fellowship with Him — 
 how my spirit can have true communion with His Spirit, — how I 
 can be in any living relation to Him as a spiritual being. 
 
 From a noble sermon on " That was the true light 
 
126 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," 
 these extracts are taken : 
 
 In the first place, I do not think that as Christians we are at all 
 required either to ignore or to undervalue the good there may lie 
 beyond the pale of our own faith. We are not bound to say that 
 what are apparently good actions are evil, and must be so, when 
 done by heathens or unbelievers ;' that what seems to be noble is 
 really nothing but splendid sin ; and what seems to be just and 
 true, only the mask which Satan puts on to disguise himself when 
 he would pass for an angel of light. On the contrary, we are at 
 liberty to hold, I may say we are required to hold, the very oppo- 
 site. Wherever there is anything that is apparently good and noble 
 thought or felt or done by man, we are not to try to make out that 
 it is not good and noble at all, but has only the delusive appear- 
 ance of being so ; we are to admit that it is what it looks ; we are 
 to rejoice in the light that shineth even in dark places ; we are to 
 trace it to its origin in the Sun of righteousness ; we are to say with 
 grateful hearts, " This, though they know it not ; this, though they 
 may deny it ; this is of Christ our Lord ; by this He is testifying for 
 Himself; by this He is claiming these people as His own ; by this 
 He is declaring Himself the Lord and Head of them, as of all other 
 human beings ; this good is of Him, and witnesses for Him ; and 
 we are to be thankful for it, and give Him glory." 
 
 The Anglican reader may contrast this teaching with 
 that set forth in the thirteenth of the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 which treats of Works before Justification ; and the Scotch 
 reader may consider in what sense it is to be reconciled 
 with the seventh section in Chap. XVI. of The Confession 
 of Faith, which speaks of Works done hy Unregenerate 
 Men. The eloquent author proceeds : 
 
 It seems to some to be detracting from the honour due to Christ 
 when we venture to hold the liberal and hopeful views to which I 
 have referred. When one ventures to think that there may be some 
 good even beyond the pale of the Christian Church, — that perhaps 
 
 
from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 27 
 
 not all the millions of the heathen are lost, — that perhaps those of 
 them who live humbly and earnestly according to the light they 
 have may arrive at brighter light hereafter, and may join in the 
 anthem which shall be raised by that great company which no man 
 can number, gathered from all nations and kindreds and tribes and 
 tongues, to Him of whom an apostle said, " Of a truth I perceive 
 that God is no respecter of persons, but -in every nation he that 
 feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him ; " 
 when one ventures to hold such ideas, it seems to some that he is 
 derogating from Christ's glory. It seems to me the very contrary 
 is nearer the truth by far. Surely it is to exalt the Saviour greatly 
 when one believes, with St John, that there is a light which is more 
 extensive than Christendom ; and that this light, wherever it shines, 
 is of Christ. I cannot see that it is possible to glorify Christ more 
 than by claiming for Him that He is the author of all the good that 
 is anywhere in the world. 
 
 A passage on The Ministry of Reconciliation : 
 
 Reconciling the world. Mark the liberality of the expression. 
 Mark its comprehensiveness. Reconciling the world. As I said 
 before, the apostle did not perplex himself practically in the vain 
 attempt to arrive at definite, logically-bounded conceptions on those 
 deep things of God, touching election and the like, on which much 
 unprofitable discussion has often been bestowed, and which pro- 
 bably in this world will never be unravelled. His view was that 
 God's object and desire was to reconcile the world, Jew and Gentile 
 — all men everywhere. People should be diffident in their judg- 
 ments on such high matters as the decrees of the Almighty, and 
 should remember the great possibility of error, the absolute impos- 
 sibility of certain knowledge, in regard to them. But people need 
 not be diffident in holding that all men are invited to become par- 
 takers in the benefits of redemption. Our faculties go far enough 
 to enable us to see quite clearly that that is what the Scriptures say 
 in the most distinct terms, and the principle they always go upon 
 even when it is not expressed. " God will have all men to be 
 saved." So it is written, and the same thing is written in other 
 words in a hundred other passages. And I do not believe that it 
 is written because we do not know who the elect are, or, in other 
 
128 Presbyterian Sermons 
 
 words, who those are whom God will have to be saved ; but I 
 believe it is written because it is the simple truth, and I believe 
 therefore I am to preach Christ to you freely, because Christ is 
 free; — to you all, because it is the honest fact that He is offered to 
 you all, and not for the reason that no one can tell to whom. 
 
 There are two discourses on The Indwelling Christ, 
 which treat a matter which would have been mystical in 
 other hands ; but which Dr Robertson has made so clear, 
 that whether you agree with him or not, you will cer- 
 tainly understand him. The Thoughts and Erpositions, 
 which form the second part of the volume, are full of 
 original and ingenious thinking. But there is not space 
 to give examples. Here is the last paragraph of a little 
 paper on Peace : 
 
 As I write, the evening darkens down, and I am forced to come 
 to a conclusion. O Thou, who sendest night and peace upon the 
 world, send peace, I pray Thee, into my heart, and the hearts of 
 all I love ; but not the peace which cometh with darkness — that 
 rather which cometh with the knowledge of Thyself, and faith in 
 thy beloved Son, to whom, with Thee and the blessed Spirit, be 
 honour, and praise, and glory, for ever. Amen. 
 
 May I be permitted, closing this notice of sermons 
 preached in the midst of a non-liturgical service at churches 
 once archiepiscopal, to assure the Anglican reader that 
 non-liturgical prayers may yet be very decorous ones? 
 The days seem almost gone, in which the prayers in 
 Scotch churches were dissertations, or statements of doc- 
 trine and duty, spoken to the Almighty, but spoken at the 
 congregation. A volume of Prayers for Social and Family 
 Worship, the very first printed prayers authorised by the 
 
from Archiepiscopal CJmrches. 129 
 
 Scotch Church, is in some degree the cause, but in a 
 greater the consequence, of this improvement in taste. 
 This volume, which is at least ligger than the Book of 
 Common Prayer, is well worthy of being read. And a 
 beautifully printed volume of Family Prayers has lately 
 been issued by the same authority. Both these books of 
 devotion, though bearing to be prepared by a large com- 
 mittee of clergymen and laymen, are mainly the work of 
 Dr Crawford, the learned Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Edinburgh. Dr Robertson took much in- 
 terest in their revision, and furnished many valuable sug- 
 gestions. If you look at the first of the Prayers For 
 Sailors and Persons at Sea, you will find as happy an 
 imitation of the true liturgical style of prayer as you are 
 likely to see in any modern work. 
 
 This Saturday, as the chill December afternoon was 
 closing, in, and the light fading, I went v to see the graves 
 of the two good men of whom I have been writing. 
 They are not far apart. A tablet of red granite, sur- 
 mounted by a little Gothic canopy, marks where Dr Park 
 rests, in his own churchyard. And opposite his resting- 
 place, built against the massive outward wall, through the 
 arrow-slits in which there was the cold gray sea, there 
 are two larger tablets, also of red granite, set in a lofty 
 gabJe of freestone, surmounted by the cross (for we have 
 outgrown fanatic prejudice), and bearing the I H S, which 
 has sometimes proved so fatal to the peace of worthy 
 Presbyterians, who probably would have had no objection 
 to V.R. There sleeps the minister of Glasgow Cathedral, 
 
130 Presbyterian Sermons. 
 
 taken away from great usefulness and greater hope. Of 
 course, it is but a little sphere within which a clergyman 
 of the Church of Scotland can be known or valued. All 
 that we understand. But in these pages a Scotch clergy- 
 man has sought to tell something of two of the most 
 eminent of his class to some who, if they had known 
 would have valued them. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CONCERNING BEARDS : BEING THOUGHTS ON 
 PROGRESS, SPECIALLY IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 THE edition of Friends in Council possessed by me, 
 bears on its title-page the date 1852. The time 
 at which I write is January 1866. It is therefore evident 
 that less than fourteen years have passed since that book 
 was published. A certain passage in it brings strongly 
 before the thoughtful mind the fact, that great changes in 
 ways of thinking and acting may come about in fourteen 
 years. In things small and things great, inveterate pre- 
 judices may be overcome in less than fourteen years ; and 
 people may come to do things which once they would 
 have said they never could do. Sensible and natural 
 habits maybe adopted by individuals who seemed stiffened 
 into rigid unchangeableness. That which Mrs Grundy 
 once severely blamed, Mrs Grundy may be found to 
 warmly approve. Here is the passage : — 
 
 Milverton. Well, I think we do waste a good deal of time and 
 energy to make ourselves ridiculous in the matter of beards. 
 
 Lucy. But is nobody with me : Uncle, what do you say ? 
 
 Dunsford. I cannot see, my love, why, in itself, any costume 
 would not become a clergyman, which so many old divines (have 
 ,you ever noticed their portraits in my folios ?) look well in. 
 
132 Concern ing Beards : 
 
 Lucy. I see you are all for beards : but then, if it would not be 
 presumptuous in a girl like me to say so to such reverend company, 
 are you not rather cowardly in not doing what you all think would 
 save you so much trouble, and be so becoming ? 
 
 Dunsford. What would be thought of it, dear Lucy, in the 
 parish ? As it is, your mother often tells me that she is sure Mrs 
 Thompson will say that I do things like no other person. 
 
 Lucy. And you, Mr Milverton ? 
 
 MlLVERTON. Why you see, my pet, I say a great many things in 
 books which are not perhaps quite according to rule, and which I 
 know the potent Mrs Thompson would pronounce against : and 
 then I do a few odd things to please myself and have my way, and 
 I cannot afford to do any more. Each of us has a certain amount 
 of allowable eccentricity (some more than others) : I have no savings, 
 and have indeed rather overdrawn than otherwise. Besides, authors, 
 artists, players, are all an outcast race : my doing it would not 
 further the matter : some very respectable, judicious, safe man must 
 set the example. 
 
 Lucy. I turn then, to Mr Ellesmere ? 
 
 Ellesmere. Why you see, Miss Daylmer, I am a lawyer, and 
 we lawyers love to cherish custom ; if we were to upset that, we do 
 not exactly see what would happen. It might be that people would 
 come to omit paying us the customary fees. Nevertheless, some day 
 after a long vacation spent in the East, I am not sure that I shall 
 not appear in court with a beard. You may be quite sure I shall 
 not do this till I have secured what is called a competency. 
 
 So you see that fourteen years ago, a daring lawyer 
 durst not appear in court with a beard, till he had made 
 himself independent of his profession : after that day, the 
 stream of briefs would set to his chambers no more. 
 Dunsford, the clergyman, dreaded what migbt be said in 
 his parish, especially by Mrs Thompson. And even 
 Milverton, who had written the praises of eccentricity, 
 thought that to grow a beard would be rather too bold a 
 step. Fourteen years ago. 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 133 
 
 Now, Scotland in some things lags a little behind the 
 comparatively bleak and desolate country that lies south 
 of the Tweed and the Sark. We have our weather here 
 a little later than they have it in England. If there be 
 stormy weather in the region round London, stormy 
 weather follows in a few days in the region round Edin- 
 burgh. So with fair weather. The principle of the 
 thing is expressed in the words, Fiat experimentum in 
 corpore vili. We adopt our fashions in like manner : in 
 dress, in the hour of dinner, in the style of entertaining. I 
 do not mean to say that we imitate the English : but 
 merely that somehow the wave takes longer to reach us. 
 And in things more important than dress or entertain- 
 ments, the case is so. The influence is in the air : and it 
 affects people who are far apart, and who have no com- 
 munication with each other. Thus, while many in the 
 English Church are eager for a developed ritualism, and 
 go in for incense, low and high masses, copes and chas- 
 ubles, processions and cross-bearers,* there are many in 
 
 * And thy Church, awaking from Her sleep, come glorious forth at 
 
 length, 
 And in sight of angels and of men display Her hidden strength : 
 Again shall long processions sweep through Lincoln's minster pile : 
 Again shall banner, cross, and cope, gleam through the incensed aisle* 
 And the faithful dead shall claim their part in the Church's thank- 
 ful prayer, 
 And the daily sacrifice to God be duly offered there : 
 And Tierce, and Nones, and Matins, shall have each their holy lay, 
 And the Angelus at Compline shall sweetly close the day. 
 
 — Dr Neale's Sequences, Hymns, and other Ecclesiastical 
 Verses : p. 131. 
 
134 Concerning Beards : 
 
 Scotland who are humbly aiming at a point which is not 
 nearly so advanced as the point whence these ritualistic 
 Anglicans took their departure. To kneel at public 
 prayer, instead of standing or (to speak accurately) loung- 
 ing : to stand at public praise, instead of sitting : to have 
 the help of the organ in the services of the church : such, 
 so far as I know, are the few and simple things which are 
 aimed at by the ecclesiastical innovators of Scotland. And 
 while some Anglican people are advancing with alarming 
 speed in doctrinal matters, and breaking loose from the 
 old moorings, a few Scotchmen, affected by a milder form 
 of the same distemper (as cow-pox is to small-pox), have 
 recently been heard to say that the Decalogue is abrogated, 
 that the Jewish Sabbath is not obligatory on Christians, 
 and that the creed signed by Scotch Divines might with 
 advantage be a good deal shortened and perhaps a little 
 loosened. 
 
 From these facts I judge, that if beards are to be found 
 in Scotland, even among the clergy of the Established 
 Church, they are sure to be still more common in England, 
 both among laity and clergy. And it may be esteemed 
 as certain, that half the men under forty in this country 
 do now wear beards. When I look from my pulpit each 
 Sunday towards a seat of dignity, a high place in the 
 synagogue, where sit three Professors of Divinity, the Head 
 and two of the Professors of a famous college in a famous 
 University, I remark that two of the three dignitaries, all 
 of whom are ministers of the Scotch Church, appear in 
 the native dignity of beard and moustache. And, to 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 135 
 
 speak frankly, they look remarkably well. It has indeed 
 been suggested, that one of those Doctors of Divinity, who 
 is the head of the Jewish Mission of the Scotch Church, 
 appears in a beard by way of compliment to the Race with 
 which his mission is concerned. But the other has no 
 such shadow of a pretext for difference from the common 
 rule j and it is probable that his beard is there, merely 
 because he deems it comfortable and decorous. Doubtless 
 Dr Tulloch's dignified predecessors would be startled, if 
 they might behold him. Yet it may be doubted whether 
 among those who in departed days filled the chair of the 
 bearded Principal, there could be found an abler or more 
 amiable man. 
 
 Surely Ellesmere may now go into court in his beard, 
 without injuring his chances of the Great Seal. Surely 
 Dunsford, no longer dreading Mrs Thompson, may now 
 enter his church on a Sunday morning bearded. Most 
 wonderful of all, doubtless Mrs Thompson now thinks it 
 all right, nor has her attention distracted from her devo- 
 tions by the clergyman's unwonted aspect. As for Milver- 
 ton, that is nothing: for authors at all times have been 
 allowed to do eccentric things. The point is, that now 
 the wearing of a beard has ceased to be deemed eccentric. 
 I have beheld a dean, not inferior in learning and elo- 
 quence to any in the Anglican Church, preach in a long 
 gray beard. And as I very seldom hear Anglican deans 
 preach, I conclude from that experience that others may 
 be found like the Dean of Canterbury. An English 
 bishop did, indeed, a few years ago, caution his clergy 
 
136 Concerning Beards : 
 
 against extravagance in the matter of hair : but the tide 
 of events has wiped out his caution. For that is not an 
 extravagance which no one deems such. A clergyman, 
 with his heart in his work, would deny his taste for a 
 beard or for anything else, if he found that a beard would 
 hinder his usefulness in his parish. But the days have 
 passed in which a man's parochial work would be either 
 hindered or helped by the presence or absence of a beard. 
 Yes, we in this country are in many ways wandering 
 from the old paths. For better or for worse, we are 
 drifting from the old moorings. It was a symptomatic 
 fact, that the Duke of Argyle, at a public meeting in 
 Glasgow, said, within these few days, that no man now 
 believes all that is written in the Confession of Faith. 
 Therein the Duke was wrong. I know men, more than 
 one or two, who, after a careful study of that document, 
 leave off by believing all that it contains. Doubtless 
 there are in it things hard to be believed : but in stating 
 these the Confession does merely state manifest facts, 
 against which you may indeed shut your eyes, but which 
 you will see to be there if you open them. But consider- 
 ing that each minister of the Scotch Church signs that 
 lengthy creed, and (I believe) all the ministers of the 
 Free Kirk too, the Duke's statement was a strong one. 
 It means that some thousands of educated Scotchmen 
 have declared their belief in things they do not believe. 
 And it looks very awkward, that such a statement, pub- 
 licly made, should not have been very boldly or heartily 
 contradicted. 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 137 
 
 Then, ritually, there is a general upheaving. We build 
 handsome Gothic churches now, instead of flat-roofed 
 barns. The dissenters aim at spires. Stained glass is 
 present wherever it can be afforded. Passages are laid 
 with tiles of black and red. The Commandments may 
 be read on the walls of some Scotch churches, in antique 
 letters of gold on a ground of ecclesiastical blue. Within 
 Scotch churches you may read the letters I H S. Crosses, 
 of diverse shapes, surmount gables. The psalms may be 
 heard, chanted in the prose version. When the writer 
 once expostulated with a young divine as to his ritual im- 
 provements, and asked what his covenanting forefathers 
 would have said had they seen them, that young man, in 
 tones that made the writer's blood run cold, used the 
 awful words, ""Bother my covenanting forefathers !" In 
 eight churches under the jurisdiction of the Presbytery 
 of Glasgow, organs are either in use or in process of erec- 
 tion. And there is even one parish church in Edinburgh 
 where the prayers are read by the minister from a printed 
 book, which is also in the hands of the congregation. 
 The incumbent of that church, however, repudiates the 
 charge of using a liturgy. Here are his own words, from 
 the preface to his Prayer-book : — 
 
 It may be proper to add, in order to prevent misconception, that 
 these prayers are not designed to form a ritual in any sense : the 
 author leaving to himself full liberty to add, omit, or alter, as he 
 may judge convenient, and not attempting to interfere with the 
 liberty of anyone who may occasionally assist him in conducting 
 public worship. He desires that the following prayers may be re- 
 garded as strictly aids to devotion for himself or for any of his 
 
138 Concerning Beards : 
 
 brethren who may choose to avail themselves of them, either as to 
 ideas, arrangement, or language, as they have an unquestionable 
 right to do, if they think proper, to any extent.* 
 
 But while Dr Lee is careful to declare that his Prayer- 
 book does not set forth a liturgy, and while he gives no 
 hint that he judges a liturgy to be a desirable thing, there 
 are other Scotchmen who speak out more plainly. Dr 
 Robertson, of Glasgow Cathedral, has put on record his 
 conviction, that " the reasons for a partial liturgy are quite 
 unanswerable." I have quoted his words at length on 
 another page.f And just this morning, I received a 
 volume by Lord Kinloch,j a most able, amiable, and 
 pious Scotch judge, an elder of the Church of Scotland, 
 a man of clear head and cool judgment, in which, 
 among other things indicating a great change in Scotch 
 ways of thinking, you may read as follows : — 
 
 There are many obvious advantages in a Book of Common 
 Prayer. There is therein a great security against feebleness, 
 inappropriateness, or eccentricity, in devotional exercises. There 
 is a barrier raised against individual peculiarity and ambitious 
 rhetoric. There is secured, in every church you enter, an edifying 
 and ennobling act of worship. The very familiarity of the coming 
 prayer makes it easy for the mass to fall into the current of devo- 
 tion : whereas, in the case of extemporised supplication, the novelty 
 of the utterance is an impediment to sluggish souls, and is apt of a 
 
 * A Presbyterian Prayer- Book and Psalm-Book : or, Aids to De- 
 votion in Public and Social Worship. By Robert Lee, D.D., 
 Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Edinburgh, and 
 Minister of Greyfriars. Edinburgh: 1 863. 
 
 + At page 122 of the present volume. 
 
 % Studies for Sunday Evening. By Lord Kinloch. Edinburgh : 
 1 861. 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 139 
 
 conscious suppliant to make a mere vacant auditor. There is a 
 direct participation in the devotional exercise on the part of the 
 congregation which meets the grand aim of public worship, and 
 which no truly devout heart should find monotonous or unimpres- 
 sive. There is a bond of union in jointly uttering the same audible 
 expressions before God, which is but feebly imaged in united listen- 
 ing to words from without. But, on the other hand, the very nature 
 of a liturgy, as a prescribed form of worship, beyond which no one 
 can go, involves a want of accommodation to special exigencies. 
 With the great mass there is a risk of the whole service becoming 
 a vain repetition. A well-framed liturgy may be adapted to the 
 dull routine of every-day piety, but it is comparatively inefficacious 
 either for times of declension or seasons of revival. It may preserve 
 an equable and chastened devotion, but has nothing to startle the 
 careless, to warm the cold, to quicken the dead. But why 
 
 SHOULD THERE NOT BE A COMBINATION OF THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 EITHER system : of the general supplication with the occasional 
 prayer : of the worshipping assembly with the interceding pastor : 
 of the fixed form with the varying aspiration : of the devout har- 
 mony of the congregation with the sole earnest utterance of the 
 leader in Israel ? 
 
 The days have been, in which one of the most eminent 
 of Scotch elders would not have been found to utter so 
 frankly these judicious and moderate views. But Lord 
 Kinloch has more to say : here is something on the once 
 bitterly-discussed question of Presbytery and Prelacy : — 
 
 It is permitted, as I think, to an individual Christian to perceive 
 advantages on either side in rival systems of church polity, such as 
 raise a strong impression that a combination of the systems would 
 operate more advantageously than their isolated action. There is 
 an element in episcopal government and the distinction of ranks in 
 the clergy which exhibits a striking analogy to the principle which 
 pervades the divine government of the universe : for this is carried 
 on by degrees and orders, subordination and superiority, reaching 
 from the meanest of God's messengers up to the archangel nearest 
 the throne. There is a permissible and wholesome ambition created 
 
T4-0 Concerning Beards 
 
 by diversity of ranks. There is a quietness, and gravity, and con- 
 centration of authority in episcopal rule which has much of the 
 features of apostolic administration. Yet the system has serious 
 defects. It hangs too much for its efficacy on individual character. 
 Its quietness is occasionally somnolence. Its massive architecture 
 is sometimes little more than ornamental. Heresy lurks undetected, 
 or rears the head unchecked. A system is made a superstition, by 
 force of its gorgeousness and ancient descent. There is a freedom 
 in the very roughness of Presbytery : an energetic action in the 
 intellect : a swift detection of error and abuse : an intercommuni- 
 cation of spirit between clergy and laity: a bold publicity of 
 discussion : a corresponding interest in the public mind : to which 
 Episcopacy does not attain, or attains in a much inferior degree. 
 Why should an union of the systems, in the best char, 
 acteristics of each, remain an historic dream of the 
 very chief of our reformers ? 
 
 Lord Kinloch knows why: but the English reader 
 does not. Here is the reason. Because each clergyman 
 of the Scotch Church, at his ordination, must solemnly 
 reply in the affirmative to this among other solemn ques- 
 tions : — 
 
 Are you persuaded that the Presbyterian government and dis- 
 cipline of this Church are founded upon the word of God, and 
 agreeable thereto : and do you promise to submit to the said 
 government and discipline, and to concur with the same, and 
 
 NEVER TO ENDEAVOUR, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, THE PREJU- 
 DICE OR SUBVERSION thereof, but to the utmost of your power, 
 in your station, to maintain, support, and defend the said discipline 
 and Presbyterian government by kirk-sessions, presbyteries, pro- 
 vincial synods, and general assemblies, during all the days of your 
 life? 
 
 Now, you must see that the man who, with all the 
 solemnity of an oath, has said "Yes" to that question, 
 cannot feel himself perfectly free to use any active means 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 141 
 
 for episcopising the Church of Scotland : whatever private 
 convictions he may reach on the comparative claims of 
 Presbytery and Episcopacy. I do not judge others, in the 
 matter of such oaths : but I confess that for myself, even 
 if I thought (and I do not think) Episcopacy decidedly 
 the better of the two, I see not how I could open my 
 mouth to say so. Yet it is curious how easily the very 
 best men take what appears to others the violation of a 
 plain oath : of course, they see it differently. Dr Chal- 
 mers, Dr Candlish, and the other eminent and good men 
 who seceded from the Scotch Church in 1843, and founded 
 the communion calling itself the Free Churchy had all 
 solemnly answered " Yes" to the following question : — 
 
 Do you promise that, according to your power, you shall 
 
 maintain the unity and peace of this Church against error and 
 schism, notwithstanding whatever trouble or persecution may arise ; 
 
 and THAT YOU SHALL FOLLOW NO DIVISIVE COURSES FROM THE 
 PRESENT ESTABLISHED DOCTRINE, WORSHIP,' DISCIPLINE, AND 
 GOVERNMENT OF THIS CHURCH ? 
 
 How these worthy men reconciled their secession from 
 the Church with their obligation under this oath, I cannot 
 in the least see. Yet who but a fool would call them 
 perjured persons, who had broken their ordination vows ? 
 I believe, as firmly as I believe anything, that they saw, 
 to the satisfaction of their own minds, that they were free 
 to take the step they did. Yet charges of perjury, violated 
 oaths, broken ordination vows, and the like, are some- 
 times bandied about in Scotland just now, in a fashion 
 that shows great lack of sympathy, charity, honesty, and 
 
142 Concerning Beards : 
 
 common sense in those who make them. If I find a 
 man, at least as wise and good as myself, taking a course 
 which I cannot see he is justified in taking, it is only fair 
 to suppose that he sees what I do not. Yet there are 
 those would drive out of the Scotch Church, and out ot 
 the Anglican Church too, the best men in either, by vul- 
 gar and malignant accusations of dishonesty and perjury. 
 
 The following words of Lord Kinloch are interesting, 
 because we find him making a statement which is sub- 
 stantiaUy identical with one which caused a brief but 
 furious uproar, when made by Principal Tulloch of St 
 Andrews : — 
 
 Great errors have unquestionably been committed in the con- 
 struction of creeds and confessions. They have for the most part 
 attempted too much : more of clearness of information on mysteri- 
 ous topics, than God has allowed : more of defmiteness of statement 
 on doctrinal points, than human intellect can accomplish. They 
 have at times become snares for over-sensitive minds ; which sub- 
 stantially value the doctrine, and yet cannot conscientiously adopt 
 its precise form of expression. They have too frequently been made 
 a theological argument against a particular heresy ; and have thrown 
 in consequence the whole of Christian truth behind the shadow of a 
 single dogma. By endeavouring to expand the truth, not merely in 
 its general expression, but its minute ramifications, they have run 
 into apparent inconsistencies ; such as always arise when a finite 
 mind attempts to possess itself of the whole of its subject of con- 
 templation. They are, many of them, works of great mental 
 vigour : the products of gigantic intellect : composed by men both 
 of piety and learning : a noble study, an illustrious monument. Vet 
 it is always to be remembered that they are human compositions : 
 liable to criticism as such : and not to be deferred to, when they 
 contradict, or go beyond, the teaching of Holy Writ. It is to be 
 wished that they more imitated the simplicity of their Divine model 
 and were comprised in a few general propositions, expressed so 
 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 143 
 
 clearly as to bear the undoubted stamp of orthodoxy : at the same 
 time so comprehensive, as to be capable of being held along with 
 avowed diversity in unessential points and collateral metaphysics. 
 
 Upon the doctrine of the Atonement, we have words, 
 
 true and wise : — 
 
 To engage in idle discussions of our own intellect on the subject 
 of the Atonement, its nature and necessity, and precise mode of 
 operation, is a course full of peril to faith, both in its simplicity and 
 stability. In regard to the Divine mysteries, it. is generally by 
 limitation of range that we maintain clearness of perception. The 
 simple Bible truth, which is seen clearly when steadfastly looked at 
 by itself, becomes obscure and confused when followed out on all 
 sides into the ramifications of human philosophy. It is in this way 
 that systematic theology has at times been of injury to religion. 
 The mind, which rested secure on one grand Scripture thought, has 
 had its faith broken into difficulties and doubts, when carried into 
 metaphysical expositions, which, because they dealt with subjects 
 beyond human thought, could not but prove unsatisfactory ; and 
 because they were the product of the finite endeavouring to scan the 
 infinite, could construct a system of supposed completeness only by 
 means of propositions, which produced reconcilement at the cost of 
 apparent contradiction. 
 
 Lord Kinloch has some striking remarks on Inspiration, 
 setting forth somewhat advanced views on that subject. 
 And those Scotchmen who would, if they could, " make 
 a ghastly idol of the Sunday," find no countenance from 
 the devout and enlightened judge : — 
 
 To the great mass of those on whom is laid the duty of Sabbath 
 observance, it is impracticable to maintain a whole day of unflagging 
 spirituality of frame ; and to these there must necessarily come, and 
 will come without impropriety, the interruptions of harmless con- 
 verse, and kindly intercourse. Few things can be conceived more 
 accordant with the conception of a hallowed day of rest than the 
 enjoyment, under fitting limitations, of the pure air, and fair face of 
 nature, in innocent domestic companionship, when the religious 
 
144 Concerning Beards : 
 
 duties of the day shall have been accomplished. There is nothing 
 to be found in Scripture to countenance a morose or gloomy observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath. It is a Christian festival : to be observed by 
 all with the cheerfulness proper to such. 
 
 Let us be thankful that such wise and temperate notions 
 are now held by almost all intelligent people in Scotland. 
 For I can remember the day, on which a good clergyman 
 said from the pulpit, that whenever, on a summer Sunday 
 evening, he beheld the people of a certain Scotch town 
 quietly and decorously walking on a great green expanse 
 by the shore of the sea, he always thought of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and prayed that fire might not fall from heaven 
 to burn up the Sabbath-breakers ! And as a boy, there 
 was nothing I believed more implicitly, than that it was 
 a sin to take a walk on Sunday. How we have advanced 
 since then ! There is now no part of the week pleasanter 
 to me, nor enjoyed with more assurance that the enjoy- 
 ment is lawful and right, than the hour after afternoon 
 service on each Lord's day, when you may see a great 
 part of the population of this ancient city quietly walking 
 on the beach or the bent, and feeling an influence from 
 all around them for which only the very hardened can 
 fail to be the better. We all hold the value of the Shorter 
 Catechism still : but we have come to interpret differently 
 the following statement contained in that excellent trea- 
 tise : — 
 
 The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, 
 even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful 
 on other days : and spending the -whole time in the public and private 
 exercises of God^s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in 
 the works of necessity and mercy. 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 145 
 
 Doubtless that last clause, which speaks of necessity and 
 mercy, always served as a very wide back-door. But 
 there were many parents who really tried to make their 
 children spend the whole time in the public and private 
 exercises above named : and who failed to discern that a 
 decorous walk after church, and the enjoyment of domestic 
 quiet in the evening, are most truly of the nature of God's 
 worship, properly understood and rightly enjoyed. There- 
 fore they made their children go to church, to services of 
 enormous length, and without a vestige of interest for a 
 child) and then they devoted the rest of the day to 
 examining them in the Shorter Catechism. The natural 
 effect was, to make the children hate both the Catechism 
 and the Sunday as long as they lived. A word as to 
 length of church services. While a Scotch sermon now, 
 if preached by a good preacher, rarely exceeds half an 
 hour in length, and the entire service lasts just an hour 
 and a half, I remember the days when the sermon was an 
 hour or more, and sometimes you had two of the fearful 
 compositions at one service. Yes, it seems nearly as 
 strange to me now as it will to an Anglican reader ; but 
 many a time have I entered church at 11 a.m., and been 
 present at a service lasting till 2 p.m. — three mortal 
 hours ! And certain it was then as now, that the worse 
 the preacher, the longer was the sermon sure to be. 
 
 Now, what is the meaning of all the change which has 
 been set forth ? 
 
 Such as look favourably on the movement, reply, that 
 
1 46 Concerning Beards : 
 
 it comes of a conviction that the Scotch Reformers cut 
 down the church-service too far, and showed too great a 
 spirit of contrariety to all that had gone before : and that 
 the time has come when, without any peril to anything 
 good gained at the Reformation, a better and more de- 
 corous worship may be introduced. No doubt, the Scotch 
 Presbyterian worship does look inexpressibly bare and 
 bald to Christians of any portion of the Catholic Church 
 out of Scotland. No doubt, the greater number of Scotch 
 parish churches are disgraceful for ugliness and meanness. 
 No doubt, it is a mockery to call by the name of music 
 the sounds which in many churches take the place of 
 praise. No doubt, one recalls with heaviness of heart the 
 discourses which one has heard in the form of prayer. 
 No doubt, Scotch public worship is capable of being much 
 improved. It may be granted, indeed, that it is not the 
 greatest work of the parish priest to improve his music or 
 decorate his church ; and that you may train your parish- 
 ioners to habits even better than those of silently asking 
 God's blessing for a moment on entering church, and 
 pausing for a moment's silent prayer after the blessing is 
 pronounced, instead of instantly sticking on your hat and 
 rushing out as though the building were on fire. But 
 one may hope, that where much attention is given to the 
 lesser proprieties of worship, all this is no more than a 
 comparatively unimportant addition to great diligence in 
 preaching and in pastoral work. On the other hand, 
 nothing that concerns God's worship is unimportant : and 
 side by side with diligent endeavours for the moral and 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 147 
 
 physical improvement of his parishioners, a zealous clergy- 
 man may well spend thought and pains on the improve- 
 ment of the music in his church, or on breaking people 
 (where he can) of walking into church with their hats on 
 their heads. Some people talk as though in attending to 
 the aesthetic, you must of necessity neglect what is ad- 
 mitted to be a thousand times more important. Why 
 spend money on a stained window, when there are mil- 
 lions of Heathens who have got no Bibles ? Why think 
 of church music when Infidelity is overspreading the 
 land ? Such are the ordinary objections. But surely one 
 need not neglect the greater duties, while giving some 
 measure of care to the lesser. And abundant experience 
 has shown that the man who suffers a slovenly neglect 
 about his church and its worship, is just the man to 
 neglect weightier things. " He which is faithful in that 
 which is least, is faithful also in much." And the argu- 
 ment from the Heathen, and the tide of Infidelity, goes 
 too far. Why think of getting your clothes to fit pro- 
 perly, or of painting your house, or selecting carpets of 
 pleasing pattern, when there are the Heathen and the 
 Infidelity ? 
 
 So" much for the favourable way of looking at the 
 Scotch ritual movement. There are less favourable ways 
 of regarding it. In a recent debate in the Presbytery of 
 Edinburgh, it was declared by a very good man, far ad- 
 vanced in life, that it was his profound conviction that the 
 ritual innovations (in conjunction, we presume, with the 
 doctrinal uncertainty of sound) are of the instigation of 
 
148 Concerning Beards : 
 
 the devil. It thus appears that a movement of which its 
 worst enemies can say no worse than that it somewhat 
 obliterates the differences between the Scotch and English 
 national churches, originates in the worst possible quarter. 
 One would say that no one has a right to say that if you 
 differ from him you are inspired by the devil, unless his 
 own infallibility is assured by special revelation. At the 
 same time, I am not prepared to join in the severe stric- 
 tures which have been made on the good man who said 
 this. All evil is helped and perhaps inspired by the devil, 
 no doubt ; and if you honestly think a movement tends 
 to evil, you have a right to say that such is your opinion. 
 Still, when we think a friend wrong, our desire ought to 
 be rather to bring him right, than to hit him severely ; 
 and it may be doubted whether, in telling an honest and 
 earnest man that he is instigated by Satan, you are adopt- 
 ing a course likely to conciliate and mend him. And a 
 promise, publicly made, to pray for a man who differs 
 from you, appears to imply, in a somewhat offensive 
 way, that he must certainly be wrong and you certainly 
 right. To publicly express a very unfavourable opinion 
 of a fellow- creature, — even though that opinion be couched 
 in the form of a prayer for him, — is not, generally, a 
 friendly thing. And it may be doubted whether it is 
 ever a purely Christian thing. 
 
 But people who do not say that the desire for an organ, 
 for kneeling at prayer and standing at praise, and even 
 (as Lord Kinloch) for a partial liturgy, is inspired by 
 Satan, are vet found to take up another ground of opposi- 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 149 
 
 tion to it. They say that whatever improvement the 
 Scotch Church service may be capable of, the ministers 
 of the Scotch Church are precluded from even thinking 
 of any change ; forasmuch as one of the questions they 
 have all answered affirmatively at their ordination runs 
 thus : — 
 
 Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained 
 in the Confession of Faith appoved by the General Assemblies of this 
 Church, and ratified by law in the year 1690, to be grounded upon 
 the word of God : and do you acknowledge the same as the confes- 
 sion of your faith ; and will you firmly and constantly adhere there- 
 to, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend 
 the same, and the purity of worship as presently practised 
 IN this national church, and asserted in Act 15, Assembly 
 1707, entitled " Act against Innovations in the Worship of God " ? 
 
 On the strength of these words, I have heard a clergy- 
 man who had introduced kneeling at prayer and standing 
 at singing into his church, with the full approval of his 
 congregation, denounced as a perjured person. Was he 
 so? 
 
 Well, unquestionably he was a very pious and exem- 
 plary man in other things 5 and if he was indeed a violator 
 of solemn vows in this matter, it was very unlike his 
 ordinary walk and conversation. And further, he did not 
 think himself perjured, even on this point ; for, when told 
 of the grave accusation, he replied with a tranquil and 
 amiable face, " That is rank nonsense ! " 
 
 Let me confess, that I have never heard any innovating 
 Scotch clergyman set clearly out the rationale of the way 
 in which he reconciles his ritual innovations with that vow 
 about maintaining the purity of worship as presently prac- 
 
150 Concerning Beards : 
 
 Used in this national church. Such men, in my hearing, 
 have either laughed at the charge, as one not deserving 
 serious notice ; or have got angry and expressed indigna- 
 tion at those who uttered it. But I suppose the ground 
 that innovators would take up, if brought to book, would 
 be this : that their changes and improvements do not 
 affect the purity of worship as presently practised. What 
 is designed by the vow in question, is the exclusion of 
 superstitious rites and ceremonies, such as those laid aside 
 at the Reformation. And it is naturally remarked, that 
 some of those who are very bitter against the innovations 
 now introduced, did not scruple to introduce innovations 
 which pleased themselves : such as the singing of doxolo- 
 gies and anthems, the ceasing to intone each line of the 
 psalm before singing it, the abolition of public penances, 
 such as I have myself seen in a Scotch parish church, the 
 private celebration of the sacrament of baptism, and many 
 such like. And it is specially curious that good men, who 
 habitually break the law of the Church in the matter of 
 baptism in private, and seem quite happy though so guilty, 
 have been heard vehemently to accuse those of their 
 brethren who have administered the Holy Communion in 
 private, to persons unable to come to church from illness. 
 Yet, in the nature of things, it seems infinitely more 
 reasonable to dispense the latter sacrament in private than 
 the former. And as for the law of the Scotch Church, I 
 should be interested in knowing how any man of plain 
 sense can evade the meaning of the following words from 
 The Directory for the Publick Worship of God : — > 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 1 
 
 Baptism is not to be administered in private places, or privately, 
 but in the place of public worship, and in the face of the congrega- 
 tion, where the people may most conveniently see and hear. 
 
 Scotch Church-law makes no mention at all of instru- 
 mental music, or kneeling at prayer, or standing to sing : 
 in these matters there is nothing violated by the innova- 
 tors but lengthened usage. But baptism of children in 
 private is expressly forbidden. Yet excellent men, who 
 systematically break the law about baptism without a pang 
 of conscience, are ready with the howl of perjury against 
 men equally excellent, who have brought organs into their 
 churches. Let me say, that I believe the accusations of 
 perjury are as injudicious as they are uncharitable. A 
 timid man here and there may be bullied into concealing 
 his tastes for an orderly worship : but a spirit of resistance 
 is awakened in ten times as many, by the attempt to 
 bully. The writer is a Scotch clergyman who has made 
 no innovations in the worship of his parish church. Plenty 
 of instrumental music has been in it, indeed : plenty of 
 incense, masses, processions, and vestments of all colours 
 and degrees. But that was centuries since : and the 
 simple worship of the Scotch Church may now be found 
 in it, untouched and unimproved. And if the writer 
 meditated any change, there are venerable and wise men 
 whose kind cautions, and dread of imminent evil, ex- 
 pressed with a fatherly authority, would make him stop. 
 But as for the accusations of perjury, one snaps the fingers 
 at them. 
 
 On Wednesday, December 27, 1865, the Presbytery of 
 
152 Concerning Beai'ds : 
 
 Edinburgh was engaged, as it has often been before, in 
 considering the case of that Edinburgh minister who has 
 introduced printed prayers. The newspapers mention, 
 that " there was an unusually large attendance," doubt- 
 less both of members and of the public : so much so, that 
 the Presbytery had to meet in that handsome hall where 
 the General Assembly holds its sittings. Several times, 
 within the last few years, have dense crowds in that hall 
 shown the lively interest felt by many people in the whole 
 question of innovations in worship. On this occasion — 
 
 Mr Stewart rose to make the motion of which he had given 
 notice in the following terms : — u Whereas the using of a book 
 of prayers in the celebration of public worship is contrary to the laws 
 and usage of this Church ; and whereas it is generally reported that 
 this practice is followed by the Rev. Robert Lee, D.D., minister in 
 the church of Old Greyfriars, and that, notwithstanding a judgment 
 of the General Assembly, of date 24th May 1S59, ordering Dr Lee 
 to discontinue the practice, and to conform in offering up prayer to 
 the present ordinary practice of the Church, it is moved that a com- 
 mittee be appointed to make all necessary inquiry as to the use of a 
 book of prayers in the conducting of public worship in the church 
 of Old Greyfriars, and to report, that the case may be dealt with 
 according to the injunction of the last General Assembly." 
 
 Mr Stewart, who is an estimable clergyman of more 
 than forty years' standing, is too amiable and good a man 
 to show much of polemical bitterness : yet he supported 
 his motion in a speech of considerable keenness of temper. 
 He lamented the infraction of 
 
 that uniformity of worship which, till the days of Dr Lee, has been a 
 distinguishing characteristic of our Presbyterian Church in Scotland 
 — a form of worship at once pure, spiritual, and simple, which, 
 though sneered at by some, has contributed most effectually to the 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 3 
 
 spiritual welfare of our people — towards the promotion of that vital 
 godliness which it is the great design of our holy religion to pro- 
 mote, and which is at the same time calculated to guard against that 
 mere formality in religion which is, alas ! too prevalent in the 
 present day, and which, we believe, it is the tendency of set forms 
 of prayer to increase and to strengthen. 
 
 And he thus concluded : — 
 
 Let us to-day show that, while we would hail with pleasure the 
 announcement from Dr Lee that he was now ready to obey the laws 
 and to obtemper the judgments of the Church, and to return to that 
 form of worship to which he solemnly swore he would adhere, and 
 to which while a minister at Arbroath, while a minister at Campsie, 
 and to which for some time after he became a minister in Edinburgh 
 he did adhere, and thus aid in promoting the peace of the Church, 
 and not disturb it, as he is now doing, undermining the Church's 
 influence, preventing her from presenting a united front to her 
 enemies, and from putting forth her undivided energies towards the 
 furtherance of that great cause for which she was established, and 
 which it is designed she should further in the land and over the 
 world. But, if otherwise — if to gratify hip own taste, or to pander 
 to the tastes of some fashionables in our great cities — he disregards 
 his ordination vows, sets the laws and usage of the Church at defi- 
 ance — he must be prepared to abide by the consequences. If there 
 be individuals within the pale of the Church of Scotland who have 
 a conscientious preference for read prayers and a liturgical form, I 
 would say to such, with the best feelings, let them join the Church 
 of England, where they will find a venerable and approven liturgy, 
 and not the spurious and irresponsible article which has been intro- 
 duced of late into Greyfriars' Church. These are not the times 
 when the laws and authority of our Church are to be allowed to be 
 set at nought with impunity, when not only the outworks of our 
 Zion are assailed by the innovating practices of Dr Lee and others, 
 but when the very citadel itself is being attacked — when attempts 
 are being made to shake the very foundations of our Zion — to un- 
 dermine the pillar and ground of truth itself — when the great funda- 
 mental articles of our most holy faith are called in question, are 
 assailed, not by the open and avowed enemies of religion and of our 
 
154 Concerning Beards : 
 
 Church, but by those whom we had been accustomed to regard as 
 her ablest defenders, and who we thought would have sacrificed 
 everything that was most dear and valuable on earth rather than 
 have apostatised from the faith once delivered in its purity to the 
 saints of old, and to which they had in the most solemn manner 
 declared they would adhere — rather than have given their names 
 and their influence to sentiments and views which, unless checked 
 and put down by the authority of the Church, bid fair to sweep 
 away that beautiful fabric which our venerable forefathers reared amid 
 their tears and with their prayers, and after years of toil and suffer- 
 ing unparalleled, left to us as a legacy to be by us transmitted un- 
 impaired to our latest posterity — that Church which has hitherto 
 proved such a signal blessing to the people of Scotland, which 
 has been the grand bulwark of civil and religious liberty in our 
 land, and which was designed to remain a perpetual testimony 
 to the truth as it is in Jesus, amid surrounding infidelity, supersti- 
 tion, and immorality, and to stand firm on the Rock on which her 
 great Head founded her amid the ever-fluctuating waves of human, 
 opinion. 
 
 The apostates thus keenly censured, are doubtless Dr 
 Norman Macleod of Glasgow, who has declared that 
 while holding" the obligation of the Lord's-day, he has 
 departed from the usual Scotch belief both as to the 
 ground of its obligation and the manner of its due observ- 
 ance j and Principal Tulloch of St Andrews, who had the 
 boldness to declare that the Confession of Faith, though 
 an admirable and venerable document, is the composition 
 of uninspired men, affected by the usual influences which 
 affect human beings. 
 
 A remarkable speech was made by Mr Wallace, minis- 
 ter of Trinity College Church, Edinburgh, in support of a 
 motion to let Dr Lee alone. Mr Wallace is one of the 
 ablest of the younger Scotch clergy ; and coming to 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 5 
 
 Edinburgh a few years since to undertake the charge of a 
 nearly empty church, he has crowded it with a large con- 
 gregation. Some of the clergy have precisely reversed 
 that process. Said Mr Wallace : — 
 
 Now, I hold that the reading of prayers is not contrary to the 
 law and usage of the Church ; and not only so, but has already been 
 constructively authorised by the most competent of all judicatories, 
 the General Assembly. I say, first of all, the reading of prayers is 
 not contrary to the law and usages of the Church. I may be told, 
 indeed, that it was so decided in Assembly 1859. But I am per- 
 fectly entitled to plead that that decision misstated the law, and to 
 express my conviction that were the Assembly better instructed, it 
 would decide differently, the more especially that subsequent Assem- 
 blies have, as I shall have occasion more fully to remark, virtually 
 cancelled that decision by declining to enforce it. I repeat, then, 
 that reading prayers is not contrary to the law and usage of the 
 Church. I never heard of a law against a minister reading his 
 prayers if he chose. The moment such a law is produced, and 
 shown to me to have passed the Barrier Act and become law in 
 a regular manner, I shall alter my opinion ; but not till then. As 
 for the usage of the Church, I deny that the usage of the Church 
 forbids a minister to read his prayers from a book. The usage of 
 the Church permits a minister to read his sermons, and it cannot 
 consistently forbid him to read his prayers, because the two stand 
 on the same basis of principle. If there be any arguments sufficient 
 to condemn reading prayers, they are equally good to condemn 
 reading sermons ; and if there are any reasons for allowing sermons 
 to be read, there are also reasons for allowing prayers to be read. 
 Our Church usage has been determined in the great preponderance 
 of instances to the alternative of not reading prayers very much by 
 a historical accident. Our Church is a Church of Puritan extrac- 
 tion, and once in the history of Puritanism a strong and partially 
 authoritative movement was made to force ministers to read prayers 
 which were not their own. As a recoil from this and protest 
 against it, our ministers placed themselves at the opposite extreme, 
 and prayed extempore, to make it clear that their prayers were their 
 own; and in subsequent generations of the Church the popular 
 
156 Concerning Beards : 
 
 prejudice engendered by witnessing this practice has made many 
 conform to it who did not share the prejudice, but who loved peace 
 too well to admit of their bearing the resentment of molested igno- 
 rance. But the genius of our Church usage does not compel the 
 adoption of the one alternative of not reading prayers : it equally 
 admits the other alternative of a minister's reading his prayers if he 
 thinks fit. For what is the genius, the idea of our Church usage ? 
 It is the idea of free prayer. We are continually boasting of our 
 privilege of free prayer ; and I admit it is a great privilege. But 
 what does it mean ? Why, by free prayer I understand, for one 
 thing, the freedom of every individual minister from the bondage of 
 a compulsory liturgy — liberty to pray in his own words, and not in 
 words prescribed for him by external authority. But free prayer 
 means more than this. Freedom does not mean freedom on one side 
 merely, but freedom on every side ; and free prayer does not mean 
 merely liberty for a minister to pray in whatever words he chooses, 
 but also in whatever manner he chooses — with or without paper, as 
 he feels most conducive to his satisfactory performance of the exer- 
 cise. For it must be remembered that extemporaneous speech is 
 not the freest mode of utterance to every one. Very often extem- 
 poraneous prayer is the bitterest bondage to the man who attempts 
 it, making him to labour under the twofold burden of an excessive 
 nervousness and an excessive vacuity. And as for that sham extem- 
 poraneous prayer which consists in reciting what has been previously 
 written and got by heart, or what has through the slow accumulation 
 of years encrusted itself upon the tablets of the memory, I hope 
 nobody will profess himself able to believe that there is any differ- 
 ence between this and honest reading from a book, except what may 
 be implied in the absence of a little paper and the presence of a 
 good deal of pretence. Some may pray freely extemporaneously, 
 but most will pray most freely from manuscript, just as in preaching. 
 And I maintain that reading prayer is just as much free prayer as 
 prayer not read, and is as much in consonance with the genius of 
 our Church usage in this matter. It is only when you take up our 
 Church usage as a blind meaningless custom — a dark irrational 
 prejudice — that you can say it prohibits reading prayers. When- 
 ever you put an idea and a meaning into it 3 that idea compels you 
 to admit that a minister is at liberty to read his prayers if he find 
 that best, provided only they are his own, either by origination or 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 7 
 
 adoption. On these grounds, I hold that the reading of prayers is 
 essentially in agreement with the law and usage of the Church. 
 
 And thus his speech ends : — 
 
 I feel assured that the best arrangement for Church prosperity is 
 when each individual minister is not shackled and fettered by un- 
 numbered laws and usages, but left to the spontaneous and self- 
 regulated development of whatever originality is in him. In this 
 way I believe the Church is surest to get the full benefit of whatever 
 gifts are in her pastors ; and while at all times of the Church, I 
 think especially at the present day, it is disastrous to impose shackles 
 on freedom of clerical utterance in any form ; and therefore let the 
 Act of 1865 apply to whomsoever or whatsoever it likes, it does not 
 apply to Dr Lee or anyone who chooses to read his prayers. I 
 therefore, upon the whole, come to the conclusion that there is no 
 order of the Assembly compelling me to interfere with Dr Lee in 
 this matter of reading his prayers ; and I am glad that it is so. For 
 I am convinced that nothing can be more disastrous for the pros- 
 perity of the Church of Scotland than at the present day to pursue 
 a policy of repression in opposition to a policy of emancipation. 
 The temper of the times and the thoughts afloat are such that men 
 will more and more require of their religious teachers that they be 
 men thinking and acting out of their own independent individuality, 
 and not mere semi-mechanical organs of traditional ideas and usages. 
 The Church that recognises and meets this want will live, flourish, 
 and do incalculable good ; the Church that blindly and obstinately 
 sets its face against it must speedily become little better than an 
 antiquarian curiosity, and have the destiny of suchlike things. And 
 because this liberty of reading prayers, if a minister seems so inclined, 
 seems to me to be a contribution — a very humble contribution it 
 may be, but yet a contribution — to the work of general ministerial 
 emancipation, I wish to see it protected ; and therefore it is with 
 satisfaction that on this occasion I find myself legally entitled, as I 
 am morally glad, to oppose its discouragement. 
 
 On the other side, there was a speech from Dr Muir, 
 the venerable minister of St Stephen's, Edinburgh. Dr 
 Muir is a man of blameless life, and great ability and 
 
158 Concerning Beards: 
 
 dignity, who for more than fifty years has done the work 
 of the ministry with a zeal and devotion above all praise. 
 And indeed, looking at that thoughtful and sad, but beau- 
 tiful face, with high and perfect features, shaded by a 
 profusion of white hair, — a face that expresses pure in- 
 tellect and feeling, without a vestige of animalism, — one 
 feels that Dr Muir ought to have been an archbishop. 
 He would have been one, if the Scotch Church had such 
 dignities : for many years he exercised almost archiepis- 
 copal influence in it. And neither of the two archbishops 
 on the other side of the Tweed could stand a moment's 
 physical comparison with him. Let it be added, that, if 
 high moral principle is to be found in this world, you 
 have it in Dr Muir. If you knew him, you would know 
 a man whom no worldly bribe could tempt from what he 
 esteems the right path. Indeed, one cannot even imagine 
 Dr Muir as actuated by any mean or sordid motive. Even 
 such as differ from him most decidedly are constrained to 
 respect him. And such as do in the main agree with 
 him look up to him with unfeigned reverence. Here is 
 part of what he said : and extreme as the words sound, 
 never were words said in deeper sincerity : — 
 
 I don't wish to be thought a terrorist. I don't pretend to be 
 prophetic, but it is to me most evident that the work that has been 
 begun and carried on so far, has been begun and carried on under 
 the sinister influence of the great enemy of the Church — that enemy 
 who has always set himself in opposition to the truth as it is in 
 Jesus, and to the work of conversion — I mean Satan himself. It is 
 my firm conviction that, proceeding as we are now doing, this 
 blessed institution of ours, which through grace has been so ser- 
 viceable generation after generation, is about to be destroyed. Sir, 
 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 159 
 
 I love to bear my protest on the side of the precious standards of 
 our Church — those standards which, in my opinion, are the most 
 exact voice of God's Holy Word. I love to have the opportunity 
 of bearing my testimony to our precious system of public worship. 
 Simple in the form of it ; nothing in it to come between the soul 
 and Christ, the object of the soul's worship ; but all in it that, away 
 from intricate liturgical ceremonial, will lead to the accomplishing 
 of that which our blessed Saviour has told us we are to aim at in 
 public worship — the worship of God, who is a Spirit, in spirit and 
 in truth. I own to you that my heart has been deeply oppressed 
 by all that has been going on amongst us, under a thorough con- 
 viction that it is a plan instigated by the great enemy of evangelical 
 truth for the purpose of destroying in our land that which has been 
 the main bulwark of the truth, and the main instrument of circulat- 
 ing it and impressing it on the minds of the people. I love, there- 
 fore, to have the opportunity of bearing thus my public protest, and 
 I have come to-day for the purpose of doing so. I know well — 
 and we have had an echo of it in the room to-day — that the views 
 I now suggest are considered to be views that shackle men's minds, 
 and prevent what is called progress — yea, that there is a great deal 
 of illiberality and tyranny in any one man attempting to set up his 
 views and his practices for the purpose of compelling another to 
 adopt these views and follow these practices. Sir, that is what I 
 would express my utter detestation of. The right of private judg- 
 ment is a most sacred thing. Inquiry on the part of individuals as 
 to doctrinal views — inquiry on the part of individuals as to what 
 may be improvements in the forms of public worship — such inquiry 
 is legitimate. The right of private judgment ought never to be 
 interfered with ; and I consider that with the sentiments I have now 
 expressed with regard to our precious standards, and with regard 
 to our forms of worship, I am still at perfect liberty to make inquiry 
 again and again, and should I see reason to change the opinion I 
 have this day expressed, no man would prevent me from altering 
 that opinion ; and no man has a right to endeavour to force me into 
 compliance with his views or practices. Allow me, then, to say 
 that I offer no obstruction to the individuals who are making these 
 movements. I regret the course they are pursuing, and mourn over 
 the results they are impending. If they succeed, our Church is 
 gone ; but still I maintain that the right of private judgment is to 
 
1 60 Concerning Beards 
 
 be defended, and that no man has any title to force others into his 
 views or practices. But, sir, I have to put this very serious ques- 
 tion — Is a man who has taken solemn oaths to maintain the doc- 
 trines of our Church, to maintain its simple ritual, and to follow no 
 divisive courses — is a man who has made this engagement, and who, 
 on the faith of that engagement, has been ordained and inducted to 
 a benefice in the Church, is he entitled to make changes — serious 
 changes, in the doctrines, principles, laws, or worship of the 
 Church ? or, if he does so, is he to continue within the bounds of 
 the Church ? I don't trammel the minds of anyone : I maintain 
 the right of private judgment ; but I say that man is not the right 
 man in the right place. There is, I suppose, room enough for him 
 without — and without he may meet with those who thoroughly 
 conform to his opinions, and sentiments, and practices. I beg it to 
 be understood that I am not calling in question the sincerity of any- 
 one who follows the course which, after serious investigation, he 
 considers to be the right one. But I say his mind cannot be at 
 peace if he keeps within the bounds of this Church — where, because 
 of his declared opinions, opinions tested by an oath, he has been 
 inducted into a benefice, and is entitled by law to draw his stipend. 
 No doubt we may lament secession, but sincerity and honesty, and 
 a regard to oath, demand that these things be not done withm the 
 limits of the Church of Scotland. 
 
 A smart observation was made by Mr Gray, incumbent 
 of an Old Town Edinburgh parish : — 
 
 He was sure they would all agree with what Dr Muir had said as 
 to the right of private judgment, but he felt it might perhaps be 
 -well to carry it a step farther than the reverend doctor had done, 
 and leave to every minister the right of judging for himself whether 
 he could remain within the Church of Scotland or no. 
 
 Here seems to be the kerne] of the question, in a speech 
 by Mr Cumming, a member of Presbytery : — 
 
 Although he confessed that the ground had always seemed to 
 him most narrow ; although he confessed his feelings were strong 
 that, after they gave permission in the Church to a man to prepare 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 161 
 
 his prayers at home and repeat them from memory, they had no 
 sufficient stand-point to prevent him who did that from reading his 
 prayers; if they gave him permission to read his prayers, as Dr 
 Chalmers no doubt did — and did, he believed, when Moderator of 
 the General Assembly — from manuscript, he felt that they had not 
 a sufficient stand-point to prevent him reading them from print ; 
 and if they gave a man permission to read his prayers from print, 
 he did not see where they had a stand-point to prevent a man print- 
 ing them for himself, and those who in the Church might wish 
 them. 
 
 Finally came Dr Lee, the great heresiarch himself. 
 Wonderful are Dr Lee's fluency and cleverness. And 
 indeed, so consummate a master is he of logical fence, 
 that his manifest ease lessens the impression he makes, by 
 taking away the appearance of earnestness that comes 
 when a speaker seems possessed and overwhelmed by his 
 subject. A little floundering for words,; — a little look of 
 being unequal to express what he feels, — might add to 
 the impression made by this speaker. Dr Lee is a Scotch 
 Broad-Churchman : and through his peculiar position and 
 views is able to reach and influence many not usually very 
 impressible by clerical influence. I quote some passages 
 from his speech : — 
 
 As to the liturgy, one would expect in an argument like this 
 some definition of what a liturgy is. According to my under- 
 standing, it is a public document sanctioned by authority, and 
 imposed on all ministers of the Church. Sol would understand by 
 a liturgy. I should like to know what the gentlemen who have 
 spoken to-day understand by a liturgy ? They seem to think that 
 the reading of prayers is a liturgy. Such confusion of ideas is 
 astonishing in a Church court. It is astonishing among sensible 
 men; much more is it astonishing among clergymen of the Church 
 and lawyers. We know what the liturgy of the Church of England 
 
 L 
 
1 62 Concerning Beards. 
 
 is. It is a set of prayers and services, made and sanctioned by 
 public authority, and which every minister is obliged to use. John 
 Knox's liturgy, though not enforced with the same strictness, has the 
 same character, and every liturgy has the same character. Does the 
 fact of a man reading the prayers of his own composition, which he 
 changes as often as he likes, and uses some one day and others the 
 next, which he deals with as he chooses, constitute a liturgy? I 
 really feel ashamed to reply to such confusion of ideas, to give it no 
 stronger term. Suppose you succeed in violating the laws of the 
 Church, and take from me that liberty which I now enjoy, of 
 reading my prayers, what do you make me do ? You compel me 
 to make a much closer approximation to a liturgy than now exists. 
 I should then be compelled to do what other gentlemen do whose 
 consciences I suppose are free from the sin of liturgising, and learn 
 off one of my Sunday's prayers, and repeat it perpetually. I would 
 be compelled to do what some of my brethren do, repeat the same 
 prayer from Sunday to Sunday without one syllable of variation 
 from January to June, and from June to January, during their whole 
 incumbency. I should think the essence of a liturgy, if it is not to 
 be defined, as I have said, is sameness — the continual repetition of 
 the same thing. I maintain, Moderator, that the disuse of reading 
 prayers has had this effect extensively. I do not blame the men 
 who act in the way I have said. There are many men who are not 
 able to speak extempore, and not able to learn off what they have 
 written, and so they are forced to adopt that mode of proceeding 
 which Mr Wallace so pointedly characterises, and in fact to approxi- 
 mate to a liturgy through their very horror of read prayers. I say 
 read prayers are not contrary either to the laws or constitution of 
 the Church, or, properly interpreted, to the traditions of the Church. 
 It is very remarkable that while Knox's Book of Common Order 
 was read for seventy or eighty years, there should not have been 
 one syllable in your proceedings or acts condemning this ; while, 
 on the contrary, the reading of sermons, now a general practice, is 
 directly opposed to the traditions of the Church, and never was 
 heard of till a late period, when the subject was brought before the 
 General Assembly, and when something was said regarding it, to 
 which I beg to call your attention. So late as the year 1726, the 
 Assembly remitted to its Commission an overture anent the method 
 of preaching ; and in a representation and petition, signed by 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 163 
 
 twenty-four influential ministers, laid before the Assembly in 1732, 
 reference is thus made to it: — "There appears much more need 
 for it" — that is, for such an overture or ordinance — "everyday, 
 by reason of several innovations both in the method and strain of 
 preaching introduced by some strangers and young ministers, very 
 displeasing to God's people, and causing no small obstruction to 
 spiritual edification. Nay, a young minister appointed to preach 
 before her Majesty's Commissioner at last Assembly had the assur- 
 ance to add to former innovations that of reading the sermon 
 openly. To other offensive innovations he has added this innova- 
 tion, though he could not but know that it would give great offence 
 both to the ministers and people of this Church, and bring a reflec- 
 tion on the Assembly as if it approved thereof." Now, sir, that is 
 all my answer to the talk about the Church forfeiting its establish- 
 ment. The preaching of sermons by reading them was without 
 precedent in the Church of Scotland. No man ever heard of Knox 
 or any of his followers reading sermons. That was the mode ot 
 conducting worship in 1 690, when the Acts of Security and the 
 Union were passed. If, therefore, your establishment is to be 
 forfeited by reading prayers, it is forfeited accordingly by the reading 
 of sermons. For here is a palpable instance of innovation contrary 
 to the foregoing traditions and the universal practice of the Church 
 of Scotland. Let me ask you, sir, if the reading of a prayer forfeits 
 the establishment, what must the reading of a sermon ? 
 
 Elsewhere he says : — 
 
 Moderator, I have heard to-day, as I have heard many times 
 before, a great deal of denunciation — a very great deal of what I 
 think uncharitable and unwarrantable insinuation ; but though I 
 have listened with anxiety, I have found very little that can by any 
 stretch of courtesy be considered argument or fact. I have been 
 asked how I could remain a minister of the Church and persevere 
 in customs contrary to its laws and its traditions. I ask the gentle- 
 men who have spoken where are these laws ? I have asked them 
 to quote these laws. The General Assembly gave a decision in 
 1859 which has been often referred to, and in which it said that 
 reading prayers was contrary to the laws and usages of the Church. 
 No doubt to its late usages and practices, but I have challenged my 
 opponents again and again, and I challenge them now, to con- 
 
1 64 Concerning Beards. 
 
 descend on the laws which I have broken. When a man is ar- 
 raigned before the civil court, where the forms of justice are 
 observed, and where common regularity is observed in its proceed- 
 ings, the clause of the Act which he has violated is quoted. Why 
 have not these gentlemen quoted the Act which I have violated by 
 reading my own prayers ? I say this is not worthy to be called 
 argument ; it is wild, reckless, unfounded assertion, and nothing 
 more. Do you not know that the Church of Scotland began with 
 a liturgy, and for many years read its prayers ; that the last prayer 
 in which John Knox joined was read, and that in your Acts of 
 Assembly and the proceedings of your Church courts you cannot 
 find one Act or one authoritative proceeding either condemning or 
 discountenancing read prayers? I call on you to produce the laws 
 you allege, and till you have produced them I shall continue to 
 assert that there is none, and that I have broken no law whatever. 
 If I thought I had broken any law, I should certainly be very sorry 
 for having done so, and instantly amend my conduct. Some rhetoric 
 has been added to adorn the rotten argument which has been 
 attempted ; but, sir, this ornament does not conceal the rottenness 
 at all. 
 
 And thus Dr Lee concludes : — 
 
 One would suppose, Moderator, to hear what has been said this 
 afternoon, that some monstrous evil was practised by myself and my 
 congregation. The inspiration of Satan has been referred to as 
 alone sufficient to account for such monstrous doings. I could 
 hardly trust my ears when I heard such things said. What is it 
 that has been done ? It is only that which the Reformers did — 
 which the Church of Scotland did during its earliest and best days. 
 I hope that the Christians of the Church of England are not inspired 
 with the devil when they read their prayers; I hope that John Knox 
 was not inspired with the devil when he composed the Book of 
 Common Order ; and I hope that the Christian Church generally 
 are not under Satanic influence in the conviction which begins to be 
 diffused that an extemporaneous service is not the most edifying, 
 and that it is proper and advantageous to employ compositions — 
 written or printed compositions — during at least part of the service. 
 Why, sir, the application of such phrases, and the allegation of such 
 
Being Thoughts on Progress. 165 
 
 causes, really betray, I think, an extremely weak position, and a 
 very distressing want of plausible argument. 
 
 It is not a pleasure to me, whatever some gentlemen may think 
 or say, to stand in opposition to the Church courts. I feel it pain- 
 ful to be constantly upbraided as if I were a man without any 
 conscience, and as if I did not feel the obligation of vows that I 
 have taken on myself. It is not pleasing to me to be upbraided in 
 that way, and I was anxious to comply with the prejudices which I 
 thought had prevailed in the General Assembly. Accordingly I 
 made various attempts to carry on the public worship without a 
 book, since a book was an offence in the eyes of the Assembly. I 
 endeavoured to carry on the worship otherwise. At one time I 
 could have committed the whole of the book to memory without 
 any difficulty ; but I found from disuse, and I suppose from advanc- 
 ing years, I was no longer able to do it. I took notes with me, and 
 I bungled the service. I do not know whether other people thought 
 it was bungled, but to my apprehension it was. I felt uncomfort- 
 able, and could not do justice to my own ideas. I wrote notes 
 larger and larger simply to assist my memory. This issued in the 
 composition of a new book. That book, thinking it might be use- 
 ful to others, and thinking it was a mere quibble to read the prayers 
 from manuscript instead of from a printed book, I got printed, in- 
 asmuch as it contained the psalms, or what I considered a proper 
 selection from the psalms and paraphrases for singing. It was with 
 that view primarily that the book got into the hands of the congre- 
 gation, the psalms being printed at proper lengths, and the tunes to 
 which they are always sung. The only other alteration is the 
 responses comprehending the Amens at the end of the prayers. I 
 did not think it required the authority of the General Assembly or 
 of the Presbytery to recommend a practice — for I did recommend 
 it — which was sanctioned by the Old Testament and by the New 
 expressly. I did not think I needed to come to the General As- 
 sembly or to the Presbytery, when I had the express authority of 
 the law and the prophets, and of the New Testament itself, for a 
 practice without which public worship wants the very form of con- 
 gregational and public worship. I did not think that any man 
 could suppose that that was a violation of the law ; and I ask where 
 is there anything forbidding such a practice? All Christians 
 throughout the world do it — in the ancient Churches, both Greek 
 
1 6 6 Concern ing Bea rds. 
 
 and Latin, and all Churches which have a worship, the Amen is 
 said ; and I think it would be too ridiculous for me to come here 
 and ask sanction, to do that which you all ought to do and teach 
 your congregations to do. 
 
 The upshot was, that the Presbytery, by a majority, 
 determined not to meddle with Dr Lee. The read 
 prayers, at the Church of Old Greyfriars, have for the 
 moment the tacit sanction of the Presbytery of Edin- 
 burgh. It must be said, however, that the decision has 
 been appealed to the higher Church courts, and is still 
 liable to be reversed. The General Assembly in May 
 will decide the question in the last resort. And there is 
 no Court of Appeal whose decisions are so hard to fore- 
 cast as are those of the General Assembly. 
 
 So things rest meanwhile. Let us trust that good 
 may come out of all this commotion. While it lasts, it 
 tends somewhat to throw more important matters into 
 the shade 
 
 March 1S66. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CONCERNING THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING A 
 CANTANKEROUS FOOL ; WITH SOME THOUGHTS 
 ON THE TREATMENT OF INCAPACITY.* 
 
 REPROACHFUL face of Fraser, here you are 
 again ! Once I hailed you with joy : now I 
 behold you with sorrow, mingled with remorse. Rare 
 were the numbers, once on a time, in which I had not 
 my little share : and my hope for various years was, that 
 this might always go on. But now the months pass, 
 faster and faster : and the magazine comes : and there is 
 nothing of mine in it. Very many were the essays this 
 hand used to write : very few they have been for the last 
 two years. And wherefore is it so t Is it that I have 
 no time to write > Truly never man was harder worked : 
 yet I was worked just as hard when each magazine had 
 its pages of mine. Much worried ? Yes indeed, and 
 liking it always less • yet the tiiiie was when it was relief 
 from worry, to sit down at this table and write away. 
 Is it that I have got nothing more to say ? Not entirely 
 so. Thoughts not unfrequently arise, which in the old 
 
 * This chapter was published in Fraser" s Magazine Tor September 
 1866. 
 
1 68 Concerning the Advantages of 
 
 days would have furnished matter for sixteen pages of 
 feeble reflection. But with advancing time one grows 
 more modest ; and feels less disposed to speak unless sure 
 that one has something to say which is worth hearing. 
 That is the thing. The day comes, when not the friend 
 who pitches into you most viciously in print, thinks so 
 badly of your doings as you think yourself. And instead 
 of desiring to add to the number of your pages, you wish 
 heartily you could blot out many that exist already. 
 When a man reaches forty, he thinks differently of many 
 things. 
 
 Yet let me, once again, try to do something in the old 
 way : before finally resolving to do the like no more. 
 Let me, not unkindly, set forth the praises of Cantankerous 
 and Pig-headed Folly j and show certain reasons why it 
 is profitable to a human being that he be a Cantankerous 
 Fool. 
 
 There are cantankerous fools whom you can keep at 
 arm's length : cantankerous fools with whom you need 
 have nothing to do : cantankerous fools whom having 
 seen once, you need never see again. But human beings 
 are linked by many social ties : not even our gracious 
 Sovereign herself can successfully resolve that she will 
 never have anything to do with anybody she does not 
 like. And very often you find that you cannot escape 
 from many relations with a cantankerous fool; and that 
 you must just make the best of that offensive being. 
 
 Now, how carefully you consider the tempers, the 
 crotchets, the idiotic notions and prejudices, of the can- 
 
 
Being a Cantankerous Fool. 169 
 
 tankerous fool from whom you cannot escape ! As for a 
 human being of good sense and good temper, nobody, in 
 the common transactions of life, minds him. Nobody 
 smoothes him down : pets him : considers him : tries to 
 keep him right. You take for granted he will do right, 
 and act sensibly, without any management. If you are 
 driving a docile and well-tempered horse, who is safe to 
 go straight, you give the animal little thought or atten- 
 tion. But if you have to drive a refractory pig, how much 
 more care and thought you put into that act of driving ! 
 Your wits must be alive : you humour the abominable 
 brute : you try to keep it in a good temper : and when 
 you would fain let fly at its head, or apply to it abusive 
 epithets, you suppress the injurious phrase, and you hold 
 back the ready hand. So with many a human being, 
 whom you are trying to get to act rationally : who hangs 
 back on all kinds of idiotic pretexts, and starts all con- 
 ceivable preposterous objections to the course which com- 
 mon sense dictates : frequently changing his ground, and 
 defying you to pin him to any reason he states, as is the 
 way with such creatures. "When your tongue is ready to 
 exclaim, " O you disgusting and wrong-headed fool, will 
 you not try to behave rationally ? " you withhold the ready 
 and appropriate words : you know that would blow the 
 whole thing up : and you probably say, in friendly tones, 
 " My good fellow, there is a great deal in your objections; 
 and we have all the greatest desire to do what you may 
 wish : but then there are A, and B, difficult men to deal 
 with : and in this little matter, you must just let us do 
 
1 70 Concerning the Advantages of 
 
 what has been arranged. Pray do this, and we shall all 
 be very greatly obliged to you." Perhaps you even de- 
 grade yourself by suggesting to the cantankerous fool 
 reasons which you know to be of no weight, but which 
 your knowledge of the fool makes you think may have 
 weight with his idiotic mind. By little bits of deference 
 and attention, rendered with a smooth brow, beneath 
 which lurks the burning desire to take him by the neck 
 and shake him, you seek to keep straight the inevitable 
 cantankerous fool. Yes, my reader, if you want to be 
 deferred to, humoured, made much of: if you want to 
 have everybody about you trying to persuade you to act 
 as a sensible man would act without any persuasion ; and 
 everybody quite pleased and happy if you have been got 
 after much difficulty into the right track ; see that you set 
 yourself before that portion of mankind that cannot get 
 rid of you, in the important and influential character of 
 an ill-tempered and wrong-headed fool. 
 
 The jibbing horse in the team : the loose screw in the 
 machine : the weak link of the chain : they are the im- 
 portant things. People think of them : watch them : 
 stand a good deal to keep them right. As Brutus 
 shammed himself a fool for protection, so might a wise 
 man in these days sham himself a fool for consideration. 
 Don't be sensible and good-natured : nobody will be afraid 
 of your taking the pet and getting into the sulks, then. 
 But be always taking offence : striking work : refusing to 
 go where you ought: and you will meet the highest 
 consideration. People may indeed confound you behind 
 
Being a Cantankerous Fool. 1 7 1 
 
 your back : but before your face they will be civil to a 
 degree they never would be with an amiable and judicious 
 man. You see, you may explode at any moment. You 
 may lie down in the shafts at any moment. You may 
 kick out furiously at any moment. So all hands will try 
 to keep you in good humour. 
 
 The human being who is called a Privileged Person is 
 generally a cantankerous fool. Sometimes, indeed, the 
 privileged person is so privileged because of the possession 
 of invaluable qualities which make you bear with any- 
 thing he says and does. Even where these are amiss, 
 they are so magnificently counterbalanced. But the can- 
 tankerous fool from whom there is no escaping, is the 
 most privileged of all privileged people. No matter how 
 ill-bred and provoking he is, you must just suffer it. No 
 matter how far in the wrong he is, you must just try to 
 smooth him down and make things straight. If you get 
 into any altercation or difference with the fool, you are at 
 a great disadvantage. He has no character to lose : but 
 you probably have a reputation for good sense and good 
 humour which any conspicuous disturbance would damage. 
 Then, restrictions of decency in language and conduct 
 fetter you, which are to the fool what the green rushes 
 were to Samson. You could not for your life get up and 
 roar, as you have seen the fool get up and roar. 
 
 If you know a man will bellow like a bull if you differ 
 from him in opinion, you just listen to his opinion and hold 
 your tongue. If you know a dog bites, you give him a 
 wide berth. If a ditch be very pestiferous when stirred 
 
172 Concerning the Advantages of 
 
 up, you don't stir it up. The great principle on which 
 the privileges of cantankerous folly and ill-nature found is 
 this : that as we go on through life we grow somewhat 
 cowardly : and if a thing be disagreeable, we just keep 
 out of its way : sometimes by rather shabby expedients. 
 
 Well, after all, the deference paid to the cantankerous 
 fool is not a desirable deference. True it is, that if you 
 have to get twelve men to concur with you in a plan for 
 bringing water into the town of which you are chief 
 magistrate, or painting the church of which you are in- 
 cumbent, or making some improvement in the manage- 
 ment of the college of which you are principal, you bestow 
 more pains and thought on the one impracticable, stupid, 
 wrongheaded, and cantankerously foolish person of the 
 twelve, than upon all the other eleven. But this is just 
 because you treat that impracticable and cantankerous 
 person as you would treat a baby, or an idiot, or a bulldog, 
 or a jackass. The apparent deference you pay the can- 
 tankerous man, is simply an inferior degree of the same 
 thing that makes you confess yourself a teapot if a raving 
 madman has you at an open window, and says he will 
 throw you over unless you forthwith confess yourself a 
 teapot. Pigheaded folly is so disagreeable a thing, that 
 you would do a good deal to keep it from intruding itself 
 upon your reluctant gaze,- and the cantankerous fool, 
 petted, smoothed down, complimented, deferred to, is 
 truly in the most degraded position a rational being can 
 easily reach. " O let us humour him : he is only Snooks 
 the cantankerous fool)" "Give in to him a little: he 
 
Being a Cautankeroits Fool. i J 3 
 
 will make no end of a row if you don't : " such are the 
 reflections of the people who yield to him. If he had 
 any measure of sense, he would see how degraded is his 
 position : what a humiliating thing it is to be deferred to 
 on the terms on which he is deferred to. But the notion 
 of the presence of sense is excluded by the very terms of 
 his definition. For how can there be sense in a can- 
 tankerous fool ? 
 
 All this, the thoughtful reader sees, leads us up to the 
 wide and important subject of the Treatment of Incapa- 
 city. That varies, in the most striking way, as the posi- 
 tion of the incapable person varies. 
 
 If a servant, lately come home, proves quite unfit for 
 his work, you first scold him -, and if that avail nothing, 
 then you send him away. If the grocer who supplies you 
 with tea and sugar, persists in supplying you with exe- 
 crably bad tea and sugar, you resign your position as his 
 customer : you enter his shop no more. But if the in- 
 capable person is in a sufficiently important place 5 and 
 cannot be turned out of it ; the treatment is entirely dif- 
 ferent. You stand up for the man. You puff him. You 
 deny that he is incapable. You say he is " a very good 
 appointment," however abominably bad you know him 
 to be. The useless judge you declare to be a sound 
 lawyer, whose modesty hinders the general recognition of 
 merits. The clergyman who neglects his duty shamefully, 
 and whose sermons no man can listen to, you declare to 
 be a good sensible preacher, with no claptrap about him : 
 none of your new brooms that sweep far too clean. The 
 
174 Concerning the Advantages of 
 
 blackleg peer, drunk, profligate, a moral nuisance and 
 curse, is described as a pattern of all the proprieties. As 
 for the hardly conceivable monarch, such as Gorgius IV. 
 of Brentford, who never did a brave or good deed in all 
 his life, he takes his rank as the first gentleman in Europe. 
 Yes : the peculiar treatment of the wrong man in the 
 wrong place (by cautious and safe people), is loudly to 
 declare that he is the right man in the right place. The 
 higher the place he disgraces, the louder and firmer the 
 asseveration. And if any man speaks out the fact of the 
 incapacity which all men see, then you bully that man. 
 You fly at him. You abuse him. You tell him his con- 
 duct is indecorous : is indecent. You declare that it is 
 not to be supposed that what he says is true : being all 
 the while well aware that it is true. 
 
 If a poor curate be idle and stupid, so stupid that he 
 could not do his work if he tried, and so idle that he will 
 not try, that poor curate is sent away. But if the incum- 
 bent of a rather important parish be all that, you go on a 
 different tack. You say his health is not good. His 
 church is not empty : on the contrary, it is very respect- 
 ably attended. It strikes a stranger indeed as empty; 
 but those who attend it regularly (especially the incom- 
 petent incumbent himself) think it very fairly filled; and 
 of course they are the best judges. This crucial case will 
 help the ingenious reader to the great principle which 
 decides the treatment of incapacity. It is this. An E\il 
 you can remove, you look in the face. You see how bad 
 it is. You even exaggerate its badness. But an Evil you 
 
Being a Cantankerous Fool. 175 
 
 cannot get rid of, you try not to see. You seek to dis- 
 cover redeeming points about it. If you have a crooked 
 stick to walk with, and cannot get another, you make the 
 best of the crooked stick : you persuade yourself it is 
 nearly straight. But if a handsome stick is offered you in 
 its place, you pitch the wretched old thing away. Your 
 eyes are opened to a full sense of its crookedness. In 
 brief, the great rule is, that you make the best of a bad 
 bargain. 
 
 Many married people have to do so. They are well 
 aware that in marrying, they made an unhappy mistake. 
 But they just try to struggle on : though the bitter blunder 
 is felt every day. One great evil of the increased facility 
 of divorce in these latter days, is, that it tends to make 
 men and women hastily conclude that a state of things is 
 intolerable, which while deemed inevitable was borne with 
 decent resignation. You try to put a good face on the 
 trouble which cannot be redressed. You " make believe 
 very much ; " as all human beings have at some period of 
 life in regard to their worldly position ; the situation of 
 their home ; the state of their teeth - 3 the incursions of 
 age on their personal beauty. You were resolved to 
 believe your dwelling a handsome and pleasant one 5 and 
 your place in life not such a dead failure as in your 
 desponding hours you plainly saw it to be. And who but 
 a malignant fool would try to dispel the kindly delusion 
 which keeps a man from quite breaking down ? If your 
 friend Smith was in his own eyes what he is in yours, 
 he would lie down and die; overcome by his sense of 
 
176 Concerning the Advantages of 
 
 being such a wretched little jackass. My friend Jones 
 told me that once upon a time, attending a sitting of the 
 House of Peers in Mesopotamia in America, he heard a 
 man make a speech, every sentence of which cried aloud 
 that the speaker was an inexpressible fool. At first, Jones 
 was indignant at the speaker's manifest self-satisfaction. 
 But gradually Jones became reconciled to the state of facts 
 as this consideration presented itself to his reflective un- 
 derstanding : That if the unhappy orator had thought of 
 himself and his appearance as Jones thought of both, he 
 would have fled to the remote wilderness and never been 
 seen more ! 
 
 How are you to manage a cantankerous fool? If 
 possible, you will of course avoid such. But how are you 
 to deal with those whom you cannot avoid? Well, I 
 know it does not sound magnanimous : but I fear you can 
 govern the cantankerous fool only by careful consideration 
 of his nature ; and adaptation of your means to that. I 
 mean, you will not suggest to him reasons of conduct 
 which would have weight only with men of sense. It 
 you want to melt a piece of wax, you bring it in contact 
 with fire. But if you do the like with a piece of clay, the 
 clay is hardened, not softened. In like manner, there are 
 arguments and considerations which would make a man of 
 good sense and temper go to the right, which would make 
 the cantankerous fool go to the left. What profit, then, in 
 suggesting to the fool motives which his nature incapaci- 
 tates him for understanding? You must deal with the 
 animal as you find him : move him by the things that will 
 
Being a Cantankerous Fool. 177 
 
 make him move. The whipcord, which makes the 
 donkey go, has no effect when applied to the locomotive 
 engine : yet the whipcord serves its end when it makes the 
 donkey go. And the reason which, being suggested to 
 the sensible man, would make him ask you if you thought 
 him a fool, will often avail to move the fool in the direc- 
 tion in which you would have him proceed. 
 
 I can see plainly that in thus managing the can- 
 tankerous fool, you run the risk of falling to the use of 
 means savouring of the base. But no rule can be laid 
 down which may not be carried to an extreme. And we 
 can but say, never say or do that which is sneaking or 
 dishonest : even though by so doing you could get the 
 fool to behave like a man of sense for many hours, or at 
 the most critical juncture. I do not believe that honesty 
 is the best policy. I have seen many cases in which it 
 was plainly the worst. Yet honesty is unquestionably 
 the thing for an honest man. And let the advice, to 
 govern the fool by regarding his nature, be understood as 
 counselling you to do so, as far as an honest man may. 
 
 The truth is, you govern by obeying. You get mate- 
 rial nature to do what you want, by finding out its laws, 
 and conforming to them. If you desire to order water to 
 boil, you command it so to do by obeying the law which 
 says, that water shall boil, being placed upon a fire. If 
 you would require a field to supply you in September 
 with a crop of wheat, you do so by obeying the field's 
 nature in many ways : ploughing the field (which it de- 
 mands of you) : sowing it, and that in the due season : in 
 
 M 
 
i j 8 Concerning the Advantages of 
 
 short, you humour that field in its likings ; and in return 
 for humouring its likings, you get the field to do what 
 you like. So with the fool : so, in truth, with the wise 
 man too. All this is fair and aboveboard. But when 
 you come to manage the fool by means analogous to that 
 of him, who knowing his pig would advance only in the 
 opposite direction from that he desired, affected the desire 
 that the pig should go north when the deep craving of his 
 heart was that the pig should indeed go south, — you are 
 going on a tack whose honesty is questionable. 
 
 There is a process, singularly offensive to the writer, 
 of which one sometimes hears mention. It is that of 
 keeping people sweet : such is the idiomatic phrase. 
 It is a process not needful in the case of sensible people, 
 who have no tendency to turn sour : it is a mode of opera- 
 tion especially applicable in the case of the cantankerous 
 fool. It consists in paying special deference to the person 
 to be kept sweet : in going frequently and asking his advice 
 on matters as to which you have already made up your 
 mind, and as to which you know well his opinion is of no 
 possible value : in trying to smooth him down when he 
 takes the pet, as he often does : in making many calls 
 upon him : in conveying by many tacit signs that you 
 esteem him as very wise, very handsome, very influential. 
 I have used the masculine gender through the last sen- 
 tence : though the peculiar usage described is much em- 
 ployed in the case of old women of pecuniary means. 
 Sometimes, indeed, old women of no wealth nor influ- 
 ence wish people to take pains to keep them sweet : but 
 
 
Being a Cantankerous Fool. 1 79 
 
 in these instances the old women are generally permitted 
 just to remain in a condition of unalleviated acidity. 
 
 O judicious reader, wise and amiable, and not uninnu- 
 ential, receive it as a high testimony to your sense and 
 temper, if no human being tries to keep you sweet ! 
 For in all ordinary cases, the fact that you try to keep 
 any mortal sweet, testifies to your firm conviction that the 
 mortal in question is a silly if not a cantankerous fool ! 
 
 But let us turn from these thoughts, some of which 
 are irritating, to something sure to soothe. It is now 
 11.30 p.m., and it is early in July. Alas, the time of 
 green leaves and bright days, how fast it goes ! Let us 
 pull up the blind that covers part of that bay-window, 
 and look out upon the calm night, from which the day- 
 light has not quite passed away. First, there is a little 
 bit of grass : beyond, at the foot of a cliff of forty feet, 
 the famous Bay. There it spreads, smooth as glass in the 
 twilight : a great solitary expanse. Beyond, many miles 
 off, there is a long range of purple hills. Under those 
 waters rests that noble chime of bells that belonged to 
 our cathedral : the bells went down with the vessel which 
 was carrying them away. To this sacred spot Christian 
 pilgrims have come for fifteen hundred years : a good 
 many of them, not improbably, being cantankerous fools. 
 And looking on the calm sea, amid this hush of nature : 
 thinking of the solemn associations of the ancient place j 
 the writer heard twelve o'clock sound from silvery bells 
 that were here before the Reformation, and concluded 
 that it was time to go to bed. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONCERNING THE TREATMENT OF SUCH AS 
 DIFFER FROM US IN OPINION. 
 
 ON Sunday, November u, i86<5, public worship was 
 being conducted at the parish church of St Mark, 
 in the city of Dublin. The time came when the sermon 
 was to be preached. The preacher was the present Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin : the learned, able, and judicious Dr 
 Richard Chenevix Trench. When the Archbishop had 
 ascended the pulpit, and was just about to read out his 
 text, it is recorded that three hundred young men of most 
 respectable appearance arose 5 and without tumult or 
 other demonstration, left the church in a body. No doubt 
 the congregation must have been disturbed, and the 
 preacher astonished. 
 
 The reason why these respectable young men so acted 
 was, that the Archbishop, in a charge lately delivered by 
 him, had expressed certain opinions which they disap- 
 proved. Nobody can be more disinterested than I am, in 
 looking at the suggestive event : for I have not the faintest 
 idea as to what the opinions were which the Archbishop 
 expressed and the young men disapproved. Nor do I 
 
Concerning the Treatment, &c. 181 
 
 express any judgment whatever as to the conduct of either 
 the young men or the Archbishop. All I say is, here is 
 one way of treating a man who differs from you in opinion. 
 It is simple : and your protest cannot fail to be remarked 
 by many. 
 
 It was a charge, in which the Archbishop had managed 
 to give offence to those young men. It must therefore 
 have been delivered in a church. And the decorous rules 
 of such a place hindered a certain rough and ready method 
 of expressing disapproval of what was said in it. The 
 auditors, elsewhere, and in listening to an ordinary speech 
 or address, might have signified that they did not agree 
 with what was being said, by hissing it. Though that 
 sound may fall unpleasantly on the speaker's ear, I do not 
 know that he has any right to complain of it as offensive. 
 It is the understood way in which an audience tells a 
 speaker, " Now, we don't agree with what you are say- 
 ing." And the intensity and endurance of the sibilation 
 will be the measure of the degree in which the opinions 
 expressed are in themselves disagreeable, or are made dis- 
 agreeable by a disagreeable way of expressing them. For 
 there is no doubt at all, that though as a general rule we 
 have no right to be angry with a man for holding a dif- 
 ferent view from ourselves on any subject, yet he may 
 express his views in so offensive a way as shall give us just 
 reason to be angry with him. He may express them in 
 an abusive and insolent way. He may convey to us that 
 we are fools for not thinking as he does 3 or even that we 
 are villains. And some readers know, that the law of the 
 
1 82 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 land recognises the distinction between opinions temper- 
 ately expressed, and the same opinions offensively ex 
 pressed. Thus, if a man in these days sets forth views 
 which traverse our most cherished religious beliefs, — even 
 views which may be properly called blasphemous, — the 
 law will not touch him if he do so in a temperate way, 
 and in the interest of what he deems truth. But if he 
 set forth his views with the manifest purpose of outraging 
 the feelings of a Christian community, he will be pun- 
 ished. I mention an extreme case. But we all know, 
 that there are people who can express opinions very dif- 
 ferent from our own, in so candid, fair, and good-natured 
 a way, that no one can take offence. And there are 
 people, too, who by want of tact, temper, and considera- 
 tion for the feelings of others, are sure, in setting forth 
 their opinions, to excite bitter animosity in an opponent's 
 mind. 
 
 Shall it be confessed, in beginning, that we have all a 
 natural tendency to get angry with those who will not 
 think as we do ? Shall it be confessed, that the history 
 of mankind shows, that difference in opinion, as to im- 
 portant matters, is one of the bitterest of all offences ; and 
 is visited with punishments of diverse degrees, varying 
 from ceasing to ask a human being to dinner or even to 
 tea, to the cutting off of his head or the burning him at 
 the stake? Must it be admitted, that agreement in 
 opinion, in tastes and likings, is often felt as one of the 
 greatest compliments you can pay a man ? You know 
 how a skiful person once gained the favour of a minister 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 18 
 
 o 
 
 of state whose tastes were most anomalous in the matter 
 of waistcoats, by appearing before him in a waistcoat too 
 bright to look upon, a waistcoat of the most extraordinary 
 shape and hue, yet which in shape and hue was identical 
 with that worn by the minister of state himself. Is there 
 truth in the suggestion, that a way to the Highland heart 
 may be won by professing and of course feeling great 
 admiration for the harmonious tones of the bagpipe j or, 
 as an eminent French writer renders it, the bugpipe? 
 May I here publicly and humbly confess, that a human 
 being always rises in my estimation who expresses an en- 
 thusiastic admiration for the vast and venerable church in 
 which I preach ? Few human beings, alas, are found so 
 to do ! Now, everybody knows the story of Charles V. 
 and his clocks : how that great emperor, who had ruled 
 a large part of Europe during a very stirring and critical 
 part of its religious and intellectual history, and tried to 
 get men or to force men to think alike on matters religious 
 and ecclesiastical, began to see that he had been trying to 
 do a vain thing and an impossible one, when he found he 
 could not get a few time-pieces to agree in what they 
 said as to the hour of the day. My readers and I have 
 doubtless arrived at the emperor's conclusion, though by 
 different steps from his. Living among people whose 
 irresistible bent is to think for themselves, we have learned, 
 by abundant experience, that people will not think all in 
 the same way. I can say sincerely, and I doubt not 
 every one who reads this page could say the like, that I 
 cannot think of a single man among those I know, with 
 
184 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 whose opinions I agree on every point. But in speaking 
 of people with whom we agree, and from whom we 
 differ, I mean of course those in whose case our agreement 
 or our difference concerns something which we hold as of 
 importance. Thus a Whig in politics differs from a Tory : 
 a Dissenter in ecclesiastical matters differs from a Church- 
 man. And, seeing that people will differ, no doubt it is 
 a natural thing to draw off from people who differ from 
 us, and to live in the congenial atmosphere of the society 
 of people with whom we agree. When you feel that you 
 are at antipodes with a man on almost all points you can 
 talk of, you naturally feel you cannot get on with him ; 
 and so draw off from him. And there is something very 
 irritating about a person who is always wanting to prove 
 by argument that your opinions are wrong, or that some 
 statement you make to him cannot possibly be accurate. 
 Such a human being provokes you, whether he is merely 
 insisting that the day is warm when you have said it is 
 cold ; or persistently worrying you to bring your pet pre- 
 judice to the test of argument, — worrying you to take 
 down again from the shelf opinions on which your mind 
 is made up, and which you do not want to have unsettled. 
 And, on the other hand, it is very pleasant and hearty to 
 converse with an intelligent person with whom you are 
 in thorough sympathy ; not in greater opinions merely, 
 but even in lesser tastes and likings. Only a few days 
 since, I felt a favour was done me, when a very eminent 
 authoress told me she loved and enjoyed Gothic architec- 
 ture, and positively hated classical. It was very pleasant. 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 185 
 
 There was all the difference between concord and discord 
 in music. Yes, sympathy, strongly felt, on even one im- 
 portant point, is a strong tie. You remember the con- 
 clusion to which ascertained agreement in liking conducted 
 an historical or perhaps mythical man. " Do you like 
 butter-toast ? " he is recorded to have demanded of a 
 certain lady. " Yes," was her reply. " Will you marry 
 me ? " was the instant and decisive sequence. When I 
 once heard a man say that Glasgow Cathedral was " a 
 great ugly gaol of a place," I felt it as a blow. Not a 
 very hard one : for I instantly formed a calculation what 
 that man's opinion was worth : but still a blow. So with 
 a friend who told me that an organ in a church was an 
 idol, and a rag of popery. There may be some readers, 
 not confined in any place of restraint, who think that : 
 frankly, I should get on better with the others, who 
 think differently. You are very much disappointed when 
 a person you know and like, declares that he thinks 
 differently from you, perhaps on some question on which 
 you made sure he would agree with you. You find it 
 difficult to refrain from feeling and showing displeasure. 
 Yet, if you be what you ought to be, you do refrain. 
 For your friend has just as good a right to his opinion as 
 you have to yours : and possibly his opinion may be as 
 near the truth as yours. I don't mind confiding to the 
 reader, in the strictest confidence, and on the understand- 
 ing that it shall never be repeated, a special form of irrita- 
 tion, peculiar to the Scotch clergy. It is to sit in the 
 General Assembly, when a vote is being taken on a sub- 
 
1 86 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 ject on which you feel strongly. The fewer of these the 
 better for yourself let me say. The vote there, probably 
 you do not know, is taken by calling over the roll of the 
 names of the members : then each says how he votes. 
 Well, it is provoking to listen to the roll being read on 
 and on ; and to hear this man and that who you were 
 sure would go with you, going the other way. You feel 
 just a little angry : and perhaps you form an unjust and 
 uncharitable estimate of the man's opinion who differs 
 from you. " I remember that man at college," you think 
 to yourself : "yes, I remember his standing there, very 
 distinctly : and an awful blockhead he was." And when 
 you happen to be one of a minority, you doubtless please 
 yourself with the belief that Time is with you -, and that 
 the day will come when all intelligent mortals will think 
 on that question as you think now. 
 
 Now, no doubt, to think wrong, is wrong ; and deserves 
 blame. Nobody has a right to form a wrong opinion. 
 But we have learned that great lesson of toleration which 
 the world took many ages to learn ; that for his honest 
 belief, man is indeed responsible, but responsible only to 
 his Maker. There is no infallible authority here, to which 
 we can go and have all our little differences decided 5 
 and in all his beliefs, beyond the very few which are vital, 
 and as to which inspiration has spoken explicitly, the 
 wise man knows that however strongly he holds them, he 
 may be wrong ; and that some day he may see that. It 
 hinders me from being so keen a churchman as I might be 
 disposed to be, when I see that very wise and good men 
 
As differ from tts in Opinion. 187 
 
 think on the matter just the other way : and when I see, 
 too, that Almighty God looks on at us, going through 
 life thinking so differently, and vouchsafes to us no unmis- 
 takable information which of us is right. Perhaps I learn 
 from that, that the difference is not one to make any 
 very bitter fight about : that a larger and more dispas- 
 sionate view would show us both right and both wrong. 
 For the vexatious thing in this world is, that in any com- 
 plicated question, the reasons will not point all in the 
 same direction : and what are you to do when there are 
 fifteen reasons for going to the right and sixteen for going 
 to the left : reasons which you have not simply to count, 
 but (what is far more difficult) to weigh ? And yet, with 
 all that, you cannot give or get liberty of thought in the 
 sense in which some able and thoughtful men desire it : 
 that is, leave to hold and express any views, however 
 dangerous to morality and society, without anybody think- 
 ing the less of you for it. Some opinions, however 
 honestly held and calmly expressed, bring discredit 5 and 
 justly. There are views, which show not merely a wrong 
 head, but some moral perversion. The man who teaches, 
 honestly or not, that it is right to sell men or women, 
 like inferior animals : to recognise no marriage-tie among 
 them : to make them work under the lash for you, and 
 not for themselves : to deny them every human claim : 
 that man shall never be friend of mine. There was a 
 man, a year or two ago, who maintained by argument 
 that he had a perfect right to murder his wife and chil- 
 dren, and who acted on that belief. Society said to him, 
 
1 88 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 " We shall not discuss the question with you : only your 
 ways of thinking and ours are so opposed, that it is plain 
 we cannot both go on together : and as you are in the 
 minority, you must. give way: so we shall hang you." 
 Thus society hanged him : and it unquestionably served 
 him right. 
 
 There is a difficulty here, of course : I find difficulties 
 now in most things. The days are past in which one was 
 quite sure of everything. Sometimes society thus puts 
 down opinions which are right and sound opinions ; only 
 in advance of the average belief of the age. " Are the 
 Mormons good people or bad?" lately asked a friend of 
 mine of a class in a school he was examining. " Bad," 
 replied a little boy, with decision. "Why bad?" "Be- 
 cause they say people may have a great many wives." 
 Thus the Mormons were declared bad for an opinion 
 they hold. And doubtless it is so desirable to prevent 
 that opinion from being generally accepted, that it is well 
 to crush it by the readiest means within reach. But, on 
 the other side, books have been burnt by the hangman, 
 because they set out opinions which all intelligent people 
 now accept as true and right. Martin Luther was deemed 
 by multitudes a bad man, for teaching what we all believe. 
 John Knox was deemed by many a bad and dangerous 
 man, for declaring opinions whose result has been to 
 make us civilly and religiously free. <l To meddle with 
 the Corn Laws would be madness," said Lord Melbourne, 
 being then Prime Minister. Yet it was not madness, but 
 sense. To emancipate a certain large class of our country- 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 189 
 
 men from cruel penal laws would be a national sin : so, 
 once on a time, declared many worthy men and worthy 
 old women. By and by, the nation discerned that it was 
 not a sin, but a duty. " Some day, the king's mails will 
 go by railway, and railways will be the great high-roads 
 of this country:" so said old George Stephenson: and 
 for thinking so and saying so, he was hounded down as 
 a mischievous fool. Read the reports of the abuse heaped 
 on that great man, before the Committee of Parliament 
 on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway : and you will 
 see how perilous a thing it is for a man to be a great deal 
 wiser than his generation. Yes, it is an awful charge to 
 be the only man that knows some great truth, flatly 
 opposed to the common way of thinking. Either you 
 must be a miserable sneak, shamming a conformity with 
 errors and prejudices you despise : or you must set your 
 face to a lifelong strife, obloquy, and misrepresentation ; — 
 and then, when your views are triumphant at last, likely 
 enough see some smart dodger gain the credit which was 
 your due. 
 
 Let us go on to think of some of the ways in which 
 people have been found to treat such as differed from 
 them in opinion. 
 
 I live in an ancient and famous city, in which one is 
 often reminded of a very short and simple way of dealing 
 with such. It was to burn them. Thus they and their 
 opinions together were got rid of, as the people who 
 burnt them thought. Vain belief! You might burn 
 the men : you did not get rid of their opinions. Every 
 
190 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 soul that now dwells in that city where these heroic men 
 were burnt, now holds just the beliefs for holding which 
 they thus perished : every soul whose opinion is worth 
 a straw. The martyrs were put to death for insisting 
 (among other things) that bread was bread ; and that no 
 spells which were muttered over it could make it any- 
 thing else but bread. (( Ignorant authority," to use the 
 words of the most eloquent of living historians, "said 
 ' The bread is flesh and the wine is blood : we will kill 
 you if you say it is not.' A sufficient number of noble- 
 minded men were found to accept the alternative; and 
 to prefer death to admitting what they knew to be a lie." 
 Well, that way of treating such as differ from us in 
 opinion, will not do now. People's lives are often better 
 than their principles : and though there still remains in 
 Europe a certain ruler, the head of a great confederation 
 of people, who, according to his principles, ought to burn 
 all who differ from him on various matters whenever he 
 can, he never would think, now, of doing so. Let me 
 say, frankly, he durst not. His place would not be worth 
 a week's purchase if he burnt just one heretic. But be- 
 sides this wholesome check upon any fancies he might 
 take into his head (for it is a great thing in this world to 
 make it impossible for a man to do what is wrong : in 
 that case we may with some confidence make sure that 
 he will not do it), I believe, most sincerely, that the good 
 old man would regard the burning of a heretic with just 
 as much horror as we should. Dr Newman tells us that 
 however right it might be, the sight of a Spanish Act of 
 
As differ fr 07n us in Opinion. 191 
 
 Faith would have been the death of him. Nobody really 
 proposes now to burn people for difference of belief: 
 though some are still silly enough to justify such burning. 
 And I cannot pass this without declaring, that if any man, 
 even of those to whom we owe (under God's over-ruling 
 providence) even the most precious parts of that civil and 
 religious liberty we possess, taught that to burn those who 
 held erroneous theological belief was the right treatment 
 of them, therein that man was miserably wrong. And I 
 don't care a rush though his name was Calvin ; I don't 
 care a rush though his name was Knox. 
 
 Now, I wonder, does any one think that because burn- 
 ing is for the present over, the spirit which prompted 
 burning is exorcised ? What was that spirit ? It was 
 the spirit which grew out of this belief j that there are 
 certain opinions and practices so perilous to the exist- 
 ing state of things, or the state of things which you 
 desire, that by any means whatever they must be put 
 down. By burning, if nothing else will do. Of course, 
 if knocking on the head would suffice, then by knock- 
 ing on the head. If blowing up with gunpowder would 
 do, then by blowing up with gunpowder. If mis- 
 representation, and abuse, and calling bad names would 
 suffice, then by misrepresentation, and abuse, and calling 
 bad names. In short, whenever you try to bully a man 
 out of his opinion instead of reasoning him out of it : 
 whenever you attempt any form or degree of physical or 
 moral intimidation j you are showing that you would 
 burn an opponent, if you had the chance, and if you 
 
19 2 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 durst. Well, is intimidation ever attempted towards those 
 who differ from us in opinion ? 
 
 I read the other day, in an ancient manuscript, how an 
 eminent politician (in Ethiopia of course, for I make no 
 reference whatever to British politics), said, in a speech 
 delivered by him at a large and excited meeting, that 
 another politician who thought differently from himself 
 and those he was addressing, was only safe in that town 
 in concealment. What did that mean ? Perhaps it meant 
 merely that if openly there, he would be sought out, and 
 by cogent reasoning, expressed in civil language, con- 
 vinced how erroneous was his present belief. Perhaps 
 the savage yells with which the orator's words were re- 
 ceived, were the indication, on the part of calm logicians, 
 that they felt how triumphantly they could refute the 
 man's views, and bring him to their way of thinking. If 
 so, I can but regret that the first reading of the eminent 
 politician's words conveyed an entirely different suggestion 
 to my mind. I read the other day, not in an ancient 
 manuscript, how a man, a working man, who thought 
 differently from his brother-workers at the same trade, 
 and acted on his opinion, had something in the nature of 
 a shell charged with gunpowder thrown into his house, 
 which blew the house to pieces, though by God's mercy 
 it killed no one. It was meant, plainly, to kill all. I 
 have read how at the election for the burgh of Melipo- 
 tamus, an unpopular candidate had his skull fractured by 
 a large stone, thrown by some one who plainly thought 
 that his arguments were better addressed to the outside 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 193 
 
 of an opponent's head. I am not going to say more of 
 this peculiar treatment of such as differ from us in opinion : 
 except that those who approve it, need not find fault with 
 the Inquisition, and may well cherish the memory of a 
 certain Cardinal Beton. Let not the pot call the kettle 
 black. 
 
 Not such extreme cases are now to be thought of. 
 Only such treatment of such as differ in opinion as very 
 passably respectable persons may be found to resort to. 
 One mode of treatment known in the middle ages but 
 quite unknown now, was to tell lies about an opponent : 
 to repeat things to his prejudice which you may not 
 exactly be quite sure are false, but which you strongly 
 suspect to be so, and which a very little examination 
 would prove to be so. For example, a man in Scotland 
 has an organ in his church. You disapprove of organs. 
 Accordingly, you write a letter to a newspaper stating 
 that the man has left off preaching sermons in church, 
 and instead reads bits of a book entitled Ecce Homo. Of 
 course th>s is a falsehood ; and you might most easily 
 ascertain that it is one: but it tends to show that the man 
 with the organ is a fool ; and accordingly you propagate 
 the falsehood. My friend Mr Smith has a very fine 
 organ in his church, which is remarkably well played, 
 and delights everybody. One day he chanced to be 
 travelling by railway many miles from his home : when, 
 on the train stopping at a station, his ear was caught by 
 the mention of his own church's name. He looked : and 
 lo, two horribly ugly and malignant-looking old women 
 
 N 
 
194 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 were bitterly inveighing against organs. Said one to the 
 other, " Oh, the organ at St Ananias ! Such a miserable 
 failure ! Half the Sundays they can't get anybody to play 
 it at all : and when the organist comes, it is most abomin- 
 able. None of your gewgaws for me!" My friend 
 listened in silence, and heard a series of the most out- 
 rageous falsehoods related about himself. Had I been 
 he, I should have told the ugly old woman who I was, 
 and demanded her authority. You know how the mother 
 of Dr Chalmers stopped ill-natured gossip among her 
 acquaintance. When an acquaintance A. came and told 
 her something bad about another acquaintance B., she in- 
 stantly said : " Oh, I don't think that can be true : but I 
 shall just put on my bonnet and go over to Mrs B. and 
 ask her whether it is true ; and tell her you told me about 
 it!" Ah, how eagerly the acquaintance A. repudiated 
 such a course ! It was pleasant enough to tell the malig- 
 nant lie : but quite another thing to be brought to book 
 for it. And rarely did any acquaintance come to Mrs 
 Chalmers a second time with a piece of ill-natured gossip. 
 I fear it cannot be denied that in the middle ages, — say 
 from the twelfth century to the fifteenth, — the conversa- 
 tion of low-minded people used to consist to a very great 
 degree of retailing malignant bits of gossip to the preju- 
 dice of those who thought differently from themselves. 
 Of course, in the nineteenth century, this has entirely 
 ceased. 
 
 There are men, incapable of telling a falsehood, who 
 will cut the persons who presume to think differently 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 195 
 
 from them. To differ from them in opinion is a per- 
 sonal and grievous offence. Vote against such a one in a 
 deliberative assembly : and though a little before he 
 seemed your dearest friend, now he passes you without 
 notice. Quite lately, I heard a most worthy clergyman 
 say, that such a person, who had published a volume of 
 unsound theology, had come to live near him. " We 
 used to be great friends/' he said ; " but of course now I 
 don't recognise him on the street." I confess I doubted 
 whether this was the right way to reclaim the heretic. 
 Yet people in a humble walk follow the example. " If 
 you say that, I have done with you ! " And history tells 
 of an old Tory lady, who said to her son, " If you turn a 
 Whig, there is no room for you in this house." 
 
 Quite as injudicious a treatment of the friend who 
 honestly and frankly differs from you, is to sulk in a 
 corner, as it were : to draw off from him : to decline to 
 discuss your difference of opinion with him. Possibly 
 this peculiar treatment is the most irritating of all : at 
 least to a manly and generous mind. You go to the 
 friend from whom you have differed : you say how sorry 
 you are that you don't see your way to think as he does : 
 and you offer, in a frank, hearty way, to tell him your 
 reasons for thinking as you do, that if you are wrong, you 
 may be set right. But he persistently refuses to talk the 
 matter over with you : refuses in a dour, sulky way. I 
 don't mean the case in which you decline to discuss some 
 point on which you feel strongly, with some impertinent 
 stranger, who has no right to your confidence, and who 
 
196 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 wants to force his views upon you. To that sort of thing 
 you politely give the go-by : your meaning being to con- 
 vey to your very slight acquaintance, " Well, you are not 
 in a position which entitles you to push your peculiar 
 views upon me." When a young girl from the West 
 country went out to Rome to convert the Pope, I should 
 say that good old gentleman was quite right in good- 
 naturedly declining to discuss with her the foundations of 
 his faith. I am thinking now of the case of a man with 
 whom you are on such terms of friendship as entitle you 
 to go and set yourself right with him when you think he 
 is doing you an injustice ; and entitle him to tell you 
 frankly when he thinks you are doing wrong ; instead of 
 drawing off in a petted, sulky, boorish way. When such 
 a friend shows he thinks you have done wrong, I say he 
 is bound to hear what you have got to say to the end of 
 showing why you think you have done right. He is 
 bound, in a kindly way, to discuss with you the point on 
 which you differ : unless indeed he judges it best that 
 anything like intimacy of friendship should cease. 
 
 Archbishop Whately, writing to Dr Newman, who 
 had shown a disposition to sulk rather than frankly dis- 
 cuss, speaks of " our long, intimate, and confidential 
 friendship, which would make it your right and your duty, 
 if I did anything to offend you, or anything you might 
 think materially wrong, to remonstrate with me." And 
 again the great and brave man says, " I, for my part, 
 could not bring myself to find relief in avoiding the society 
 of an old friend, with whom I had been accustomed to 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 197 
 
 frank discussion, on account of my differing from him as 
 to certain principles, — till, at least, I had made full trial 
 of private remonstrance and free discussion. Even a man 
 that is a heretic, we are told, even the ruler of a church 
 is not to reject till after repeated admonitions." 
 
 Well and nobly said, great prelate and great man ! 
 But a man must be a man to act that out. Any infusion 
 of the cowardly and sneaky : and then we shall sulk 
 privately, but never talk our heart out manfully. 
 
 A way, and sometimes a specially malignant way, of 
 treating those who differ from you in opinion, is to pray 
 for them, or threaten to pray for them. Let us not speak 
 or think of this matter unless gravely and seriously. But 
 it cannot be passed by. You remember that country 
 clergyman, named in a certain famous book of the last 
 century, who threatened the squire of the parish that if 
 he did not mend his ways, he would " pray for him in 
 the face of the whole congregation." Prayer has some- 
 times been made a way of conveying the most wicked 
 calumnies against a fellow-mortal. Not long since, at a 
 public meeting, an individual took occasion, in a discourse 
 which he regarded as a prayer, to ask God's mercy on 
 another person who had expressed opinions which he 
 esteemed to be mischievous, describing that other person 
 as '* that wretched man who was lately pouring forth 
 blasphemies against Thee ! " I may add, that the opinion 
 described as blasphemous was this : that there is no harm 
 in taking a quiet walk after church on Sunday. Now, I 
 say there is something perfectly awful in that. If ever 
 
198 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 Satan was disguised as an angel of light, it was when 
 wrath and uncharitableness veiled themselves under the 
 fair form of prayer ! Let there never be admitted to our 
 minds the faintest idea of hitting at somebody in prayer. 
 Let it be suggested, as an excellent rule, that prayer for 
 such as you think wrong . or bad, be offered privately : 
 when you have entered into your closet and shut the 
 door, and are making your requests known to your Father 
 which is in secret. If that rule were always adhered to, 
 it would remove the temptation to that which is evil and 
 unchristian about certain intercessory prayers. There 
 would be no temptation to pray at the bystanders, rather 
 than to the Almighty : no risk of making prayer a means 
 of expressing your unfavourable opinion of a fellow-crea- 
 ture's character, or doings, or views : no risk of making it 
 something like an imprecation of divine wrath, hypocriti- 
 cally veiled under the form of prayer. Whenever the 
 great thing which you honestly fee] you ought to ask for 
 any human being, is, that he may be turned from his 
 erroneous beliefs or behaviour, and converted to a better 
 mind, ask that of God when you are alone with God. It 
 is the safer, better, more kindly, and more humble way. 
 To publicly express a very unfavourable opinion of a 
 fellow-creature, — even though that opinion be couched in 
 the form of a prayer for him, — is not, generally, a friendly 
 thing. And it may be doubted whether it is ever a purely 
 Christian thing. Let it be said, too, that in such cases 
 the avowed imprecation not unfrequently is not a whit 
 more malignant than the implied one. To ask that God 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 199 
 
 may forgive a man who presumes to differ from you, 
 means much the same thing that is conveyed by words 
 which, grammatically, mean just the opposite. You re- 
 member the two doctors in the Golden Legend. One 
 says to the other : 
 
 May the Lord have mercy on your position, 
 You wretched, wrangling, culler of herbs. 
 
 The other replies : 
 
 May He send your soul to eternal perdition, 
 For your treatise on the irregular verbs. 
 
 It does not need much discernment to see, that here 
 the benediction and the imprecation come to just the 
 same thing. There is really nothing to choose between 
 the blessing and the curse. 
 
 There is in many people a deep disposition to misre- 
 present the views of an opponent. In stating the opinions 
 of such as differ from us in opinion, it is easy and (to 
 some folk) natural, to give these opinions a little twist in 
 the direction of extravagance, absurdity, or mischievous- 
 ness. Indeed, there are persons in this world who can 
 hardly record the sayings and doings of any acquaintance, 
 without slightly colouring or twisting them, so as to make 
 the acquaintance appear in the light of a fool, or even of 
 something worse. But much more is this so, in stating 
 the opinions of an opponent. Thus I have remarked 
 that in certain American newspapers, which defend the 
 peculiar institution of slavery, the opponents of slavery 
 are generally called nigger worshippers: as if there was 
 
200 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 nothing between making beasts of negroes and worship- 
 ping them. Then you remember how Mr Dickens de- 
 scribes an old gentleman who, whenever any one said 
 that the poor who are supported by legal charity should 
 be treated with something like decent care, would ex- 
 claim, " Oh, you want to feed paupers with turtle out of 
 gold plates." Some years since, a woman in the west of 
 Ethiopia was found guilty of murder. Many people 
 thought the evidence on which she was convicted insuffi- 
 cient ; and said so. I remember well how much angry 
 feeling was excited over a large tract of Ethiopia by 
 the case. Those who thought she ought to be hanged, 
 and those who thought she ought not to be hanged, 
 would hardly speak peaceably to one another. A certain 
 newspaper, eager for her hanging, called all those who 
 thought there was not evidence enough to hang her, 
 believers in Saint Sophia: Sophia was the poor wretch's 
 name. You see, in the view of the conductors of that 
 newspaper, there was no possibility of saying that you 
 were not perfectly sure that a woman was a murderess, 
 without going further and saying that you were perfectly 
 sure she was a saint. Of course, they were not such 
 blockheads as seriously to think that: but they thought 
 this a fair way of creating prejudice against the views of 
 their opponents. Some habitually treat one who differs 
 from them in opinion, as in the cruel days of Rome, per- 
 secutors treated the Christians. The persecutors first 
 dressed up the Christians in the skins of wild beasts : and 
 then set dogs at them. Even so do some unscrupu- 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 201 
 
 lous men now, first, horribly misrepresent what an 
 opponent thinks and says 3 and then, raise against him a 
 howl of heterodoxy : of Atheism, Mormonism, or even of 
 Bourignianism. You remember how the Pope declared 
 that all such as thought he had better cease to be a tem- 
 poral monarch, therein testified their disbelief in the 
 immortality of the soul. And once this is granted, it 
 becomes easy to show that these are very foolish and 
 perhaps very bad men. It becomes extremely easy to 
 refute an opponent's views, if you, being a perfectly un- 
 scrupulous person, are allowed to state them. For you 
 have merely to state them so as to make them rank non- 
 sense : and then it is comparatively easy to show that 
 they are rank nonsense. 
 
 Now, some folk think opinions which differ from their 
 own, such dangerous and evil things, that any means 
 whatever is permissible for the putting of them down. 
 If a savage tiger was roaming the parish, devouring men 
 and women, you would destroy him by the first means 
 that came to hand. You would have no Quixotic ideas 
 about giving the savage brute fair play : but would shoot 
 him, or poison him, or take him in a pitfall, without re- 
 morse. Even such is the usage which certain mortals 
 give to those who differ from them in opinion. All 
 means are fair for putting them down. The grossest 
 misrepresentation : the most unfair and delusive argu- 
 ments : appeals to ignorant prejudice : all the arts of 
 intimidation ; the coarsest and most vulgar railing and 
 abuse j are unsparingly employed. But I take for granted 
 
202 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 — and I don't think I am assuming too much — that none 
 of you who read this page would degrade yourselves by 
 the use of poisoned weapons in dealing with an honour- 
 able opponent : and that you are incapable of malignant 
 trickery, even if that could gain for your views some tem- 
 porary triumph. And, taking this for granted, let me 
 say to you : Be sure you properly understand what the 
 views of one who differs from you, are. Possibly you 
 have in your mind a horrible caricature of them. There 
 is many a man who has in his head a theory of an op- 
 ponent's character, which is as far from truth as the 
 theory of the old astronomy about the movements of the 
 stars. Many a man is sure that some one of whom he 
 knows next to nothing is a malicious, conceited, stuck-up, 
 stupid fool and ruffian, who, if he just came to know 
 that being so misconceived of, would find him a plea- 
 sant, friendly, and modest man. Indeed, most unfavour- 
 able opinions are the result of our knowing very little 
 about those of whom we think unfavourably. There is 
 a great deal of good about most men and women I have 
 ever come to know. So be sure you know exactly what 
 the opinions you differ from are. Perhaps, when you 
 know them right, you may find that you do not differ 
 from them at all. Then, be scrupulously fair in stating 
 the views of an opponent. Don't give them the little 
 twist in the direction of nonsense, or of wickedness. 
 More than this : don't force on them consequences 
 which he repudiates. You may think that if a clergy- 
 man does not object to an organ in church, this shows he 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 203 
 
 wants to set up high mass at once. But if he says he 
 does not, you are bound to believe him. You may quite 
 fairly say of any man from whom you differ, that in your 
 judgment his views, if carried out, tend to such and such 
 an evil result : but you have no business to say that he 
 sees this, if he says he does not see it. Then, do not in- 
 sinuate evil suggestions about those from whom you differ, 
 in that sneaky way in which some people are able to in- 
 sinuate evil against their neighbours without directly say- 
 ing anything. Do not ask, for instance, about some pro- 
 fessor of divinity, with a significant look, " Does he hold 
 the inspiration of the New Testament ? " — thus convey- 
 ing by inuendo that he does not. Under no circum- 
 stances call an opponent names. Do not even call him 
 names in what may be termed a reflex way : as by say- 
 ing, " I say nothing whatever in condemnation of Mr A. : 
 I don't venture to judge him : all I say is that if I did so 
 and so" (here describe exactly what Mr A. has said or 
 done), "I am a pickpocket." Refrain from calling an 
 opponent a dog. The other day, I read a passage in 
 which an author said of some one who differed from him 
 as to the value of his writings, " I left him to his dog's 
 paradise, content that he should howl and rot there." It 
 is to be confessed that modern abuse lacks the full flavour 
 of that of ancient days. Here are some words of Dr 
 Martin Luther : " The papists are all asses, and will 
 always remain asses. Put them in whatever sauce you 
 may, boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, beat, hashed, 
 they are always the same asses." The same eminent 
 
204 Concerning the Treatment of stick 
 
 reformer, in a treatise in reply to Henry VIII., calls that 
 monarch "this rotten worm of the earth." The lang-uasre 
 of Calvin was a good deal worse. He calls his adversaries 
 "knaves, lunatics, drunkards, assassins:" occasionally 
 "bulls, asses, cats, and hogs." Erasmus once published 
 a dialogue, in which the servile imitators of the Latin 
 style of Cicero were cleverly ridiculed. On this a certain 
 warm admirer of Cicero rushed to the rescue ; and de- 
 clared, in a treatise published in answer, that Erasmus 
 was " a drunkard, an impostor, an apostate, a hangman, 
 a demon hot from hell." 
 
 These specimens may suffice, of a manner of treating 
 those who differ from us not at all to be recommended. 
 And at this point it may fitly enough be suggested that, 
 in arguing a question with any one, there is no advantage 
 in roaring at the top of one's voice. You remember the 
 man of whom Addison tells us that he " only raised his 
 voice where he should have enforced his argument." A 
 consideration which has no weight when stated in a 
 moderate tone of voice, does not gain the least accession 
 of force by being bellowed. Neither is there any acquisi- 
 tion of logical weight, when a man, arguing a question, 
 violently whacks the table at which he stands, at brief 
 and regular intervals. Indeed, to people of a musical 
 ear, that disagreeable sound, constantly recurring, is so 
 thoroughly offensive, that it tends to make the speaker be 
 heard with an impatience which is all against what he 
 says having its due weight. And here it may be said that 
 all reasoning which is shouted at the top of a harsh and 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 205 
 
 untunable voice, by a man of truculent and ferocious 
 aspect, brandishing in the air a clenched fist, and calling 
 on all who differ from him to come out and be bullied, 
 has on my mind an effect precisely the opposite of per- 
 suasive. 
 
 Among the delusive ideas which used to be taught to 
 schoolboys, but which for the most part are not taught to 
 schoolboys now, was one to this effect : that if two per- 
 sons are arguing any question, the one who first gets 
 angry is the one who is wrong. We used to be told of 
 an Indian chief, who was present at a debate, and who 
 said, after it was over, that though he did not understand 
 a word that was spoken, he knew, by this sign, who was 
 wrong. My impression was, even as a boy, that the 
 Indian chief was a near relation of that contemptible 
 prig who, when his wife was frightened by a storm at sea, 
 suddenly held a sword to her breast and asked her if she 
 was afraid, and so on. I have known several very great 
 fools, bat I never knew a fool great enough to have done 
 that. Anything more grossly absurd than the test of who 
 was right and who wrong suggested by the Indian chief, 
 could not be imagined. He might as justly have said 
 that the first man who took out his handkerchief and 
 wiped his face, was wrong. Who is there that does not 
 know that there is nothing more likely to make an honest 
 man and a fair reasoner angry, than when he sees unfair- 
 ness and dishonesty in the arguments and statements 
 of his opponent ? Setting aside constitutional differ- 
 ences of temper, of warmth of heart, of excitability of 
 
206 Concerning the Treatment of such 
 
 nervous system — which are the things, after all, which 
 have most to say to a man's getting angry or keeping 
 cool — I should say that lack of earnestness, of deep con- 
 viction, of moral fibre, is the great thing to make a man 
 seem calm and tolerant. If you really don't care a rush 
 how a question is decided, you will join in the discussion 
 of it with great equanimity. There can be no doubt at 
 all, that there is nothing which helps a man so effectually 
 to show what seems a fair and tolerant spirit in any matter 
 as the fact that he really cares nothing at all about the 
 matter. You will not show warmth in discussing an 
 opinion as to which your feeling is of the coolest. And 
 when you are greatly interested in any truth, and deeply 
 feel its importance, it is provoking in a high degree to 
 find an opponent seek to evade the force of your reasons 
 by some shabby and dishonest sophism, or some discredit- 
 able misrepresentation. 
 
 It is good for us to see and know people who differ 
 from us in opinion, politically, theologically, ecclesiasti- 
 cally, aesthetically. It is a great mistake to live always 
 among those who think exactly as you do. You will 
 grow very narrow, very self-sufficient : you will get a 
 quite foolish idea of your own infallibility and importance. 
 I have known good men, more than one or two, who 
 would have been much better and more useful, had they 
 occasionally met and conversed with people who did not 
 agree with them. It is a most dangerous thing for any 
 human being, to live among those by whom his views 
 and opinions are never questioned. We all need to be 
 
As differ from us in Opinion, 207 
 
 often taken down from our vain self-confidence, and to 
 be pushed out of our own way : and all this is best done 
 by frequent contact with those who, honestly and civilly, 
 think quite differently from ourselves. You may find a 
 man here and there, who has long been the pope of a little 
 circle, who never question his infallibility, and who laugh 
 at all his old and bad jokes : the upshot being, that the 
 man came to think himself the greatest and wisest of 
 men, and to deem all who differed from him as monstrous 
 and anomalous examples of folly and wickedness. Yet 
 Samuel Johnson, when he met Wilkes, found him a very 
 pleasant person ; and quite discarded the impression that 
 any man of Wilkes' principles must have horns and hoofs. 
 When you come to know some opponent in controversy, 
 of whom you had a most unpleasant estimate in your 
 mind, you will in all likelihood discover a great deal of 
 good in him. And you may not improbably find, that if 
 you differ in some things, there are twice, or perhaps ten 
 times as many, on which you entirely agree. 
 
 I grant at once, that it is very disagreeable to hear your 
 favourite views controverted. Even men who ought to 
 have known better, have been silly enough to regard 
 themselves aggrieved by having their views controverted. 
 A curious instance may be found in the biography of 
 Dugald Stewart, the eminent professor of moral philo- 
 sophy at Edinburgh. His assistant and successor in that 
 chair (he did not live to succeed to it) was the much 
 more gifted, acute, and eloquent Dr Thomas Brown. 
 Strange to say, good Mr Stewart seems to have supposed 
 
2o8 Concerning the Treatment of stick 
 
 that when Dr Brown began to lecture on moral philo- 
 sophy, he was just to echo his predecessor's opinions ; 
 and was quite aggrieved at finding that Dr Brown did 
 not. 
 
 When Mr Stewart was apprised that his own favourite and best- 
 founded opinions were controverted from the very chair which he 
 had scarcely quitted, and that the doctrines of his revered friend and 
 master, Dr Reid, were assailed with severe, and not very respectful 
 animadversions, his feelings were strongly roused; and though they 
 were long repressed by the peculiar circumstances of his situation, 
 yet he has given them full expression in a note in the third volume 
 of his "Elements," which is alike remarkable for the severity 
 and the delicacy of its REPROOF. 
 
 So you see, Mr, Stewart thought severe reproof was the 
 right treatment for a much greater man, who presumed 
 to think for himself. Had not Dr Brown just as much 
 right to severely reprove Mr Stewart ? I don't hesitate 
 to say that in this matter Mr Stewart showed himself 
 wonderfully silly and small ; and laid himself fairly open 
 to the suspicion of unworthy jealousy of his more popular 
 successor. And if Mr Stewart was weak enough to do 
 such a foolish thing, we can but wonder that a biographer 
 was found who was snobbish enough to record it with 
 approval. 
 
 It is disagreeable, let it be granted, to hear your 
 opinions controverted. But it will do you good not 
 merely in the way of taking you down from that self- 
 sufficiency which comes of hearing your own views 
 echoed, and which needs "the animated No :" it makes 
 you likelier to arrive at truth. To keep aloof from those 
 
 
As differ from us in Opinion. 209 
 
 who differ from you, and associate only with such as agree 
 with you in opinion, will cut you off from the great ad- 
 vantage of hearing what is to be said on the other side. 
 No doubt to hear that may cause some painful perplexity 
 and effort of decision, which would be saved by hearing 
 only one side. We all have been told of the man (of 
 course an Irishman), who complained that he saw quite 
 clearly the merits of a case when he had heard one side, 
 but was horribly perplexed when he had heard the other 
 side too. It is to many a most painful effort to make up 
 their mind what they are to think. And this painful 
 effort will be quite escaped, by keeping away from such 
 as think differently from ourselves. It is obvious that if 
 you put all the weights in one scale, and none at all in 
 the other, you will see with the greatest facility to which 
 side the beam inclines. But if what you want to arrive 
 at is truth, and not merely certainty of what may be quite 
 false, you will weigh the pros and cons. 
 
 And further: in meeting and conversing with those 
 who in many ways think very differently from ourselves, 
 there is a reward beyond that of hearing what may be 
 said against the views we hold. You may find among such 
 people the most interesting, stimulating, and sympathetic 
 of all companions. There may be great and deep sym- 
 pathy of feeling, where there are strong differences of 
 opinion : more sympathy, sometimes, by a great deal, 
 than with those with whom you intellectually agree. 
 Every one has known somebody with whom he was at 
 one on almost every material point of belief 3 yet who 
 
2io Concerning the Treatment, etc. 
 
 exercised the strongest power of repulsion, through the 
 utter absence of spiritual sympathy. And where there is 
 sympathy, combined with marked difference of belief, a 
 raciness, a zest, is given to intercourse, which is wholly 
 lacking in your conversation with those from whom you 
 are always sure of an unintelligent assent. 
 
 But everything must come to its end ; and this treatise 
 like all the rest. I think I have said, somewhere or other, 
 all I wished to say. Now, what is the conclusion from 
 all this ? I do not think we can get any further than a 
 certain good man long ago, who, in a time of heated con- 
 troversy, said, " Let us agree as far as we can ; and where 
 we cannot agree, in God's name let us agree to differ!" 
 Let us all do this, too, without quarrelling : let us give 
 our opponents credit for being honest : let us try to put 
 ourselves in their place, and to look at things from their 
 point of view : let us think how much a man's original 
 constitution and the training of his life have to do with 
 the formation of his opinions. Let us state the views of 
 such as think differently, with a scrupulous and chivalrous 
 fairness : let us never say the word of or to an opponent 
 that is meant merely to give him pain : and let us make 
 up our mind to this ; that while this world stands, people 
 who are able to form an opinion at all, will very often 
 differ from us in opinion. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 AMONG SOUTH-WESTERN CATHEDRALS. 
 
 I AM sitting, quite alone, in a shabby comfortless 
 little room, dimly lighted by two candles, not of 
 wax. The room has a low ceiling : the walls are covered 
 with a very ugly paper. The fire is small, and will not 
 be made larger. The room is on the level of the street: 
 and just outside, close at hand, there is a noise of loud 
 and vulgar laughing. This is a little inn, in the chief 
 street of a little town. I have had dinner : the meal was 
 solitary. The dinner was extremely bad : and the hour 
 at which it came plainly appeared to the landlord a very 
 late one. I have written several letters, and dipped into 
 a volume of dreary theology, the sole volume in the room. 
 An hour must pass before one can well go to bed: for it 
 is only nine o'clock. So let me begin a faithful record of 
 events which happened in a period reaching from Mon- 
 day morning to Saturday night, early in this month of 
 October. 
 
 At six o'clock this evening, I was walking along a 
 gravelled path, leading through fields, to the west. The 
 grass was very rich and green : far more so than I am 
 
212 Among SoiUh-iv est em Cathedrals. 
 
 used to see. There was a magnificent sunset : the air 
 was bright blue overhead, but somewhat thicker in the 
 western horizon, where all was glowing red. Around, 
 everywhere, noble trees ; and the scene was shut in by 
 wavy hills. A solemn bell struck the hour, in deep tones. 
 Look out towards the sound ; and there, in the twilight, 
 you may see three massive square towers. Let us go on 
 a little, and we approach an ancient dwelling, surrounded 
 by a wall and a moat. The wall is ivied : the moat is 
 broad : the water clear as crystal, and not deep. Two 
 swans, who are floating about on it, by turning themselves 
 up in an ungraceful manner, can reach the ground with 
 their bills. The water comes brawling into the moat by 
 a little cascade j and it escapes by three sluices, on differ- 
 ent sides of the large square space it encloses. Pollard 
 elms of great age, the leaves thick and green as at mid- 
 summer, are on the further side of the broad walk which 
 here skirts the water. This moat was made five hundred 
 years ago. Pass on, under an ancient archway : pass in :o 
 a great square expanse of green grass, with many fine 
 trees. The grand cathedral rises in the midst : all round 
 the Green (that is the name here) are antique houses. 
 There is a charming deanery : you enter it by passing 
 under an arch, and find yourself in an inner court, quaint 
 and ivy-grown. No words can express the glory and 
 quietness of the place : for this is the ancient city of 
 Wells, amid the hills of Somersetshire. The moated 
 dwelling is the episcopal palace. There dwelt holy 
 Bishop Ken : and there Dr Kidder, who was found will- 
 
Among South-western Cathedrals. 2 1 3 
 
 ing to take the place from which that good man was cast 
 out, was killed by the falling upon him of a stack of 
 chimneys. 
 
 Vainly should I seek to express the beauty of the 
 scenery, or the magnificence of the Gothic churches, 
 which I have seen in these last few days. There is no 
 country in the world to travel in, after all, like England. 
 And though this be the tenth of October, you might have 
 forgotten, for days past, that it was not summer. Bright 
 and warm has been the sunshine : thick and green the 
 trees ; though sometimes there is the crisp rustle which 
 follows the foot stepping on fallen leaves. Yet somehow 
 the quiet of a cathedral close is inconsistent with the soli- 
 tary feeling of a little-travelled stranger : one ought to 
 feel at home to duly be aware of the genius of the place. 
 Far, to-night, is the writer from his home : and no doubt 
 a little lonely in the strange region. 
 
 Let me look back on what I have seen this week : it 
 has been a great deal to one accustomed to a quiet, un- 
 varied life. Sunday is beyond question the first day of 
 the week : what passed on that day need not be recorded. 
 On Monday morning, in a thick white fog, I entered a 
 little steamer at the landing-stage at Liverpool. The 
 steamer carried many human beings to a place on the 
 Cheshire side of the Mersey, named Rock Ferry. There 
 we embarked in another steamer : and went on, out into 
 the river : till there loomed ahead a huge shape, quite 
 familiar, though never seen before. It was the Great 
 Eastern : and up its side did the writer go, following the 
 
214 Among South-western Cathedrals. 
 
 steps of its captain, who has won a name in history. It 
 made a Scotchman proud, to look at the brave, quiet, 
 sensible Scotch face, which reminded one a good deal of 
 the portraits of George Stephenson. Well has Sir James 
 Anderson earned the honour done him by his Queen. 
 It must have been an awful charge, that great vessel, 
 with her crew of five hundred and fifty men, and her 
 historic burden of the Atlantic cable. You felt, looking 
 at the man, with what implicit confidence you could 
 have trusted to him in any emergency or danger. With 
 great kindness and clearness he explained the machinery 
 for paying out and picking up the cable. He told how 
 on a very stormy night of pitchy darkness, he stood at the 
 extremity of the stern beside the wheel over which the 
 cable was passing ; but could not see it. Only a faint 
 phosphorescent point of light, a long way off, showed 
 where the cable was entering the water. He told, with 
 the vividness of reality, of the tedious endeavours to pick 
 up the cable of the former year from where it lay three 
 miles down at the bottom of the Atlantic. At last, 
 standing on the prow, he heard a stir below, looked over, 
 saw the cable fairly there above water ; " and then," said 
 the gallant man in his quiet way, " I was very thankful." 
 A thing to be wondered at was how the slender cord was 
 able to turn all that complex apparatus of heavy wheels. 
 
 Good-bye to the Great Eastern and its brave com- 
 mander ; and away from Birkenhead, by railway, in the 
 bright sunshiny day. Not long, and there is not unfamiliar 
 Chester : on, and Wrexham, with its grand and massive 
 
Among South-western Cathedrals, 215 
 
 church tower. How these things impress the lover of 
 Gothic who dwells in a country of churches of inexpres- 
 sible trumperiness and shabbiness ! By Ruabon : leave 
 on the right Llangollen, for Yarrow must remain un- 
 visited to-day. Never were these eyes gladdened by the 
 sight of a lovelier country. So to renowned Shrewsbury, 
 on the famous Severn. Here let us stop for a little, and 
 have a walk through the town. You pass from the rail- 
 way station, under the shadow of an ancient castle : 
 elevated a little, on the right, is a considerable Gothic 
 edifice of red stone : if you ask what it is of the same 
 man whom I asked, you will be told " The College." 
 Then you may think of head-master Butler, who was 
 made a bishop, and of Dr Kennedy, quite as good a scholar, 
 the head-master of to-day. Quaint old wooden houses : 
 queer names of streets : one is called Murivance. Rapidly 
 let the eyes be feasted : then back to the railway. On, 
 for a journey of two hours more. You must pass Ludlow 
 unwillingly in the failing light : one cannot see every- 
 thing. Then, in the dark, Hereford is reached: the end 
 of the day's pilgrimage. Proceed in an omnibus to the 
 hotel : there you may have tea, accompanied by mutton 
 chops. Afterwards you may go out and enjoy the sensa- 
 tion of being in a new city, among new men j and in the 
 starlight look at the cathedral. Cats, however, are the 
 only creatures who see an edifice, or any other object, 
 best in the dark. 
 
 Next day was a lovely summer day : nothing autumnal 
 in the air, and hardly anything in the trees. Let us be 
 
216 Among South-western Cathedrals. 
 
 up early, and have a good walk about the city before the 
 hour of service. By the city flows the Wye, " the bab- 
 bling Wye." From the bridge which crosses it you have 
 a fine view of the cathedral and the palace : here and 
 there, about the streets, antique houses of wood. At ten 
 o'clock let us pass into the cathedral, under the great 
 porch leading to the nave : let us enter an undistinguished 
 name in the large volume which lies on a table to that 
 end 3 and, obeying the behests of the Dean and Chapter, 
 drop into a box with a hole in the lid a great sum towards 
 the complete restoration of the sacred building. And it 
 is a noble church, nobly restored ; at least in so far as that 
 has been done by Mr George Gilbert Scott. Wyatt, un- 
 utterable Vandal, put up that execrable western front in 
 place of a western tower and spire which fell. The floor 
 is of tiles : the roof of the nave is illuminated : there is a 
 magnificent rood screen : the choir is sacred to the clergy 
 and those who perform the service : the congregation sit 
 on rush-seated chairs in the nave. Pleasant it was to the 
 writer, who seldom hears choral service now, when those 
 whom he had seen enter their vestry a few minutes before 
 as shabby little boys, came to their places in procession as 
 surpliced choristers : twelve of them, with six singing 
 men, making the double choir complete. The congrega- 
 tion was small : one did not feel any want of a greater. 
 The service was beautifully given : the music was severely 
 simple : and how the noble praise thrilled through one to 
 whom it can never grow common and cheap ! Pleasant, 
 too, to see the perfect propriety of demeanour among the 
 
Among South-western Cathedrals. 217 
 
 choristers : it did not always use so to be in every cathe- 
 dral church. There was an anthem, admirably sung. 
 Let it be confessed, one thing revived the writer. Of 
 another communion, because dwelling in another country 
 and within the bounds of another national church, he felt, 
 looking at the noble edifice and joining in the noble ser- 
 vice, that for outward dignity and majesty, we in the 
 North have nothing to compare with this : and he felt 
 decidedly taken down and humbled. But in a little he 
 was cheered. That morning there was a sermon. Oh, 
 what a poor sermon ! Yes, at least we can beat this, he 
 thought : and beat it by uncounted degrees. A church 
 which makes the sermon too much the great thing in the 
 worship of God, is likely at all events to give you good 
 sermons. And though the South may have its great 
 preacher here and there, yet sure it is that the average 
 preaching of the North, in many a seedy little country 
 church, is just as much better than that brief but un- 
 utterably tedious sermon at Hereford Cathedral, as Here- 
 ford Cathedral is better than the seedy little country 
 church. 
 
 Walk all about the cathedral: all about the close. 
 Deanery, palace, fine trees, Wye : grammar-school, plea- 
 sant walks by river side. Pervade the town : already it 
 has grown quite familiar. And as day declines, depart 
 by railway to Gloucester, distant little more than an hour : 
 studying on the way the photographs of Hereford, city 
 and cathedral, which you may buy at various shops. 
 
 Passing through the lovely English landscape, at last 
 
218 Among South-western Cathedrals. 
 
 you may look out on the right : there is the city of 
 Gloucester : there the great square tower of the cathedral. 
 Hasten to the Bell : let the luggage be left j we are just 
 in time for afternoon service. Again the train of choris- 
 ters : here the music was much more florid than at Here- 
 ford, and (so it seemed) not so careful and good. The 
 church is a noble one : the eastern window, which has a 
 curious grey sheen, is as large as any in England. But 
 after trim Hereford, the church had a neglected look. 
 In some places, plaster has dropped from the roof: plaster 
 which should never have been there. And after brilliant 
 encaustic pavement, the rude floor of stone in choir and 
 sanctuary looked poor. Led by an intelligent verger, let 
 us examine the great edifice : the strange, rude crypt : 
 the beautiful cloisters. Let us ascend to the triforium, 
 and enjoy the varied views of choir and nave thence 
 obtained. Here is buried the murdered Edward II. : 
 there is a shrine of the richest decorated tabernacle work : 
 a recumbent statue of the poor monarch which must be a 
 likeness j there is inexpressible pathos in that beautiful 
 but sorrowful face. Coming forth from the cathedral, 
 let us pervade the close. It is a quiet and charming 
 place. The deanery, built up to the west end of the 
 church, is striking : the palace, on the north side of the 
 choir, seems an ambitious architectural failure. Beautiful 
 is the turf and rich the shrubbery at the east end of the 
 choir : quaint and pretty various ancient houses in which 
 cathedral authorities and functionaries dwell. Passing out 
 of the close towards the west under an archway, you come 
 
Among South-western Cathedrals. 219 
 
 on the statue of Bishop Hooper,, erected on the spot where 
 he was burnt. 
 
 Various shops in Gloucester are rich in photographs of 
 cathedrals, near and distant. If you walk down towards 
 the Severn, you will find yourself amid the bustle of a 
 considerable port. Docks of no small size, and abundant 
 shipping, form a scene in contrast to the quiet one just 
 left behind. But by half-past six it has grown dark : so 
 to the Bell, and have dinner. 
 
 The next day was Wednesday : a beautiful warm sun- 
 shiny morning. Be early afoot : pervade the city : walk 
 about the close. Never seen till yesterday, how familiar 
 it looks to-day ; and we sadly part from it as from an old 
 friend. But we have far to go to-day 5 and at 11. 15 a.m. 
 again the railway train. An hour of rapid running, with- 
 out a stop, through rich green fields : Berkeley Castle is 
 off there to the right : and here is busy Bristol. The 
 cathedral here is poorj but there is St Mary Redcliffe, 
 the most magnificent of all parish churches, superior to 
 many cathedrals. Yet there is lacking the environing 
 close: the grand church is surrounded by dirty streets. 
 Here Chatterton, " the marvellous boy," spent the greater 
 part of his feverish life j in a room in. the tower he de- 
 clared he found the Rowley manuscripts. To the train 
 again ; by Bath, Westbury (near which on a hill to the 
 left is a large and quite symmetrical White Horse on the 
 hill-side, made by cutting away the turf down to the 
 chalk), and Witham. If you are fond of changing car- 
 riages, you may have enough of it here. At length, as the 
 
2 1 o A mong So uth- western Ca thedrals. 
 
 sun is declining in glory, you reach that paragon of cathe- 
 dral cities in which I am writing : beautiful Wells. 
 
 I have little doubt that if one were to live at Wells for 
 several months, and still more for several years, the quiet 
 little city would come to look and to feel like anywhere 
 else. But now, to a stranger, it is " an unsubstantial, 
 fairy place." Hard by is the vale of Avalon ; and the 
 ruins of Glastonbury : all round the Mendip Hills. And 
 though England can boast of some bigger cathedrals, no- 
 where will you find one of more exquisite beauty. No- 
 where, too, will you find the ancient cathedral seat so 
 much like what it was in ancient days. I shall not be 
 tempted into any architectural details : all I say is, Go 
 and see the place, and you will be all but intoxicated 
 with the loveliest forms of Gothic beauty. 
 . Here I ceased for the night, in a sort of bewilderment. 
 Next morning was a cloudy one, with flying gleams of 
 sunshine. Long before service, let us enter the magnifi- 
 cent church and gaze at it. It is in exquisite preservation. 
 The light colour of the stone of which the shafts are made 
 ndds to their arry grace. The four great piers at the in- 
 tersection of the transepts threatened to yield under the 
 pressure of the centre tower ; and their bearing power 
 was increased by three curious inverted arches, the like of 
 which I believe you will not see in England. It was a 
 graceful disguising of a defect : but of course they would 
 be better away. The stalls in the choir are of stone : an 
 unusual material, but the effect is beautiful. 
 
 It is near the hour of morning service ; let us take our 
 
Among South-western Cathedrals. 221 
 
 place. Carelessly the choir straggles in ; never were 
 arrangements more slovenly. The little boys come in, 
 not in procession, but in a huddled heap : in a little, by 
 himself, the clergyman who is to perform the service. 
 Then the dean and the canon in residence come in a free 
 and easy way : two or three of the singing men rush 
 hastily after them : two singing men scuttle in after ser- 
 vice has begun. It was a painful contrast: the noble 
 church and the ostentatiously irreverent arrangements. 
 The music was good, after the choir got themselves 
 settled to their work. But if I were Dean of Wells, 
 there should be a thorough turn-over, and that without a 
 day's delay. Slovenly, slovenly ! 
 
 Worship over, let us see every corner of the church : 
 then climb a winding stair in a transept wall j walk along 
 the stone roof of the transept, the lofty wooden one still 
 far above your head. Climb, higher and higher, till you 
 come out to daylight on the top of the great central tower. 
 The first thing that will strike you is not the grand pro- 
 spect : it is the rusty creaking of the four weathercocks, 
 one on each pinnacle : the sound is eerie. Look round. 
 A richly-wooded green country, with undulating hills. 
 To the west, the vale of Avalon : that pyramidal hill is 
 Glastonbury Tor, three miles off. Below, on the left 
 hand, the cloisters : beyond, the palace, with its moat, 
 and expanse of greensward. On the other side the 
 deanery, and the vicar's close, with a bridge leading from 
 it across the road into the cathedral. The country round 
 seems to be all grass. One turret of the tower ha? a bell 
 
222 Among South-western Cathedrals. 
 
 whereon a hammer strikes the hour, being pulled by 
 a wire from below. The cloisters have perpendicular 
 tracery. In the middle space there is an ancient yew. 
 An amphitheatre of hills closes in all the scene. Oh ! 
 hard-working Scotland, where no one, except a few folk 
 of political influence, is paid without toiling rigidly for it, 
 when will you have such retreats for learning and religion, 
 combined with very little to do ? 
 
 I esteem "Wells as the climax of my little journey, 
 though I went next to Salisbury. I did not leave Wells, 
 till I had gone over the beautiful church of St. Cuthbert, 
 which is partially restored. Not completely, because the 
 dissenters will not agree to a church-rate. 1 thought of 
 the Cathedral, and the vale of Avalon, and could but 
 hold up the hands of wonder, and exclaim " Dissenters 
 here ! " Two hours and a half by railway to Salisbury. 
 Hasten to the close : let the most intelligent of vergers 
 conduct you through the famous church. Dare we say, 
 Disappointed ? I do not allude to the horrible arrange- 
 ment of the old monuments, one in each bay of the nave, 
 on the floor, midway between the piers ; nor to the stalls 
 of shabby deal, painted brown ; nor to the ugly way in 
 which the Lady Chapel has been thrown into the choir. 
 Even looking at the vast building, with its double tran- 
 sept, and its spire, the loftiest in England, I could but 
 vaguely say, that I have seen cathedrals which impressed 
 me infinitely more. Long neglect laid its hand on the 
 great church, till Bishop Denison took it in hand. Much 
 work is sroinsf on now : the west front is concealed 
 
Among South-western Cathedrals. 223 
 
 by scaffolding, and great saws are cutting stone at its 
 base : but there is a vast deal yet to do. Rather to undo. 
 The execrable hand of Wyatt has been here, obliterating 
 and destroying. The spire, of near 400 feet, is a good 
 deal off the perpendicular : at the capstone it is two feet 
 to the south and near a foot and half to the west. No 
 further deviation has occurred for many years. The close 
 is large. The ancient deanery is opposite the west front 
 of the church ; the palace stands within grounds of 
 moderate extent near the Lady Chapel. 
 
 Two miles from Salisbury is Bemerton, hallowed by 
 the memory of George Herbert : a mile further towards 
 the west is Wilton, where a beautiful Byzantine church 
 was built a few years ago by the late Mr Sydney Herbert. 
 One regrets that so much cost should have been lavished 
 on a building of an inferior style ; however splendid a 
 specimen of that style it may be. And eight miles from 
 the graceful cathedral of a somewhat wearisome perfec- 
 tion, you will find the grandest specimen of the rudest of 
 all architecture. There, in the plain, is mysterious Stone- 
 henge : "awful memorial, but of whom we know not." 
 
 Stay at the White Hart. In the evening, after dark, 
 you may pervade the city, not without its bustle and stir. 
 Next day, as long as may be, saunter about the close, and 
 look at the cathedral from all points of view. Again 
 wander through its interior. I am mistaken if you do 
 not depart, vaguely disappointed. 
 
 So to the never- failing train. Basingstoke, Farn- 
 borough, on the skirts of Aldershot camp j and in the 
 
224 Among South-western Cathedrals. 
 
 gathering dark approach awful London : awful with its 
 bulk and ceaseless whirl to such as dwell amid quiet 
 scenes j awful with its contrasts of the greatest luxury 
 and the most abject poverty. Here is Waterloo Station : 
 enter the rapid Hansom. And, speeding this Saturday 
 evening towards the place of sojourn, look back to Mon- 
 day morning, and try to recall what has been beheld since 
 then. You give it up, confused. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONCERNING THE HEADS OF BATTERING-RAMS, 
 WITH SOME THOUGHTS TOUCHING THE RE- 
 VIVIFICATION OF MUMMIES. 
 
 IT is well understood by such as, in a philosophic 
 and candid temper, have studied the histories of 
 ancient Greece and Rome, what (in departed centuries) 
 was meant by a Battering-ram. There was a long 
 and heavy beam, sometimes attaining a length of a hun- 
 dred and twenty feet, to one end of which was affixed a 
 massive iron head, in form like the head of a Ram. This 
 Instrument was suspended by two strong ropes to a cross- 
 beam, sustained by two great logs, which in their turn 
 were sustained by the earth. When it was desired to 
 break a way through the wall of a fortified city, the 
 entire apparatus was set up within convenient reach of 
 the fated wall. Then the heavy beam, armed with the 
 iron head, was swung backwards and forwards by the 
 vehement exertion of (possibly) some hundreds of men : 
 the head coming at each swing with inexpressible violence 
 against the hostile wall. No wall could long remain in- 
 
226 Concerning the Heads 
 
 tact under that usage. The stones were loosened : cracks 
 became manifest : a small opening was made, which grad- 
 ually became a large one : finally, a practicable breach 
 was made, through which the besieging army was able to 
 enter the city. It was comparatively easy to pass through 
 the wall, after an opening had been made in it. It was 
 exceedingly difficult to make the opening. The ram's 
 head was of hard material. Fitly so ; for it had hard 
 work to do. Persons of soft material, physically and 
 morally, passed in with facility after the ram had done 
 its work. And it is probable that a good many of them, 
 thus easily entering, did not reflect much upon their obli- 
 gations to the battered old head, which had borne the 
 brunt, and cleared their way. By this time it had (likely 
 enough) been taken down from its supports, and was 
 lying in some neighbouring ditch, half concealed by mud. 
 Practical and pushing spirits jumped over it, as they ad- 
 vanced towards the opening it made : possibly wiped their 
 feet upon it. Here and there a man of a sentimental 
 nature would put his hands in his pockets and look kindly 
 at it for a little while : thinking of the services that iron- 
 headed log had rendered : thinking how easy it was to 
 enter now where it had been so hard to enter at the first. 
 Let us muse, kindly reader, on the Heads of Moral Bat- 
 tering-Rams : Human Heads that suffer many hard blows 
 in opening a way through old prejudices and abuses. Let 
 us think how hardly men fare who bravely set themselves 
 to break through these. The days were, in which such a 
 head would probably have been cut off altogether : and 
 
Of Ba tiering- Ra ms. 227 
 
 even yet, all obloquy, all misrepresentation, all malignant 
 railing, are the common portion of such men as propose 
 improvements, political or social ; and try to bring these 
 improvements about. Sorely beaten about the head are 
 the Moral Battering-Rams ! Those who first proposed 
 Corn-law repeal -, reform of the infamous penal laws 
 which disgraced the statute-book till brave men like Sir 
 Samuel Romilly saved this nation from the shame of 
 them : reform of the scandalous abuses in the Church of 
 England and the Establishment in Ireland ; reform in 
 the Army, including the abolition of flogging human 
 beings to death : the abolition of Negro Slavery ; the 
 making the representation of the people in Parliament 
 cease to be in great measure a grim farce ; the permission 
 of organs in Scotch churches, and of Scotch congregations 
 to kneel at prayer and stand at praise : how these men 
 were vilified and misrepresented ! Look back over the 
 files of various old Tory newspapers and magazines : 
 and think what the poor Heads had to come through ! 
 By and by, the breach is made in the thick wall of selfish 
 interests and unreasoning prejudices : and then, people 
 who had neither the courage nor the hardness of nature 
 to stand the first buffets, get all the good of them, and 
 quietly walk through the breach opened by sorely bat- 
 tered Heads of Moral Battering-Rams. After a while, 
 everybody sees so plainly that the advocates of Reform 
 had all the reason on their side, that people think it must 
 have been quite easy to batter down the ancient abuse. 
 They say, " Well, that wall was so much off the perpen- 
 
228 Concerning the Heads 
 
 dicular : the mortar had so crumbled into dust ; that just 
 a touch must have sent it down : the old Heads, now in 
 their graves, or lying in obscure ditches, could not have 
 had such a tough work to do as we fancied." And when 
 one who has long survived the fight in which he won his 
 fame, gets into the way (like Lord Brougham) of talking 
 sometimes about the hard hits he received and dealt, we 
 grow impatient of hearing about them. We think it is 
 all an old man's talk about the long past. 
 
 Controversy is a hateful thing. Never has the writer 
 joined in it, and he never will. But he has watched a 
 good deal of it : and he can sincerely say that he never 
 yet saw controversy carried on in good temper or in fair- 
 ness. He has seen it carried on by men who, speaking 
 generally, were good-tempered and fair-tempered men. 
 And they began in tolerable fairness and good temper. 
 But the controversy had not lasted long till the lurking 
 devil was roused : insolence, misrepresentation, savage ill- 
 temper, were largely developed ; at least on one side. He 
 has seen controversy in which all the fairness and decency 
 were on one side : all the opposite things on the other 
 side. The more ordinary case is that there should be very 
 little fairness or civility on either side. Yet, hateful as 
 controversy is, the quiet easy-going men who shrink from 
 it may well be thankful that there are pugnacious and 
 hard-headed folk who rush into it with gusto, and seem 
 to enjoy the strife. For these pugnacious folk do (as it 
 were) batter a breach through which the easy-going men 
 peacefully follow. Yes, you who know what cowards you 
 
Of Battering- Rams. 229 
 
 are : you who know that however sure you might be that 
 you had truth on your side, you would shrink into your 
 shell at the first outburst of abuse from those interested in 
 maintaining some flagrant iniquity which you had been 
 carried away into attacking 5 look with profound respect 
 on the hard heads that take and give hard blows ! You 
 could not do it. And it is a pitiful sight to behold a man 
 who has ventured to attack something that is wrong, in- 
 stantly set upon by those who wish to keep up the wrong : 
 then getting frightened ; beginning in a cowardly fashion to 
 calculate the consequences of sticking to what he has said j 
 seeing that he will get into no end of trouble if he sticks 
 to it 5 and finally bullied into retracting what he and all 
 who hear him know perfectly to be true. It is a terrible 
 thing to have all the will to be the head of the moral 
 battering-ram, without the needful hardness ! But it is a 
 fine sight, to see a head which is entirely free from soft- 
 ness : which is quite hard enough for the work to which 
 it is set. There are various things about John Knox 
 which one cannot in any way like : but there is something 
 sublime about his inflexible and fearless firmness. So 
 with Luther : what an inexpressibly hard head of a bat- 
 tering-ram ! So in these days with Mr John E right. 
 You may think him wrong if you please : but you cannot 
 deny his magnificent pluck. You cannot look at the 
 determined face of the great popular leader, without feel- 
 ing that there is the man to batter down what he thinks 
 an injustice. Conservatism is ever the wall to be battered : 
 aggressive reformers or revolutionises are the head of the 
 
230 Concerning the Heads 
 
 battering-ram. And though conservatism serves many 
 useful purposes, it is in the nature of things a losing cause. 
 It is just a question of time, till any wall is battered 
 down : that is, if there be the least show of sound reason 
 that down it should go. For the essential idea of conser- 
 vatism of course is, to keep things as they are : and that 
 cannot be. It was conservatism that raised a terrible 
 cry against the introduction of stage-coaches : they would 
 drive the old stage-waggons off the road : horses would 
 perish : diseases of the brain would be brought on by tra- 
 velling through the atmosphere at the awful rate of eight 
 miles an hour. Then it was conservatism to raise a cry 
 against railways : they would drive off the road the old 
 stage-coaches, the glory of England : they would " destroy 
 the old English noblesse," as was touchingly remarked by 
 a distinguished surgeon, who got a title for cutting a wen 
 out of the king's neck. It was conservatism that main- 
 tained the fitness of hanging men and women for the theft 
 of a few pence. It was conservatism that opposed every 
 improvement in the laws of this country which has been 
 made in the last thirty years ; for that matter in the last 
 five hundred. Bat the battering-ram has done its work: 
 and the old walls have gone down, as other old walls will 
 doubtless go. Progressive folk may well rejoice that there 
 are those who gird themselves up and go forth to fight with 
 what they think wrong, at whatever risk. For there are 
 very many enlightened persons, who would plainly see 
 the wrong, and privately despise the stupidity of such as 
 stand up for it, yet who would have no mind at all foi 
 
 
Of Ba ttc ring -Ra ms. 231 
 
 the fight, and so would just let the wrong go on and 
 nourish. 
 
 We all, daily, see many things wrong. We know that 
 we should get much ill-will by pointing them out and 
 trying to correct them. We have learned by experience 
 how much trouble and sorrow come of proposing and 
 carrying even a very small improvement. And so, there 
 is a great temptation to sadly sit still, till a braver man of 
 thicker skin appears and does the work. Of course, this 
 is cowardly. But it is natural ; and grows always more 
 congenial to our nature as we grow older. What is the 
 use, we mournfully ask ourselves, of getting into all that 
 hot water ; and likely enough failing to do any good after 
 all ? You lose heart : you cannot bear the strife, the mis- 
 apprehension, the misrepresentation. 
 
 In Scotland there is an association of clergymen called 
 the Church Service Society. Its purpose is to foster the 
 study of ancient Christian liturgies, and thus to cultivate 
 a taste for more devotional and becoming language in 
 public prayer. For public prayer, in the Scotch Church, 
 must be prepared by each minister for his own use : and 
 the days have been, in which the standard aimed at was a 
 very bad one : partaking more of the nature of theological 
 statement and discussion than of reverent prayer. Things 
 are much better now : and this society desires, humbly 
 and quietly, to promote and direct the better taste now 
 prevailing. Its purpose is what has been said, and nothing 
 more. But some individuals, of a suspicious temper, 
 insist that it is founded to the end of plotting and conspir- 
 
232 Thoughts touching the 
 
 ing for the introduction of a liturgy into the worship of 
 the national Church, which has hitherto regarded anything 
 like an authoritative service-book with much aversion. 
 These individuals persist in calling the association the 
 Liturgical Society. They are well aware that this is not 
 its name, and that such a name grossly misrepresents its 
 declared design : but they think the name likely to create 
 a prejudice in Scotland, and deem it all fair to do so. 
 Some timid men have thus been impelled to hold off from 
 the. society. A good many more stick to it the closer. 
 But he who knows the secret history of all the talks and 
 all the correspondence that have been used to detach 
 members from the society, and to hinder human beings 
 from joining it, has beheld a specimen of how those fare, 
 who, in a very small and harmless fashion, take the thank- 
 less position of the Moral Battering-Ram. 
 
 Suffer a voice of complaint touching the difficulty of re- 
 vivifying mummies. 
 
 A mummy is a very ugly thing : but that is not the 
 matter at present to be thought upon. The great point 
 is, that a mummy is so thoroughly dried up. All life is 
 gone from it, and all elasticity : and you cannot put them 
 back again. Once, those sinews were soft and supple ; 
 but that was long ago. Try to make those stiff limbs 
 walk, those withered fingers hold. It will not do. 
 
 The mummy over which the writer moans is an old 
 sermon. A sermon written with great care and preached 
 with great heart, four or five years ago. Then it was a 
 
Revivification of Mummies. 233 
 
 living elastic thing : but try to preach it now, and you 
 will find it quite withered and dried up. You fancied, in 
 those old days when you wrote it, that it was a possession 
 for ever : that is, for as long as each Sunday should call 
 you to ascend your pulpit and speak to your congregation. 
 And when you delivered it with great pleasure and emo- 
 tion, you fancied you would always be able to give it with 
 the like satisfaction and warmth. But when, after five 
 years, you draw it from its receptacle, and some Sunday 
 go and preach it, you will find the life has exhaled. • 
 
 It is a great disappointment. And I am not thinking 
 of the crudity and immaturity of your youthful extrava- 
 gances. I do not mean that you find your discourse 
 written in a turgid and fanciful style which now revolts 
 your sobered sense. All those early compositions are in 
 the fire, long ago. I mean the discourses you wrote after 
 you had attained something like maturity of judgment 
 and taste. It is not even that your intellectual and spirit- 
 ual standpoint is greatly changed. All that is true, you 
 feel as you read it. It is right, every word of it : you are 
 sure of that. But the whole thing, that glowed with life 
 as you wrote it with a heightened pulse, and as you gave 
 it the first Sunday after it was written, is now dead and 
 dried up. You are out of sympathy with it. It seems 
 very poor. And oh how things to be said to a number of 
 your fellow creatures depend for their interest and impres- 
 sion on your being able to throw your whole heart into 
 them as you say them ! 
 
 If a clergyman's mind be still active, and perceptive of 
 
234 Thoughts touching the 
 
 what is going on in the moral world round about him, he 
 need not cherish the vain belief that when he goes to a 
 new parish, he will have many days of tranquil ease, 
 during which he will preach over again the sermons 
 written in his old one. Each Sunday, at the first, he will 
 take out a mummy, and with greater or less disappoint- 
 ment, try to make it live and move. Even if the people 
 who hear the discourse seem interested in it, the preacher 
 knows that all this is a pale shadow of what the thing 
 used to be. The old fervour is fled : that fervour which 
 never can be simulated, and which must come spontane- 
 ous or not come at all. I have heard a preacher who in 
 the prime of his physical strength had exercised a wonderful 
 power over all who listened to him, in advanced age when 
 the old glow would not come. It was touching to hear 
 him say the old words that used to touch and melt young 
 and old, trying to say them in the old way ; and feeling, 
 far more deeply than any one else, how grievous was the 
 failure. 
 
 Talking thus of old sermons, let us have a little thought 
 upon a question of interest to a good many people. May 
 a clergyman, with propriety, now and then, preach one 
 of his own published sermons ? 
 
 The common idea is that he ought not to do so : though 
 I never yet found any one who could give any distinct 
 reason for thinking so. This common idea appears to be 
 a mere groundless prejudice. And it is a serious question 
 to a man who has published a great number of sermons, 
 doubtless those which he esteemed his best, whether in all 
 
Revivification of Mummies. 235 
 
 coming time he is to be debarred from making any use 
 of that laboriously prepared material. 
 
 The purpose of preaching a sermon is to impress on 
 those who hear it some important truth. Now, after hav- 
 ing once pressed that truth on your hearers, are you never 
 to recur to it ? Are you to take for granted that every- 
 body has read your sermons ; and read them so recently 
 that your views are still fresh in their memory? Then it 
 it certain that now and then you will be aware of a strong 
 desire to preach something that you have published. You 
 know it would be useful to some one in the congregation : 
 possibly you know that it is what you need yourself just 
 then. Now, in the published discourse you have treated 
 that subject as well as you could : are you to go and de- 
 signedly treat it in an inferior way, for the sake of making 
 a difference ? Nothing of the sort. Just go and preach 
 it manfully ; and make no mystery of what you are doing. 
 Ninety-nine out of every hundred in the congregation 
 will not remember (even if they ever knew) a word of it. 
 And those who recognise the thing, will be all the more 
 interested in hearing what they have read as interpreted 
 by its author. The writer knows, for himself, that in 
 going to hear Mr Melvill preach, or Dean Alford, or 
 Bishop Wilberforce, he would much rather hear from any 
 one of them a sermon he has already read, than a quite 
 new one probably not half so good. 
 
 Of course, published sermons are not to be preached 
 habitually : not to be preached often : and never to be 
 preached at all except to a man's own congregation. A 
 
236 The Revivification of Mummies. 
 
 preacher must be very poverty-stricken indeed, if when 
 he goes to a strange church, he has not something new to 
 give. It is quite a different thing with his own, where 
 he must produce an incredible quantity of matter in the 
 course of the year. Few people have any notion of the 
 immense amount of material which regular Sunday duty 
 demands. I have a friend who for six years preached 
 twice each Sunday in a certain church. In that time, he 
 tells me, the sermons he preached in that church would 
 make up thirty-four well-sized volumes of sixteen sermons 
 each. Of coarse, that man is merely a specimen of hun- 
 dreds more. Who that knows the long and hard work 
 that goes to the composition of a sermon, but must be 
 awe-stricken at the thought of so inconceivable a mass of 
 manuscript ? You will say, most of it, possibly all of it, 
 was very poor. Likely enough : but then to the middling 
 powers of the writer, it was just as great exertion to pro- 
 duce it, as to a man of greater ability and information it 
 is to produce an article for the Edinburgh. Review, or an 
 equal quantity of a volume " which no gentleman's library 
 should be without." Now, it seems to me that any fair 
 means of lessening that fearful drain ought to be wel- 
 comed. If you ask what proportion the old should bear 
 to the new, I should say that a twentieth part may very 
 fitly be the former. That is, after each nineteen new 
 sermons you preach, you may most properly enter your 
 pulpit with a published one in your sermon-case. 
 
 Such are the writer's present views. Doubtless they 
 may change 3 as others have changed. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER * 
 
 UPON any day in the months of June, July, August, 
 and September, the stranger who should walk 
 through the handsome streets, crescents, and terraces which 
 form the West End of Glasgow, might be led to fancy 
 that the plague was in the town, or that some fearful 
 commercial crash had brought ruin upon all its respectable 
 families, — so utterly deserted is the place. The windows 
 are all done up with brown paper : the door-plates and 
 handles, erewhile of glittering brass, are black with rust : 
 the flights of steps which lead to the front-doors of the 
 houses have furnished a field for the chalked cartoons of 
 vagabond boys with a turn for drawing. The more 
 fashionable the terrace or crescent, the more completely 
 is it deserted : our feet waken dreary echoes as we pace 
 the pavement. We naturally inquire of the first police- 
 man we meet, What is the matter with Glasgow, — has 
 anything dreadful happened ? And we receive for answer 
 the highly intelligible explanation, that the people are all 
 Down the Water. 
 
 * Frasers Magazine, November 1856. 
 
238 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 We are enjoying (shall we suppose) our annual holiday 
 from the turmoil of Westminster Hall and the throng of 
 London streets : and we have taken Glasgow on our way 
 to the Highlands. We have two or three letters of intro- 
 duction to two or three of the merchant-princes of the 
 city ; and having heard a great deal of the splendid hospi- 
 talities of the Western metropolis of the North, we have 
 been anticipating with considerable satisfaction stretching 
 our limbs beneath their mahogany, and comparing their 
 cuisine and their cellar with the descriptions of both which 
 we have often heard from Mr Allan M'Collop, a Glasgow 
 man who is getting on fairly at the bar. But when we 
 go to see our new acquaintances, or when they pay us a 
 hurried visit at our hotel, each of them expresses his deep 
 regret that he cannot ask us to his house, which he tells 
 us is shut up, his wife and family being Down the Water. 
 No explanation is vouchsafed of the meaning of the phrase, 
 which is so familiar to Glasgow folk that they forget how 
 oddly it sounds on the ear of the stranger. Our first 
 hasty impression, perhaps, from the policeman's sad face 
 (no cold meat for him now, honest man), was that some 
 sudden inundation had swept away the entire wealthier 
 portion of the population, — at the same time curiously 
 sparing the toiling masses. But the pleasant and cheerful 
 look of our mercantile friend, as he states what has be- 
 come of his domestic circle, shows us that nothing very 
 serious is amiss. At length, after much meditation, we 
 conclude that the people are at the sea-side : and as that 
 lies down the Clvde from Glasgow, when a Glasgow man 
 
Glasgow dowit the Water. 239 
 
 means to tell us that his family and himself are enjoying 
 the fresh breezes and the glorious scenery of the Frith of 
 Clyde, he says they are Down the Water. 
 
 Everybody everywhere of course longs for the country, 
 the sea-side, change of air and scene, at some period 
 during the year. Almost every man of the wealthier and 
 more cultivated class in this country has a vacation, longer 
 or shorter. But there never was a city whence the annual 
 migration to the sea-side is so universal or so protracted as 
 it is from Glasgow. By the month of March in each 
 year, every house along the coast within forty miles of 
 Glasgow is let for the season at a rent which we should 
 say must be highly remunerative. Many families go to 
 the coast early in May, and every one is doun the water 
 by the first of June. Most people now stay till the end 
 of September. The months of June and July form what 
 is called " the first season ; " August and September are 
 "the second season." Until within the last few years, 
 one of these " seasons " was thought to furnish a Glasgow 
 family with vigour and buoyancy sufficient to face the 
 winter, but now almost all who can afford it stay at the 
 sea-side during both. And from the little we have seen 
 of Glasgow, we do not wonder that such should be the 
 case. No doubt Glasgow is a fine city on the whole. 
 The Trongate is a noble street ; the park on the banks of 
 the Kelvin, laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton, furnishes some 
 pleasant walks ; the Sauchy hall- road is an agreeable pro- 
 menade ; Claremont Crescent and Park Gardens consist 
 of houses which would be of the first class even in Bel- 
 
240 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 gravia or Tyburnia ; and from the West-end streets, there 
 are prospects of valley and mountain which are worth 
 going some distance to see. But the atmosphere, though 
 comparatively free from smoke, wants the exhilarating 
 freshness of breezes just arrived from the Atlantic. The 
 sun does not set in such glory beyond Gilmore-hill, as 
 behind the glowing granite of Goatfell ; and the trunks of 
 the trees round Glasgow are (if truth must be spoken) a 
 good deal blacker than might be desired, while their 
 leaves are somewhat shrivelled up by the chemical gales 
 of St Rollox. No wonder, then, that the purest of pure 
 air, the bluest of blue waves, the most picturesque of 
 noble hills, the most purple of heather, the greenest of ivy, 
 the thickest of oak leaves, the most fragrant of roses and 
 honeysuckle, should fairly smash poor old Glasgow during 
 the summer months, and leave her not a leg to stand on. 
 The ladies and children of the multitudinous families 
 that go down the water, remain there permanently, of 
 course : most of the men go up to business every morning 
 and return to the sea-side ever}' night. This implies a 
 journey of from sixty to eighty miles daily 5 but the ra- 
 pidity and the cheapness of the communication render 
 the journey a comparatively easy one. Still, it occupies 
 three or four hours of the day 3 and many persons remain 
 in town two or three nights weekly, smuggling them- 
 selves away in some little back parlour of their dismantled 
 dwellings. But let us accept our friend's invitation to 
 spend a few days at his place down the water, and gather 
 up some particulars of the mode of life there. 
 
Glasgow down the Water, 241 
 
 There are two ways of reaching the coast from Glasgow. 
 We may sail all the way down the Clyde, in steamers 
 generally remarkably well-appointed and managed ; or we 
 may go by railway to Greenock, twenty-three miles off, 
 and catch the steamer there. By going by railway we 
 save an hour, — a great deal among people with whom 
 emphatically time is money, — and we escape a some- 
 what tedious sail down the river. The steamer takes 
 two hours to reach Greenock, while some express trains 
 which run all the way without stopping, accomplish the 
 distance in little more than half an hour. The sail down 
 the Clyde to Greenock is in parts very interesting. The 
 banks of the river are in some places richly wooded Ton 
 the north side there are picturesque hills ; and the huge 
 rock on which stands the ancient castle of Dumbarton, is 
 a striking feature. But we have never met any Glasgow 
 man or woman who did not speak of the sail between 
 Glasgow and Greenock as desperately tedious, and by all 
 means to be avoided. Then in warm summer weather 
 the Clyde is nearly as filthy as the Thames; and sailing 
 over a sewer, even through fine scenery, has its disad- 
 vantages. So we resolve to go with our friend by railway 
 to Greenock, and thus come upon the Clyde where it has 
 almost opened into the sea. Quite opened into the sea, 
 we might say : for at Greenock the river is three miles 
 broad, while at Glasgow it is only some three hundred 
 yards. 
 
 " Meet me at Bridge Street station at five minutes to 
 four," says our friend, after we have agreed to spend a 
 
 Q 
 
242 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 few days on the Clyde. There are a couple of hours to 
 spare, which we give to a visit to Lang's in Queen Street, 
 the very best place in Great Britain to get one's lunch j 
 and to a glance at the Cathedral, which is a magnificent 
 specimen of the severest style of Gothic architecture. 
 We are living at the Royal Hotel in George Square, and 
 when our hour approaches, Boots brings us a cab. We 
 are not aware whether there is any police regulation re- 
 quiring a certain proportion of the cabs of Glasgow to be 
 extremely dirty, and the horses that draw them to be 
 broken-winded, and lame of not more than four nor less 
 than two legs. Perhaps it is merely the general wish of 
 the inhabitants that has brought about the present state 
 of things. However this may be, the unhappy animal 
 that draws us reaches Bridge Street station at last. As 
 our carriage draws up we catch a glimpse of half-a-dozen 
 men, in that peculiar green dress which railway servants 
 affect, hastening to conceal themselves behind the pillars 
 which decorate the front of the building, while two or 
 three excited ticket-porters seize our baggage, and offer 
 to carry it upstairs. But our friend, with Scotch fore- 
 sight and economy, has told us to make the servants of 
 the Company do their work. " Hands off," we say to 
 the ticket-porters ; and walking up the steps we round a 
 pillar, and smartly tapping on the shoulder one of the 
 green-dressed gentlemen lurking there, we indicate to 
 him the locality of our portmanteau. Sulkily he shoul- 
 ders it, and precedes us to the booking-office. The fares 
 are moderate - } eighteenpence to Greenock, first class: 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 243 
 
 and persons who go daily, by taking season tickets, travel 
 for much less. The steamers afford a still cheaper access 
 to the sea-side, conveying passengers from Glasgow to 
 Rothesay, about forty-five miles, for sixpence cabin and 
 threepence deck. The trains start from a light and 
 spacious shed, which has the very great disadvantage of 
 being at an elevation of thirty or forty feet above the 
 ground level. Railway companies have sometimes spent 
 thousands of pounds to accomplish ends not a tenth part 
 so desirable as is the arranging their stations in such a 
 manner as that people in departing, and still more in 
 arriving, shall be spared the annoyance and peril of a 
 break-neck staircase like that at the Glasgow railway 
 station. It is a vast comfort when cabs can draw up 
 alongside the train, under cover, so that people can get 
 into them at once, as at Euston Square and King's 
 Cross. 
 
 The railway carriages that run between Glasgow and 
 Greenock have a rather peculiar appearance. The first- 
 class carriages are of twice the usual length, having six 
 compartments instead of three. Each compartment holds 
 eight passengers ; and as this accommodation is gained by 
 increasing the breadth of the carriages, brass bars are 
 placed across the windows, to prevent anyone from put- 
 ting out his head. Should any one do so, his head would 
 run some risk of coming in collision with the other train ; 
 and although, from physiological reasons, some heads 
 might receive no injury in such a case, the carriage with 
 which they came in contact would probably suffer. The 
 
244 Glasgow down the Water, 
 
 expense of painting is saved by the carriages being built 
 of teak, which when varnished has a cheerful light-oak 
 colour. There is a great crowd of men on the platform, 
 for the four o'clock train is the chief down-train of the 
 day. The bustle of the business-day is over j there is a 
 general air of relief and enjoyment. We meet our friend 
 punctual to the minute ; we take our seat on the comfort- 
 able blue cushions 5 the bell rings ; the engine pants and 
 tugs j and we are off "down the water." 
 
 We pass through a level country on leaving Glasgow : 
 there are the rich fields which tell of Scotch agricultural 
 industry. It is a bright August afternoon : the fields are 
 growing yellow ; the trees and hedges still wear their 
 summer green. In a quarter of an hour the sky suddenly 
 becomes over-cast. It is not a cloud : don't be afraid of 
 an unfavourable change of weather 5 we have merely 
 plunged into the usual atmosphere of dirty and ugly 
 Paisley. Without a pause, we sweep by, and here turn 
 off to the right. That line of railway from which we have 
 turned aside runs on to Dumfries and Carlisle ; a branch 
 of it keeps along the Ayrshire coast to Ardrossan and Ayr. 
 In a little while we are skimming the surface of a bleak, 
 black moor 5 it is a dead level, and not in the least interest- 
 ing : but, after a plunge into the mirk darkness of a long 
 tunnel, we emerge into daylight again ; and there, sure 
 enough, are the bright waters of the Clyde. We are on 
 its south side ; it has spread out to the breadth of perhaps 
 a couple of miles. That rocky height on its north shore 
 is Dumbarton Castle 5 that great mass beyond is Ben 
 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 245 
 
 Lomond, at whose base lies Loch Lomond, the queen of 
 Scottish lakes, now almost as familiar to many a cockney 
 tourist as a hundred years since to Rob Roy Macgregor. 
 We keep close by the water's edge, skirting a range of 
 hills on which grow the finest strawberries in Scotland. 
 Soon, to the right, we see many masts, many great rafts 
 of timber, many funnels of steamers ; and there, creeping 
 along out in the middle of the river, is the steamer we are 
 to join, which left Glasgow an hour before us. We have 
 not stopped since we left Glasgow ; thirty-five minutes 
 have elapsed, and now we sweep into a remarkably taste- 
 less and inconvenient station. This is Greenock at last ; 
 but, as at Glasgow, the station is some forty feet above the 
 ground. A railway cart at the foot of a long stair receives 
 the luggage of passengers, and then sets oif at a gallop 
 down a dirty little lane. We follow at a run : and, a 
 hundred and fifty yards off, we come on a long range of 
 wharf, beside which lie half-a-dozen steamers, sputtering 
 out their white steam with a roar, as though calling im- 
 patiently for their passengers to come faster. Our train 
 has brought passengers for a score of places on the Frith 5 
 and in the course of the next hour and a half, these vessels 
 will disperse them to their various destinations. By way 
 of guidance to the inexperienced, a post is erected on the 
 wharf, from which arms project, pointing to the places of 
 the different steamers. The idea is a good one, and if 
 carried out with the boldness with which it was conceived, 
 much advantage might be derived by strangers. But a 
 serious drawback about these indicators is, that they, are 
 
246 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 invariably pointed in the wrong direction, which renders 
 them considerably less useful than they might otherwise 
 be. Fortunately we have a guide, for there is not a 
 moment to lose. We hasten on board, over an awkward 
 little gangway, kept by a policeman of rueful countenance, 
 who punches the heads of several little boys who look on 
 with awe. Bareheaded and barefooted girls offer baskets 
 of gooseberries and plums of no tempting appearance. 
 Ragged urchins bellow "Day's Penny Paper! Glasgow 
 Daily News ! " In a minute or two, the ropes are cast 
 off, and the steamers diverge as from a centre to their 
 various ports. 
 
 We are going to Dunoon. Leaving the ship-yards of 
 Greenock echoing with multitudinous hammerings, and 
 rounding a point covered with houses, we see before us 
 Gourock, the nearest to Greenock of the places " down 
 the water." It is a dirty little village on the left side of 
 the Frith. A row of neat houses, quite distinct from the 
 dirty village, stretches for two miles along the water's 
 edge. The hills rise immediately behind these. The 
 Frith is here about three miles in breadth. It is Renfrew- 
 shire on the left hand ; a few miles on, and it will be 
 Ayrshire. On the right, are the hills of Argyleshire. And 
 now, for many miles on either side, the shores of the 
 Frith and the shores of the long arms of the sea that run 
 up among those Argyleshire mountains, are fringed with 
 villas, castles, and cottages — the retreats of Glasgow men 
 and their families. It is not, perhaps, saying much for 
 Glasgow to state that one of its greatest advantages is the 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 247 
 
 facility with which one can get away from it, and the 
 beauty of the places to which one can get. But true it is, 
 that there is hardly a great city in the world which is so 
 well off in this respect. For sixpence, the artisan of 
 Bridgeton or Calton can travel forty miles in the purest 
 air, over as blue a sea, and amid as noble hills, as can be 
 found in Britain. The Clyde is a great highway : a high- 
 way traversed, indeed, by a merchant navy scarcely any- 
 where surpassed in extent ; but a highway, too, whose 
 gracious breezes, through the summer and autumn time, 
 are ever ready to revive the heart of the pale weaver, 
 with his thin wife and child, and to fan the cheek of the 
 poor consumptive needlewoman into the glow of some- 
 thing like country health and strength. 
 
 After Greenock is passed, and the river has grown into 
 the frith, the general features of the scene remain very 
 much the same for upwards of twenty miles. The water 
 varies from three to seven or eight miles in breadth 3 and 
 then suddenly opens out to a breadth of twenty or thirty 
 miles. Hills, fringed with wood along their base, ' and 
 gradually passing into moorland as they ascend, form the 
 shores on either side. The rocky islands of the Great and 
 Little Cumbrae occupy the middle of the Frith, about 
 fourteen or fifteen miles below Greenock : to the right 
 lies the larger island of Bute ; and further on the still 
 larger island of Arran. The hills on the Argyleshire side 
 of the Frith are generally bold and precipitous : those on 
 the Ayrshire side are of much less elevation. The char- 
 acter of all the places " down the water " is almost iden- 
 
248 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 tical : they consist of a row of houses, generally detached 
 villas or cottages, reaching along the shore, at only a few- 
 yards' distance from the water, with the hills rising imme- 
 diately behind. The beach is not very convenient for 
 bathing, being generally rocky ; though here and there we 
 find a strip of yellow sand. Trees and shrubs grow in the 
 richest way down to the water's edge. The trees are numer- 
 ous, and luxuriant rather than large; oaks predominate ; we 
 should say few of them are a hundred years old. Ivy and 
 honeysuckle grow in profusion : for several miles along 
 the coast, near Largs, there is a perpendicular wall of rock 
 from fifty to one hundred feet in height, which follows 
 the windings of the shore at a distance of one hundred and 
 fifty yards from the water, enclosing between itself and 
 the sea a long ribbon of fine soil, on which shrubs, flowers, 
 and fruits grow luxuriantly 5 and this natural rampart, 
 which advances and retreats as we pursue the road at its 
 base, like the bastions and curtains of some magnificent 
 feudal castle, is in many places clad with ivy, so fresh and 
 green that we can hardly believe that for months in the 
 year it is wet with the salt spray of the Atlantic. Here 
 and there, along the coast, are places where the land is 
 capable of cultivation for a mile or two inland ; but, as the 
 rule, the hill ascends almost from the water's edge into 
 granite and heather. 
 
 Let us try to remember the names of the places which 
 reach along the Frith upon either hand : we believe that 
 a list of them will show that not without reason it is said 
 that Glasgow is unrivalled in the number of her sea-side 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 249 
 
 retreats. On the right hand, as we go down the Frith, 
 there are Helensburgh, Row, Roseneath, Shandon, Gare- 
 loch-head, Cove, Kilcreggan, Lochgoil-head, Arrochar, 
 Ardentinny, Strone, Kilmun, Kirn, Dunoon, Inellan, 
 Toward, Port Bannatyne, Rothesay, Askog, Colintrave, 
 Tynabruach. Sometimes these places form for miles one 
 long range of villas. Indeed, from Strone to Toward, ten 
 or twelve miles, the coast is one continuous street. On 
 the left hand of the Frith are Gourock, Ashton, Inverkip, 
 Wemyss Bay, Skelmorlie, Largs, Fairlie : then comes a 
 bleak range of sandy coast, along which stand Ardrossan, 
 Troon, and Ayr. In the island of Cumbrae is Millport, 
 conspicuous by the tall spire which marks the site of an 
 Episcopal chapel and college of great architectural beauty, 
 built within the last few years. And in Arran are the 
 villages of Lamlash and Brodick. The two Cumbrae 
 islands constitute a parish. A simple-minded clergyman, 
 not long deceased, who held the cure for many years, 
 was wont, Sunday by Sunday, to pray (in the church 
 service) for " the islands of the Great and Little Cum- 
 brae, and also for the adjacent islands of Great Britain 
 and Ireland." 
 
 But all this while the steam has been fiercely chafing 
 through the funnel as we have been stopping at Gourock 
 quay. We are away at last, and are now crossing the 
 Frith towards the Argyleshire side. A mile or two 
 down, along the Ayrshire side, backed by the rich woods 
 of Ardgowan, tall and spectral-white, stands the Cloch 
 lighthouse. We never have looked at it without think- 
 
250 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 ing how many a heart-broken emigrant must be remem- 
 bering that severely-simple white tower as almost the last 
 thing he saw in Scotland when he was leaving it for ever. 
 The Frith opens before us as we advance : we are running 
 at the rate (quite usual among Clyde steamers) of sixteen 
 or seventeen miles an hour. There, before us, is Cum- 
 brae : over Bute and over Cumbrae look the majestic 
 mountains of Arran ; that great granite peak is Goatfell. 
 And on a clear day, far out, guarding the entrance to the 
 Frith, rising sheer up from the deep sea, at ten miles' dis- 
 tance from the nearest land, looms Ailsa, white with sea- 
 birds, towering to the height of twelve or thirteen hundred 
 feet. It is a rocky islet of about a mile in circumference, 
 and must have been thrown up by volcanic agency ; for 
 the water around it is hundreds of feet deep. 
 
 Out in the middle of the Frith we can see the long, 
 low, white line of buildings on either side of it, nestling 
 at the foot of the hills. We are drawing near Dunoon. 
 That opening on the right is the entrance to Loch Long 
 and Loch Goyle ; and a little farther on we pass the 
 entrance to the Holy Loch, on whose shore is the ancient 
 burying-place of the family of Argyle. How remarkably 
 tasteful many of these villas are ! They are generally 
 built in the Elizabethan style : they stand in grounds 
 varying from half an acre up to twenty or thirty acres, 
 very prettily laid out with shrubbery and flowers; a 
 number, (we can see, for we are now skirting the Argyle- 
 shire coast at the distance of only a few hundred yards,) 
 have conservatories and hot-houses of more or less extent : 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 251 
 
 flag-staffs appear to be much affected, (for send a lands- 
 man to the coast, and he is sure to become much more 
 marine than a sailor:) and those pretty bow- windows, 
 with the crimson fuchsias climbing up them — those fan- 
 tastic gables and twisted chimneys — those shining ever- 
 greens and cheerful gravel walks — with no lack of pretty- 
 girls in round hats, and sportive children rolling about the 
 trimly-kept grass plots — all seen in this bright August 
 sunshine — all set off against this blue smiling expanse of 
 sea — make a picture so gay and inviting, that we really do 
 not wonder any more that Glasgow people should like to 
 "go down the water." 
 
 Here is Dunoon pier. Several of the coast places have, 
 like Dunoon, a long jetty of wood running out a consider- 
 able distance into the water, for the accommodation of the 
 steamers, which call every hour or two throughout the 
 day. Other places have deep water close inshore, and 
 are provided with a wharf of stone. And several of the 
 recently founded villages, (and half of those we have 
 enumerated have sprung up within the last ten years,) 
 have no landing-place at which steamers can touch 5 and 
 their passengers have to land and embark by the aid of a 
 ferry-boat. We touch the pier at last : a gangway is 
 hastily thrown from the pier to the steamer, and in com- 
 pany with many others we go ashore. At the landward 
 end of the jetty, detained there by a barrier of twopence 
 each of toll, in round hats and alpaca dresses, are waiting 
 our friend's wife and children, from whom we receive a 
 welcome distinguished by that frankness which is charac- 
 
252 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 teristic of Glasgow people. But we do not intend so far 
 to imitate the fashion of some modern tourists and bio- 
 graphers, as to give our readers a description of our friend's 
 house and family, his appearance and manners. We shall 
 only say of him what will never single him out — for it 
 may be said of hundreds more — that he is a wealthy, in- 
 telligent, well-informed, kind-hearted Glasgow merchant. 
 And if his daughters did rather bore us by their enthusias- 
 tic descriptions of the sermons of "our minister," Mr 
 Macduff, the still grander orations of Mr Caird, and the 
 altogether unexampled eloquence of Dr dimming, why, 
 they were only showing us a thoroughly Glasgow feature -, 
 for nowhere in Britain, we should fancy, is there so much 
 talk about preaching and preachers. 
 
 In sailing down the Frith, one gets no just idea of the 
 richness and beauty of its shores. We have said that a 
 little strip of fine soil, — in some places only fifty or sixty 
 yards in breadth, — runs like a ribbon, occasionally broad- 
 ening out to three or four times that extent, along the sea- 
 margin ; beyond this ribbon of ground come the wild 
 moor and mountain. In sailing down the Frith, our eye 
 is caught by the large expanse of moorland, and we do 
 not give importance to the rich strip which bounds it, 
 like an edging of gold lace (to use King James's com- 
 parison) round a russet petticoat. When we land we 
 understand things better. We find next the sea, at almost 
 any point along the Frith, the turnpike road, generally 
 nearly level, and beautifully smooth. Here and there, in 
 the places of older date, we find quite a street of con- 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 253 
 
 tiguous houses ; but the general rule is of detached dwell- 
 ings of all grades, from the humblest cottage to the most 
 luxurious villa. At considerable intervals, here are resi- 
 dences of a much higher class than even this last, whose 
 grounds stretch for long distances along the shore. Such 
 places are Ardgowan, Skelmorlie Castle, and Kelburne, 
 on the Ayrshire side ; and on the other shore of the Frith, 
 Roseneath Castle, Toward Castle, and Mountstuart. And 
 of dwellings of a less ambitious standing than these really 
 grand abodes, yet of a mark much above that suggested 
 by the word villa, we may name the very showy house 
 of Mr Napier, the eminent maker of marine steam- 
 engines, on the Gareloch, a building in the Saracenic 
 style, which cost we are afraid to say how many thousand 
 pounds ; the finely-placed castle of Wemyss, built from 
 the design of Billings j and the very striking piece of 
 baronial architecture called Knock Castle, the residence 
 of Mr Steel, a wealthy shipbuilder of Greenock. The 
 houses along the Frith are, in Scotch fashion, built exclu- 
 sively of stone, which is obtained with great facility. 
 Along the Ayrshire coast, the warm-looking red sand- 
 stone of the district is to be had everywhere, almost on 
 the surface. One sometimes sees a house rising, the stone 
 being taken from a deep quarry close to it : the same 
 crane often serving to lift a block from the quarry, and 
 to place it in its permanent position upon the advancing 
 wall. We have said how rich is vegetation all along the 
 Frith, until we reach the sandy downs from Ardrossan to 
 Ayr. All evergreens grow witli great rapidity : ivy covers 
 
254 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 dead walls very soon. To understand in what luxuriance 
 vegetable life may be maintained close to the sea-margin, 
 one must walk along the road which leads from the AVest 
 Bay at Dunoon towards Toward. We never saw trees so 
 covered with honeysuckle ; and fuchsias a dozen feet in 
 height are quite common. In this sweet spot, in an 
 Elizabethan house of exquisite design, retired within 
 grounds where line taste has done its utmost, resides, 
 during the summer vacation (and the summer vacation 
 is six months !), Mr Buchanan, the Professor of Logic in 
 the University of Glasgow. It must be a very fair thing 
 to teach logic at Glasgow, if the revenue of that chair 
 maintains the groves and flowers, and (we may add) the 
 liberal hospitalities, of Ardfillane. 
 
 One pleasing circumstance about the Frith of Clyde, 
 which we remark the more from its being unhappily the 
 exception to the general rule in Scotland, is the general 
 neatness and ecclesiastical character of the churches. The 
 parish church of Dunoon, standing on a wooded height 
 rising from the water, with its grey tower looking over 
 the trees, is a dignified and commanding object. The 
 churches of Roseneath and Row, which have been built 
 within a year or two, are correct and elegant specimens of 
 ecclesiastical Gothic : indeed they are so thoroughly like 
 churches, that John Knox would assuredly have pulled 
 them down had they been standing in his day. And 
 here and there along the coast the rich Glasgow mer- 
 chants and the neighbouring proprietors have built pretty 
 little chapels, whose cross-crowned gables, steep-pitched 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 255 
 
 roofs, dark oak woodwork, and stained windows, are 
 pleasant indications that old prejudice has given way 
 among cultivated Scotchmen 5 and that it has come to 
 be understood that it is false religion as well as bad taste 
 and sense to make God's house the shabbiest, dirtiest, and 
 most uncomfortable house in the parish. Some of these 
 sea-side places of worship are crowded in summer by a 
 fashionable congregation, and comparatively deserted in 
 winter when the Glasgow folks are gone. 
 
 A very considerable number of the families that go 
 "down the water" occupy houses which are their own 
 property. There must be, one would think, a special 
 interest about a house which is one's own. A man must 
 become attached to a spot where he himself planted the 
 hollies and yews, and his children have marked their 
 growth year by year. Still, many people do not like to 
 be tied to one place, and prefer varying their quarters 
 each season. Very high rents are paid for good houses on 
 the Frith of Clyde. From thirty to fifty pounds a month 
 is a common charge for a neat villa at one of the last 
 founded and most fashionable places. A little less is 
 charged for the months of August and September than for 
 June and July : and if a visitor takes a house for the four 
 months which constitute the season, he may generally 
 have it for May and October without further cost. De- 
 cent houses, or parts of houses {flats as they are called), 
 may be had for about ten pounds a month 5 and at those 
 places which approach to the character of a town, as 
 Largs, Rothesav, and Dunoon, lodgings may be obtained 
 
256 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 where attendance is provided by the people of the 
 house. 
 
 A decided drawback about the sea-side places within 
 twenty miles from Greenock, is their total want of that 
 fine sandy beach, so firm and dry and inviting when the 
 tide is out, which forms so great an attraction at Ardros- 
 son, Troon, and Ayr. At a few points, as for instance 
 the West Bay at Dunoon, there is a beautiful expanse of 
 yellow sand : but as a rule, where the shore does not con- 
 sist of precipitous rocks, sinking at once into deep water, 
 it is made of great rough stones, which form a most un- 
 pleasant footing for bathers. In front of most villas a 
 bathing place is formed by clearing the stones away. 
 Bathing machines, we should mention, are quite unknown 
 upon the Frith of Clyde. 
 
 So much for the locality which is designated by the 
 phrase, Down the Water : and now we can imagine our 
 readers asking what kind of life Glasgow people lead 
 there. Of course there must be a complete breaking-up 
 of all city ways and habits, and a general return to a 
 simpler and more natural mode of living. Our few days 
 at Dunoon, and a few days more at two other places on 
 the Frith, were enough to give us some insight into the 
 usual order of things. By seven or half-past seven o'clock 
 in the morning the steam is heard by us, as we are snug 
 in bed, fretting through the waste-pipe of the early boat 
 for Glasgow ; and with great complacency we picture to 
 ourselves the unfortunate business-men, with whom we 
 had a fishing excursion last night, already up, and break- 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 257 
 
 fasted, and hurrying along the shore towards the vessel 
 which is to bear them back to the counting-house and 
 the Exchange. Poor fellows ! They sacrifice a good 
 deal to grow rich. At each village along the shore the 
 steamer gets an accession to the number of her passengers -, 
 for the most part of trim, close-shaved, well-dressed gentle- 
 men, of sober aspect and not many words 3 though here 
 and there comes some whiskered and moustached person- 
 age, with a shirt displaying a pattern of ballet-dancers, a 
 shooting coat of countless pockets, and trousers of that 
 style which, in our college days, we used to call loud. A 
 shrewd bank-manager told us that he always made a 
 mental memorandum of such individuals, in case they 
 should ever come to him to borrow money. Don't they 
 wish they may get it ! The steamer parts with her entire 
 freight at Greenock, whence an express train rapidly con- 
 veys our friends into the heat and smoke of Glasgow. 
 Before ten o'clock all of them are at their work. For us, 
 who have the day at our own disposal, we have a refresh- 
 ing dip in the sea at rising, then a short walk, and come 
 in to breakfast with an appetite foreign to Paper Build- 
 ings. It is quite a strong sensation when the post appears 
 about ten o'clock, bearing tidings from the toiling world 
 we have left behind. Those families which have their 
 choice dine at two o'clock — an excellent dinner hour when 
 the day is not a working one : the families whose male 
 members are in town, sometimes postpone the most im- 
 portant engagement of the day till their return at six or 
 half-past six o'clock. As for the occupations of the day, 
 
258 Glasgow down the Water, 
 
 there are boating and yachting, wandering along the 
 beach, lying on the heather looking at Arran through the 
 sun-mist, lounging into the reading-room, dipping into 
 any portion of The Times except the leading articles, turn- 
 ing over the magazines, and generally enjoying the bless- 
 ing of rest. Fishing is in high favour, especially among 
 the ladies. Hooks baited with mussels are sunk to the 
 ground by leaden weights (the fishers are in a boat), and 
 abundance of whitings are caught when the weather is 
 favourable. We confess we don't think the employment 
 ladylike. Sticking the mussels upon the hooks is no work 
 for fair fingers; neither is the pulling the captured fish 
 off the hooks. And, even in the pleasantest company, we 
 cannot see anything very desirable in sitting in a boat, all 
 the floor of which is covered by unhappy whitings and 
 codlings flapping about in their last agony. Many young 
 ladies row with great vigour and adroitness. And as we 
 walk along the shore in the fading twilight, we often 
 hear, from boats invisible in the gathering shadows, music 
 mellowed by the distance into something very soft and 
 sweet. The lords of the creation have come back by the 
 late boats ; and we meet Pater -familias enjoying his even- 
 ing walk, surrounded by his children, shouting with 
 delight at having their governor among them once more. 
 No wonder that, after a day amid the hard matter-of-fact 
 of business life, he should like to hasten away to the quiet 
 fireside and the loving hearts by the sea. 
 
 Few are the hard-wrought men who cannot snatch an 
 entire day from business sometimes : and then there is a 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 259 
 
 pic-nic. Glasgow folk have even more, we believe, than 
 the average share of stiff dinner parties when in town : 
 we never saw people who seemed so completely to enjoy 
 the freshness and absence of formality which characterise 
 the well-assorted entertainment al fresco. We were at 
 one or two of these ; and we cannot describe the universal 
 gaiety and light-heartedness, extending to grave Presby- 
 terian divines and learned Glasgow professors 5 the blue 
 sea and the smiling sky; the rocky promontory where 
 our feast was spread 3 its abundance and variety; the 
 champagne which flowed like water; the joviality and 
 cleverness of many of the men ; the frankness and pretty 
 faces of all of the women.* We had a pleasant yachting 
 excursion one day 5 and the delight of a new sensation 
 was well exemplified in the intense enjoyment of dinner 
 in the cramped little cabin where one could hardly turn. 
 And great was the sight when our host, with irrepres- 
 sible pride, produced his preserved meats and vegetables, 
 as for an Arctic voyage, although a messenger sent in the 
 boat towing behind could have procured them fresh in 
 ten minutes. 
 
 A Sunday at the sea-side is an enjoyable thing. The 
 steamers that come down on Saturday evening are 
 crammed to the last degree. Houses which are already 
 
 * We do not think, from what we have seen, that Glasgow is rich 
 in beauties ; though pretty faces are very common. Times are im- 
 proved, however, since the days of the lady who said, on being asked 
 if there were many beauties in Glasgow, "Oh, no; very few; there 
 are only THREE OF US." 
 
260 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 fuller than they can hold, receive half-a-dozen new in- 
 mates, — how stowed away we cannot even imagine. We 
 cannot but reject as apocryphal the explanation of a 
 Glasgow wuty that on such occasions poles are projected 
 from the upper windows, upon which young men of 
 business roost until the morning. Every one, of course, 
 goes to church on Sunday morning ; no Glasgow man 
 who values his character durst stop away. We shall not 
 soon forget the beauty of the calm Sunday on that beau- 
 tiful shore: the shadows of the distant mountains ; the 
 smooth sea ; the church-bells, faintly heard from across 
 the water ; the universal turning-out of the population to 
 the house of prayer, or rather of preaching. It was 
 almost too much for us to find Dr Cumming here before 
 us, giving all his old brilliances to enraptured multitudes. 
 We had hoped he was four hundred and odd miles off; 
 but we resigned ourselves, like the Turk, to what appears 
 an inevitable destiny. This gentleman, we felt, is really 
 one of the institutions of the country, and no more to be 
 escaped than the income-tax. 
 
 Morning service over, most people take a walk. This 
 would have been regarded in Scotland a few years since 
 as a profanation of the day. But there is a general air of 
 quiet ; people speak in lower tones ; there are no joking 
 and laughing. And the Frith, so covered with steamers 
 on week-days, is to-day unruffled by a single paddle- 
 wheel. Still it is a mistake to fancy that a Scotch Sunday 
 is necessarily a gloomy thing. There are no excursion 
 trains, no pleasure trips in steamers, no tea-gardens open : 
 
Glasgow dow?i the Water. 261 
 
 but it is a day of quiet domestic enjoyment, not saddened 
 but hallowed by the recognised sacredness of the day. 
 The truth is, the feeling of the sanctity of the Sablath is 
 so ingrained into the nature of most Scotchmen by their 
 early training, that they could not enjoy Sunday pleasuring. 
 Their religious sense, their superstition if you choose, 
 would make them miserable on a Sunday excursion. 
 
 The Sunday morning service is attended by a crowded 
 congregation : the church is not so full in the afternoon. 
 In some places there is evening service, which is well 
 attended. We shall not forget one pleasant walk, along 
 a quiet road bounded by trees as rich and green as though 
 they grew in Surrey, though the waves were lapping on 
 the 'rocks twenty yards off, and the sun was going down 
 behind the hills of Cowal, to a pretty little chapel where 
 we attended evening worship upon our last Sunday on 
 the Clyde. 
 
 Every now and then, as we are taking our saunter by 
 the shore after breakfast, we perceive, well out in the 
 Frith, a steamer, decked with as many flags as can pos- 
 sibly be displayed about her rigging. The strains of a 
 band of music come by starts upon the breeze ; a big 
 drum is heard beating away when we can hear nothing 
 else j and a sound of howling springs up at intervals. 
 Do not fancy that these yells imply that anything is wrongj 
 that is merely the way in which working folk enjoy them- 
 selves in this country. That steamer has been hired for 
 the day by some wealthy manufacturer, who is giving his 
 "hands" a day's pleasure-sailing. They left Glasgow at 
 
262 Glasgow down the Water. 
 
 seven or eight o'clock : they will be taken probably to 
 Arran, and there feasted to a moderate extent ; and at 
 dusk they will be landed at the Broomielaw again. We 
 lament to say that very many Scotch people of the work- 
 ing class seem incapable of enjoying a holiday without 
 getting drunk and uproarious. We do not speak from 
 hearsay, but from what we have ourselves seen. Once or 
 twice we found ourselves on board a steamer crowded 
 with a most disagreeable mob of intoxicated persons, 
 among whom, we grieve to say, we saw many women. 
 The authorities of the vessel appeared entirely to lack 
 both the power and the will to save respectable passengers 
 from the insolence of the " roughs." The Highland fling 
 may be a very picturesque and national dance, but when 
 executed on a crowded deck by a maniacal individual, 
 with puffy face and blood-shot eyes, swearing, yelling, 
 dashing up against peaceable people, and mortally drunk, 
 we should think it should be matter less of aesthetical than 
 of police consideration. Unless the owners of the Clyde 
 steamers wish to drive all decent persons from their boats, 
 they must take vigorous steps to repress such scandalous 
 goings-on as we have witnessed more than once or twice. 
 And we also take the liberty to suggest that the infusion 
 of a little civility into the manner and conversation of 
 some of the steam-boat officials on the quay at Greenock, 
 would be very agreeable to passengers, and could not 
 seriously injure those individuals themselves. 
 
 What sort of men are the Glasgow merchants ? Why, 
 courteous reader, there are great diversities among them. 
 
Glasgow down the Water. 263 
 
 Almost all we have met give us an impression of shrewd- 
 ness and strong sense 3 some, of extraordinary tact and 
 cleverness — though these last are by no means among the 
 richest men. In many cases we found extremely un- 
 affected and pleasing address, great information upon 
 general topics — in short, all the characteristics of the cul- 
 tivated gentleman. In others there certainly was a good 
 deal of boorishness ; and in one or two instances, a ten- 
 dency to the use of oaths which have long been unknown 
 in good society. The reputed wealth of some Glasgow 
 men is enormous, though we think it not unlikely that 
 there is a great deal of exaggeration as to that subject. 
 We did, however, hear it said that one firm of iron mer- 
 chants realised for some time profits to the extent of 
 nearly four hundred thousand a-year. We were told of 
 an individual who died worth a million, all the produce 
 of his own industry and skill $ and one hears incidentally 
 of such things as five-hundred-pound bracelets, thousand- 
 guinea necklaces, and other appliances of extreme luxury, 
 as not unknown among the fair dames of Glasgow. 
 
 And so, in idle occupations, and in gleaning up par- 
 ticulars as to Glasgow matters according to our taste 
 wherever we went, our sojourn upon the Frith of Clyde 
 pleasantly passed away. We left our hospitable friends, 
 not without a promise that when the Christmas holidays 
 come we should visit them once more, and see what kind 
 of thing is the town life of the winter time-in that warm- 
 hearted city. And meanwhile, as the days shorten to 
 chill November, — as the clouds of London smoke drift by 
 
264 Glasgow down the Water, 
 
 our windows, — as the Thames runs muddy through this 
 mighty hum and bustle away to the solitudes of its last 
 level, — we recal that cheerful time with a most agreeable 
 recollection of the kindness of Glasgow friends, — and of 
 all that is implied in Glasgow Down the Water. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN MAY. 
 
 IF the reader, on any occasion when he has a few days 
 to spare, will preach twice every Sunday for twenty 
 months, likewise a great many times on week days, besides 
 doing as well as he can all the other duty of the incumbent 
 of a large parish, it may be predicted with considerable 
 confidence that the result will be, that the reader will 
 feel very tired and exceedingly stupid. The work comes 
 to be grinding : it loses its zest : foot and heart are heavy. 
 Then the reader will know the blessing of a little rest : 
 that is, if he can get it. Likewise he will understand the 
 blessing of a season of change, as total as may be, out of 
 the wonted round. Great will be the enjoyment of change 
 and rest: animated the rebound with which the daily 
 task will be returned to, after these. 
 
 Total has been the change from the writer's common 
 habitude of life, through certain days of this ungenial 
 May : complete his rest from the regular round of duty. 
 These days began with the Monday morning of one week, 
 and ended with the Friday evening of the next. How 
 many fresh scenes : how many pleasing impressions : what 
 
266 A little Tour in May. 
 
 views of new cities and men ; may be included in that 
 space ! How the wonted burden falls from the back, 
 when all the parochial worries, all the sick, the schools, 
 even the church with its pulpit ever craving more ser- 
 mons, are hundreds of miles away. 
 
 A little reflection will enable the intelligent reader to 
 discern that the day before the first Monday of which 
 mention has been made, must have been Sunday. And 
 indeed it was so. On that Sunday the writer preached 
 twice : once in a Scotch parish church of great size and 
 immemorial years : once in a modest chapel, Norman in 
 its architecture, needful for the further accommodation of 
 his parishioners. On Monday morning let us arise from 
 slumber at half-past four o'clock : shiver in the wonted 
 tub, specially chilly at that early hour : earnestly reflect 
 whether or not everything has been packed up that needed 
 so to be : solemnly partake of the unseasonable breakfast, 
 at which two little faces attended with the air of dissatis- 
 faction and sorrow : and finally at 6.20 a.m. roll away in 
 a railway carriage, leaving the same little faces behind on 
 the seedy platform, to go away home alone. 
 
 In this world we must be always saying good-bye : and 
 in many cases to say good-bye can never cease to be a 
 trial, less or greater. Yet let us fare onward, through the 
 raw air, somewhat cheered by a certain clever weekly 
 publication, made up of a series of dissertations on mat- 
 ters political and literary. You are made to feel, studying 
 that document, that the political dissertations are done 
 by the stronger hands, and the literary by the weaker. 
 
 
A little Totcr in May. 267 
 
 Three hours does that travelling by railway last : the miles 
 are forty-five only ; but the stations are many and grievous ; 
 and at a certain period of the way you must quit your 
 carriage, and hasten down a broad and sloping pier, where 
 you enter a lumpish but serviceable steam-vessel, which 
 will bear you five miles across a stormy arm of the sea, 
 ever vexed by a tumbling swell. Here you may luxuriously 
 sit in a large cabin on deck ; and, as a growing squeamish- 
 ness overtakes you, survey your sickening fellow-passen- 
 gers. Having crossed that rolling water, you may enter 
 another railway carriage, which, after a stiff pull up-hill, 
 and a season in a specially gloomy tunnel, will suddenly 
 place you in the midst of a great and beautiful city, ever 
 fair to see. 
 
 Here you stop for half-an-hour : and when you again 
 proceed, you will find the rate of progress quite different. 
 For the leisurely train, that stops every few miles, doing 
 its five and forty miles in three hours, you are taken in 
 hand by a swift express, which in ten hours and a half 
 devours four hundred miles. It is known to many by the 
 name of the English Express : such as regard it from a 
 southern point of view have been known to call it the 
 Flying Scotchman. Passing forth from the ancient city, 
 you scurry at a tremendous rate through rich fields, per- 
 fect in their agriculture : till at length, traversing a lofty 
 bridge of many arches which spans a broad river, you enter 
 upon another country : and here, if a Scotchman, you may 
 drop a tear at having quitted your native land. Various 
 Scotchmen and several Scotchwomen has the writer beheld, 
 
268 A little Tour in May, 
 
 upon that spot, thus quit their native soil : but so firm is the 
 Scottish self-command, so iron is the Scottish will, that 
 never once did he behold a compatriot drop a tear. But 
 as they read their newspaper or their novel, with a com- 
 posed countenance that disguised the throbbing heart, the 
 thoughtless stranger would have deemed that they did not 
 care a straw. In Mrs Barrett Browning's beautiful poem 
 called The Mask, you may find apposite reflections. 
 
 We are in Northumberland : for some miles the sea is 
 near, on the left hand. And passing onward through a 
 territory of no special interest, we plunge into the smoke 
 of Newcastle. Dreary are the views of human habita- 
 tions, caught from the rapid train as you look down in 
 passing by. Doubtless there are many of our race who 
 live amid scenes of unutterable ugliness : a life of constant 
 struggle and pinching, year after year. Passing near the 
 black and worn walls of the castle, built by Robert, the 
 son of the Conqueror, you enter the curious station, whose 
 long roofs are singularly twisted round. The station is a 
 segment of a circle : and so many are its trains and plat- 
 forms, so considerable its distances, so many its waiting 
 rooms, so great its bustle, that here the stranger has often- 
 times found it easy to lose his way. A little pause here : 
 then the train departs from the station by the way it 
 entered : but in a few yards turns sharp to the right, and 
 is on Stephenson's wonderful high-level bridge, whence 
 you look down from a great elevation on the very dirty 
 Tyne. The bridge is wonderful, but not in the least 
 beautiful. A succession of great piers, rising from the 
 
A little Tour in May. 269 
 
 river bed, bears up the railway track ; beneath which a 
 way for ordinary carnages and foot passengers is hung. 
 On, not very many miles, till a human voice, strongly 
 exerted, proclaims the name of Leamside. That word 
 falls with thrilling effect upon the ear of the pilgrim from 
 the North : the pilgrims, indeed, for now there are two. 
 Rapidly are the things which strew the carriage accumu- 
 lated : many papers and books are engulfed in the ready 
 maw of a black morocco bag, wonderful in its power of 
 continence : and emerging from the carriage door, the 
 pilgrim who takes the larger part of the trouble hastens 
 to the van at the end of the train. With joy he finds that 
 the van has already disgorged that which is to him of 
 greater interest than all the rest of the luggage put to- 
 gether. Admirable is the civility of the officials of that 
 railway : perfect their accuracy. There, on the platform, 
 they lie, all right. Ye might see a portmanteau, of the 
 hue of the spring daffodil, or of the rising sun of summer : 
 and likewise a large trunk, black as the raven's wing, or 
 the ebon shades of starless night. I am gratified by these 
 examples of poetic imagery. They remind me, touch- 
 ingly, of the prize essays I used to write in my earlier 
 years at college, ere yet the buoyancy of the youthful 
 spirit had been sobered down. 
 
 Yes, all this way have we travelled, to the end of 
 visiting a spot, now but a few miles away. For when 
 the bustle of the bigger and more important train has 
 passed, and that train is winging its rapid way towards 
 the May hailstones of the frozen South, you may turn to 
 
270 A little Tour in May. 
 
 the other side of the platform on which you stand. There 
 you discover another and shorter train. On its carriages 
 you may read the words Durham and Bishop Auckland. 
 You enter one of these : only for ten minutes will you 
 have to sit within it. At the end of that time you stop 
 at a station set on a high ground, whence you look down 
 on a little rambling city, dominated by a magnificent 
 church of great length, with two massive though low 
 western towers, and a vast central one. In the same 
 view with the magnificent church, standing on the same 
 vantage ground, you see what was once a grand castle, 
 the residence of bishops who were princes of the church. 
 It is now allotted to the use of a university, of small poli- 
 tical account. 
 
 That is the first impression of Durham Cathedral. 
 The railway leaves you only on the outskirts of the little 
 city. Entering an omnibus, you will be conveyed away 
 down a steep hill, halfway down which you will twice 
 pass underneath a great viaduct of lofty arches, that spans 
 the town, and carries the railway on towards Bishop Auck- 
 land. Twice will you cross the river, which winds about 
 and about the ancient spot, the etymological meaning of 
 whose name is the hill with the cincture of water : and 
 you will go up and down several steep though short hills ; 
 before you stop at the door of the County Hotel. There 
 let the baggage be left : and forthwith hasten to the 
 cathedral. Evening prayers are at four o'clock : and there 
 is yet an hour to make a first acquaintance with the site 
 and aspect of the glorious pile. 
 
A little Tour in May. 2 7 1 
 
 St Cuthbert, as every one knows,, found it difficult to 
 make up his mind after his death as to the place where 
 his bones should rest. He tried various places, but was 
 dissatisfied. Finally he rested in this beautiful place, 
 
 Where his cathedral, huge and vast 
 Looks down upon the Wear. 
 
 And Sir Walter has exactly caught the main character- 
 istic of this church's unrivalled situation. It does look 
 down upon the Wear. The wooded bank falls away from 
 the cathedral to the river : and the river so winds that it 
 passes close under both the eastern and the western ends 
 of the church. The church, with its length of 464 feet, 
 stands across the isthmus which keeps a little peninsula 
 from being wholly an island. The bank seems some fifty 
 feet in height : it is richly wooded with trees now covered 
 with their first fresh green : and below there runs the 
 deep and rapid river. The elevated ground on which the 
 cathedral stands is large enough to include the noble old 
 castle, and the many houses of the close, some with beau- 
 tiful gardens going down to the water. Let us enter the 
 sacred place. A door, in the nave, near its west end, is 
 covered by a large and heavy leathern cushion : push it 
 aside ; and by the time it has banged back to its place, 
 you are within. What words can express the overwhelm- 
 ing grandeur of the first cathedral of the first class you 
 enter, after a good many months where cathedrals are not 
 at all \ You see the noble church from end to end ; no 
 screen parts choir from nave. Fifty feet of the length 
 named must be deducted from the vista, the Galilee of five 
 
272 A little Tour in May. 
 
 aisles at the west end of the nave. fC Rocky solidity and 
 indeterminate duration " were the things that impressed 
 Johnson here. Here it has stood, the same building, 
 though often touched by hands reverent and sacrilegious, 
 for near nine hundred years. In the main, the architec- 
 ture is Norman : round headed arches everywhere. There 
 is a lack of stained glass : at the east end is a grand rose 
 window, filled with fragments of ancient glory : but be- 
 low, throwing into shadow the beautiful reredos, with a 
 relief of the Last Supper for altar-piece, are three glaring 
 lancets, unsubdued by colour of any kind. 
 
 So much one can see before the hour of service : as that 
 approaches, sit down on one of a number of open seats, 
 placed under the great central lantern, outside the choir. 
 The choristers straggle in without order : the congrega- 
 tion is small. The service is carefully and well done : the 
 music very beautiful : several very fine voices in the choir, 
 specially among the boys. The anthem was Spohr's As 
 pants the hart : one little fellow sang the soprano solo in 
 a voice of exquisite quality and great power. 
 
 Service being over, you may further survey the un- 
 rivalled situation of this grand church. The sloping 
 wooded bank that reaches to the river is traversed by the 
 most charming walks, free to all comers. And from 
 many points in these, notably from a bridge that spans 
 the river amid what looks like the park around some 
 princely dwelling, you have diverse but ever beautiful 
 views of the cathedral. It is utterly vain, by any words, 
 to try to express the awe and delight with which, coming 
 
A little Tour in May. 273 
 
 from a region where the old ecclesiastical buildings are 
 mainly in ruins or else debased into hideousness, you will 
 regard this majestic pile. People who see it every day 
 probably become accustomed to it, and care very little 
 about it. Well, we have the advantage of them. 
 
 But not even under the shadow of Durham Cathedral 
 can human nature be sustained without food. Let us 
 return to the hotel, where by this time dinner waits. 
 And then, in the fading light, again to the cathedral, and 
 stand and look at it. Let the reader believe that the 
 writer is quite capable of giving an exact account of its 
 architectural peculiarities : but not on this page shall that 
 be found. Yet it may be noted, as something distinctive, 
 that the east end of the choir is formed by a sort of tran- 
 sept, which internally takes the place of a Lady chapel, 
 and bears the name of the chapel of the nine altars. 
 Otherwise the place preserves the usual outline : choir, 
 nave, and transepts : two western towers and a central 
 one: the Galilee at the west end: the cloisters at the 
 south side of the nave, with a flat roof of antique oak. 
 And if it should happen to you as it did to me, as you 
 stand by a western tower you will be startled by a bell of 
 the deepest tone, telling nine o'clock, and then gradually 
 dying into silence through a long vibration. 
 
 If on the next morning you are up early, surveying the 
 cathedral from many points of view : if you go to service 
 at ten o'clock, and pervade .every part of the interior j 
 refusing to be distracted by monuments and statues of 
 bishops earlier and later, and seeking only to drink in and 
 
2 74 -A little Tour in May. 
 
 appropriate the character and feeling of the place : then 
 you may go away from Durham by the train at 11.45 
 a.m., feeling that you have made it a possession for ever. 
 Indeed by a visit no longer than that here related, the 
 lover of Gothic architecture may know this or any other 
 grand church far better than many a man who has lived 
 beside it for years. Other cathedrals invite us : this is but 
 the first : wherefore we depart. 
 
 Leamside again. For several miles after leaving that 
 station, you have many striking prospects of the cathedral 
 now left behind : so look out sharply on the right hand 
 of the train. Darlington, where are many Quakers : a 
 large red station with a broad platform : and at three 
 o'clock you are at York. You have passed within a 
 quarter of an hour of Ripon Cathedral : and when time 
 abounds, it would be worth while visiting it. But to-day 
 it must be left. Time is short : and far other than that 
 respectable structure are those which lie before us. 
 
 In the minds of many, the railway station at York is 
 associated with the hurried dinner of the express train 
 from North to South, or South to North : of which (who 
 can say why?) roast mutton and brown potatoes never 
 fail to form part. Now, there is the sense of comparative 
 leisure. Let rooms be secured at the station hotel : then 
 depart from the railway, and in a little you will cross the 
 Onse by a handsome iron bridge. Every time you pass 
 it, there recurs the irritation of paying a halfpenny. This, 
 recurring many times in the day, is in a high degree 
 exasperating. Soon after passing the bridge, the noble 
 
A little Tottr in May. 275 
 
 west front of the minster comes into view : two massive 
 towers, and a glimpse of the lofty central one, over the 
 intersection of the transepts. On the left hand, as you 
 approach the cathedral, there stands a Roman Catholic 
 church, lately finished. Its door is open : its interior is 
 worth a visit. As you quit it, a grave man, in ecclesias- 
 tical habit, presents an oaken box, into which you drop a 
 moderate sum. Quitting the graceful but slight Roman 
 edifice, you appreciate the better the great mass of the 
 Anglican. York Minster has not the wonderful advan- 
 tages of situation which Durham Cathedral possesses. It 
 stands on a level space : a street skirts it on the south 
 side ; at the north is a green enclosure of refreshing grass 
 and trees, where are the handsome deanery and the re- 
 sidence of the canon for the time being. Here, as at 
 Durham, the episcopal palace is miles away : doubtless a 
 loss. Enter by a lesser western door. You are struck 
 first by the great breadth of the nave. Then the roof of 
 the central vault is loftier than Durham : the choir here 
 has a height of 102 feet ■ Durham but 76. But the choir 
 here is the loftiest in England, surpassing Westminster 
 Abbey by one foot ; yet only 12 feet higher than the 
 choir of the comparatively small cathedral of Glasgow. 
 Here, too, stained glass abounds : there is a grand eastern 
 window : a like western one : and the window of the 
 north transept is the famous Five Sisters of York. No 
 long time now for details, for evening prayer is at half- 
 past four. Durham choir seemed fine, to one who had 
 not heard choral service for many months : but that of 
 
276 A little Tour in May. 
 
 York is incomparably better. It is far more powerful. 
 At Durham the choir consisted of six men and ten boys : 
 here were fourteen boys and eleven men. Then the con- 
 gregation was large enough to give a warm and hearty 
 look to the worship : almost all the stalls were filled. 
 Among the occupants of these were several ladies, dressed 
 as nuns. They are Anglican sisters of mercy. It is easy 
 to ridicule the unbecoming garb : yet we can see various 
 reasons for it. Never was heartier or more beautiful ser- 
 vice in a cathedral on a common week-day afternoon. 
 
 Let us not be worried with the monuments of departed 
 archbishops, in most of whom one feels no special inter- 
 est : just walk about the church and look at it. The 
 choir and nave are equal in length : the choir is narrower 
 than the nave. East and west ends of the minster are 
 square. The transept, with aisles, is half the length of 
 the whole church. The nave is of the decorated style of 
 Gothic : the choir is perpendicular, and towards its eastern 
 end the walls are almost all window. The roof looks 
 like stone, but is of wood. Twice has this church been 
 on fire. In 1829, a maniac named Martin, brother of the 
 painter, set it on fire of deliberate purpose : the stalls and 
 roof of the choir perished. Eleven years later, through 
 the neglect of some workmen, the centre vault of the 
 roof was burnt, though even the windows of the clerestory 
 were mamly unharmed. The bell in the north-west 
 tower is the Great Peter ; it weighs near eleven tons. 
 The chapter-house has been restored. It has a high- 
 pitched wooden roof, wanting any central shaft. Having 
 
A little Tour in May. 277 
 
 satiated yourself with the interior, you may come out, 
 and walk a great many times round the cathedral. What 
 can be said in its praise ? Surely it is worthy of the 
 worship co which it is dedicated! And looking at it 
 outside and in, one recalls the ancient story, that a devout 
 woman, accustomed to attend the early worship at six 
 each morning, awoke too early on a sunshiny summer 
 day, and hastened to the cathedral, fearing to be late. 
 Then, entering the door, she beheld the choir crowded by 
 angels, offering their praises in such sublime music as 
 human ear never heard before. 
 
 Finally turn away, and walk as far as you can on the 
 ;vall which still partly encircles the town. At one spot, 
 by two pointed arches of great span, it reaches across the 
 railway. Descending from the wall, when you can follow 
 it no farther, pervade the city in all directions. There are 
 many antique streets, many quaint nooks, many curious 
 and ancient churches. 
 
 Next day was Wednesday. It was a cold dark day, 
 with a bitter east wind. Service is at ten : but before 
 that, there is time to visit the curious town-hall, with a 
 wooden roof, aisled : and farther to explore the streets. 
 At service the cathedral was beautiful as ever : but the 
 congregation was small 5 and though the music was still 
 very good, the choir was abated in numbers. No anthem : 
 the litany takes up more than the time for it. The litany 
 is sung from a litany stool, placed near the west end of the 
 choir. At length, with the feeling that York Minster will 
 always be to us a familiar place, we turn away from it : 
 
278 A little Totir in May. 
 
 and by a very crowded train, which goes at 12.10, and 
 which seems to be the favourite train whereby Yorkshire 
 folk go to London, we pass beneath one of the large 
 pointed arches under the city wall, and hasten fast towards 
 the south. 
 
 A good many miles are traversed, and here is Doncaster. 
 That is the beautiful parish church, about which Mr Deni- 
 son wrote his pleasant lectures on church-building. Nave, 
 chancel, transepts, massive square tower where transepts 
 intersect. On again, and here is Retford. This is the 
 place where we must leave the train. Wait awhile, in a 
 keen wind, till another is drawn up at the platform, 
 wherein we proceed towards the east. Often we look 
 out, looking from the left side of the carriage. At last, 
 on a height towering above the flat Fen country, there it 
 is : Lincoln Cathedral. Three hours convey the traveller 
 from the one grand church to the other. Let it be said 
 at once, the first view of Lincoln, from the railway from 
 Retford, is disappointing. You come full on the west end 
 of the cathedral : and the towers do not make a pleasing 
 group. The two western towers look slight, after the 
 massive ones of York and Durham : and the beautiful 
 details of the incomparable central tower are not visible at 
 a distance. By and by, the railway leaves the cathedral 
 a little to the left : and here one sees the great length of 
 the pile, and its commanding position. Lincoln and York 
 are precisely equal in length : 486 feet. 
 
 Having stopped at Lincoln railway station, you may 
 give your baggage in charge to the porter of the Great 
 
 
A little Tour in May. 279 
 
 Northern Hotel, which stands hard by the railway, a 
 hundred yards from the station. The trains run under 
 its windows : and the yell of passing engines and the 
 tremor of heavy carriages pervade the hotel night and 
 day. Otherwise, it is good and comfortable. Speedily 
 quitting its walls, you go away, right up the hill. You 
 pass, at right and left, two very quaint and tumble-down 
 looking churches. You pass under an ancient gateway, 
 spanning the street, here crowded with country-folk, the 
 holiday garb of the men being chiefly characterised by 
 waistcoats of gorgeous colour, not hidden by any coat. 
 Then the climb becomes steeper : till at length the street 
 becomes the most truly precipitous which the writer has 
 ever trod. Finally, passing under an ancient gateway, you 
 stand close beneath the western front of the church. 
 
 The western front is very curious. It. was originally 
 Norman : then an early English screen has been built 
 before it, which however does not conceal the central part 
 of the old front. There remain two rude-looking Norman 
 arches, set in a frame of rich pointed arcade work. One 
 certainly feels the want of glass to break the great flat ex- 
 panse of masonry. This front has a breadth of 173 feet: 
 thus surpassing York by more than 60 feet. But then at 
 York you see the bona Jide breadth of the church : here 
 it is a deceptive screen stuck on. "Within it the two 
 western towers rise : rather awkwardly rising above the 
 screen, in a way that is suggestive of chimneys : between 
 the two is a steep gable. We must not look longer at 
 the outside now. Entering, you see before you the 
 
280 A little Tour in May. 
 
 magnificent length, broken somewhat by the organ set on 
 the screen between the choir and the nave. The roof is 
 nearly 30 feet lower than that of York : but the eye is 
 entirely satisfied. The ordinary visitor, in any first-class 
 cathedral, misses nothing through such inferiority. And 
 while the roof of York is of wood in the central alley, 
 here the entire roof is of stone. Then, for perfect purity 
 of the best style of Gothic architecture, surely this interior 
 greatly surpasses York. The tabernacle work of the stalls 
 here is very fine : the seats beneath very shabby. The 
 rich windows effectually give you the " dim religious 
 light " which is fitting. I do not know if the service is 
 usually such at Lincoln, but assuredly it was very care- 
 lessly gone through on that afternoon. The whole thing 
 was heartless : the music was exceedingly bad. There 
 was an anthem, very unimpressive, and miserably sung. 
 Anything worse than the feeble peeping of two weak and 
 ugly voices singing a long duet, could hardly be. Among 
 the surpliced members of the choir, were four boys wear- 
 ing purple gowns. The air of neglect which invested the 
 worship, extends to the entire building. Nothing can be 
 more unkempt than the grass plot surrounded by the fine 
 cloisters, one side of which the sacrilegious Wren took 
 away, substituting a hideous and inexpressibly shabby 
 Doric arcade. In the middle of the grass plot stands a 
 wretched edifice, apparently a pigsty, but really erected 
 to protect a bit of old Roman pavement, discovered many 
 years ago. 
 
 The plan of the church consists of nave and choir, each 
 
A little Tour in May, 281 
 
 With aisles : a great transept and a choir transept j while 
 the western front may be esteemed as a third transept. 
 There is a Galilee porch at the south-west corner of the 
 great transept. The chapter-house has a high-pitched 
 roof. The central tower, over the intersection of the 
 great transept, is of incomparable grandeur and decoration. 
 It is 268 feet in height, and once carried a spire, of 100 
 feet additional. The western towers, 206 feet in height, 
 were likewise crowned by lofty spires. These were of 
 wood, and the central one was blown down three 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 The close here is less attractive than at many other 
 cathedral cities. The palace is several miles distant : the 
 deanery seems a pleasant abode. The city has no features 
 of special interest, beyond a number of curious and 
 generally rather shabby churches. The glory of the place 
 lies in the cathedral, and the ancient buildings around it. 
 From all parts of the town, you have varied views of the 
 noble church : and the deep tones of the famous bell, 
 the Great Tom of Lincoln, pervade the surrounding air. 
 
 Next day was Thursday. The service yesterday after- 
 noon was so badly done that it would be simply mortify- 
 ing to go back. The utter lack of what could be called 
 a congregation, and the general air of slovenliness, are 
 disheartening in the presence of the magnificent results 
 of the piety of departed ages. So let us walk about the 
 great building without again entering it, and hope that 
 some day it may be worthily beautified, and have a wor- 
 ship worthier of its pristine glory. 
 
282 A little Tottr in May. 
 
 Not very far away, there is something which has power 
 to arrest us for a little on our way to our next cathedral. 
 So by a train that goes at n.r^ a.m., let us speed away 
 through flat and sometimes flooded tracts of fenland, by 
 the river Witham, towards the ancient town of Boston, 
 with its splendid parish church. An hour will bring the 
 traveller thither. Never before beheld, how thoroughly 
 familiar looks that grand tower, the famous Boston Stump, 
 at the first view of it ! Its height is 262 feet : you will 
 commonly hear it called 300. Quitting the railway 
 station, you make towards the tower. You cross a bridge 
 that spans the Witham, flowing between muddy banks in 
 a strong and turbid current : then turning sharp to the 
 left, you soon reach the west end of the church, which 
 rises from the river side. An officer, of especial civility 
 and intelligence, will show you over the edifice. It is a 
 grand interior : 240 feet in length, without transepts, but 
 with aisles : merely a nave and chancel. Finally, having 
 possessed yourself of a key, furnished by the intelligent 
 verger, you enter a little door, and go away, up and up a 
 winding stair, till you emerge upon a stone gallery, halt 
 way up the tower. Hence the view is vast in extent : 
 but it may be vaster. So away up and up again, opening 
 a red door with the key provided, till you find yourself at 
 the very top of Boston tower. What a thin egg-shell of 
 a thing it is ! At the summit a decorated circular waJl 
 enclosing vacancy. You might as easily fall down inside 
 the tower as outside. The stone parapet is so high, that 
 you cannot see the ground immediately under the tower. 
 
 
A little To2lt in May. 283 
 
 But you have a wide view of a flat region, which a few 
 years since would have been mainly under water. That 
 sea near is the Wash, into which the Witham flows and 
 ends. In the other direction, you see as far as Lincoln. 
 Boston is an interesting enough town : but the church is 
 the sight. In the shop windows were many of the bright 
 waistcoats, already seen. It was a fair day, and booths 
 and shows abounded. Get dinner at an hotel overlook- 
 ing the market-place : and then at five o'clock enter a 
 train, which in an hour's time will convey you, through 
 the most fenny of fen countries, by various places bear- 
 ing the name of Deeping, to Peterborough. The Great 
 Northern Hotel is just across a narrow yard from the 
 station. And there is yet abundance of light for a first 
 glance at the cathedral. 
 
 There is no more charming close than at Peterborough. 
 Cathedral, palace, arfd deanery are all here together : and 
 nowhere will you find greener grass or more luxuriant 
 foliage. A few minutes' walk from the hotel brings you 
 to an antique gateway. Entering, you have the palace 
 on the right, and the deanery on the left : the west front 
 of the church is before you. What peacefulness and 
 beauty are in this retired spot ! And trees, walks, grass, 
 all are tended with the most pleasing care. You can 
 walk all round the cathedral, close to its walls : upon its 
 south side are many beautiful old buildings and quaint 
 corners and courts, the remains of the ancient monastic 
 pile. Failing though the light be, we must have one 
 glance at the interior. The nave is of great length, con- 
 
284 A little To 217- in May. 
 
 sisting of eleven bays : the choir has but four. The east 
 end of it is apsidal. The walls and pillars of the nave are 
 whitewashed: the wooden roof is flat, but painted in 
 bright colours. The choir is free from whitewash: the 
 wooden roof is brilliantly painted : the stalls are not yet 
 forty years old. 
 
 The plan consists of nave, choir, transept, and Lady 
 chapel: the choir and nave having aisles. There is a 
 great square tower where the transept intersects. You 
 will find here the same arrangement as at Lincoln : a new 
 west front built before a former one. The older front 
 had two square towers, only one of which was carried 
 up to its full height. In front of this has been placed a 
 great western transept, flanked by two spires : the re- 
 sult being that the west end of the church forms a some- 
 what confused, though most beautiful mass of building. 
 Three magnificent arches, each surmounted by a gable, 
 form the west front : its breadth is 156 feet. The 
 length of the church is 479 feet: the transept 184: the 
 central tower is 150 feet high: the western spires 156. 
 
 The light fails, and we must leave the fuller apprecia- 
 tion of the cathedral till to-morrow. Returning to the 
 temporary resting-place, the writer enters the railway 
 station, and there for a little walks up and down. Years 
 ago, when he had seen almost nothing, he saw this quiet 
 city for the first time at seven o'clock on a misty summer 
 morning : and simply wondered what life would be like 
 to one living amid scenes so peaceful. Several times since 
 then, passing through this station in a great express train. 
 
 
A Utile Toztr in May. 285 
 
 he had beheld it in circumstances of desperate crowd and 
 hurry. It is curious now to examine it leisurely, when all 
 the bustle is gone. It is not nearly so big as it seemed 
 before : like many things and men, it loses by familiar 
 knowledge. Let us examine the bookstalls on either 
 platform, and discover what orders of literature find most 
 favour with the travelling Briton. Surely the quiet of 
 this station is greatly interrupted during the hours of 
 night. A fine moon shone through the window of that 
 chamber where the writer strove to sleep : the window 
 was unprovided with shutters: and the most awful shrieks 
 of engines resounded all the night long. Doubtless the 
 Great Northern engines are provided with louder whistles 
 than any other engines, anywhere. Yet several railways 
 converge at Peterborough : the Great Eastern, the Mid- 
 land, the North- Western, as well as the Great Northern. 
 No engine that passed appeared to create a less horrible 
 noise than the rest. And to the aching head, the passing 
 engines seemed innumerable. 
 
 But morning comes at last 5 and morning service at the 
 cathedral is at ten o'clock. Let it be said briefly, the ser- 
 vice was very slovenly and bad : worse than the writer 
 ever saw it in any cathedral whatsoever. The choir 
 looked (whatever they really were) very irreverent and 
 inattentive. The singing was excessively bad. Among 
 boys and men, there was not a fine voice. Among the 
 singing men were several of the very ugliest ever beheld, 
 and several with voices of the most disagreeable quality. 
 None, bad as they were, were so disagreeable as that of a 
 
286 A little Tour in May. 
 
 short-winded clergyman, who intoned the prayers. His 
 voice was unpleasant beyond expression, and it put one 
 out of breath to listen to him. The gentleman who sat 
 in the dean's place, came scuttling into church by himself 
 some little time after the service had begun : and if he was 
 paying devout attention to the service, which I do not 
 doubt, I cannot but say that his manner did him grievous 
 injustice. Many were the shapes into which he twisted 
 himself ; many the leaves he turned over while a few 
 other folk sought to say their prayers. I never saw 
 mouths opening in so wide yawns as those of the choris- 
 ters, big and little. The organ was hardly touched : but 
 an old man with gray hair wandered in a conspicuous and 
 most irritating manner about the organ gallery, turning 
 over the leaves of large music books while the prayers 
 were going on, as if to show he did not care a straw for 
 them. Lamentable was the contrast between the noble 
 church, and the careless and heartless worship. Consider- 
 ing that a dean and canons-residentiary and some other 
 folk are paid what would be a large stipend for a hard- 
 working parish priest for doing very little, surely that little 
 ought to be carefully and reverentially done. I do not 
 know how the Peterborough service is commonly done : 
 but no choir becomes horribly bad all of a sudden. 
 
 Come away to the close, and try to forget this slovenly 
 worship, walking under green trees and amid green graves. 
 Yes, this can soothe the irritation of nerves and heart. 
 Peacefulness and quiet beauty : much of the old monastic 
 character lingers about the ancient Medehamstede. Trim 
 
A little Tour in AT ay. , 287 
 
 walks, verdant grass : and everywhere in its circuit you 
 can approach and lay a friendly hand on the church's 
 ancient stones. It is a hardship, when a bit of a cathedral 
 is turned into the wall of a private garden : all round it 
 ought to be accessible to everybody. Graceful and beau- 
 tiful is the apse, rising above the lower aisles : graceful 
 and airy the western spires : and nowhere else will you 
 find anything exactly like those three great arches, with 
 deep recesses within them, which form the western front. 
 Here Queen Catharine of Arragon was buried in 1^37, 
 and Mary Queen of Scots forty-nine years later : both 
 buried by the same sexton. 
 
 Our train goes at 3 p.m. A crafty waiter told me he 
 always told people the train went at 2.50, as he found 
 human beings tend to be too late. Drive to another sta- 
 tion, crossing the river Nene by an ugly wooden bridge, 
 flouted by a grand railway viaduct of stone. Away to- 
 wards the east. A wide flat plain, now mainly under 
 water : you look back on the receding cathedral as across 
 an inland sea. It is easy to think what all this must have 
 been before the fen country began to be drained. The 
 towers and spires of beautiful churches are many: and 
 perfect the taste must have been of the old builders who 
 set them in their places. You cross the wide and turbid 
 current of the Ouse, by a bridge of great length; the 
 train sometimes seems to have lost its way amid the waters. 
 In an hour and a quarter, stopping at a station on an ele- 
 vation above a flooded tract, you look out on the right 
 hand. There is a slope, rich and green : hedges and 
 
288 A little Tour in May. 
 
 trees : a little city: and a church of great length and very- 
 peculiar aspect : the city and cathedral of Ely. 
 
 As we had journeyed along in the train,, we had de- 
 termined to be disappointed. It was impossible, we 
 thought, to equal what we had already seen of princely 
 Christian architecture. The first glance, and the 
 thought of disappointment vanished. Longer acquaint- 
 ance ; and we were here from Friday till Monday after- 
 noon ; and Ely stands forth in our memory as all but 
 the loveliest church, for exquisite decoration and glorious 
 colour, amid all the lovely churches of England. 
 
 Issuing from the railway station, you may enter a bus, 
 which offers to convey you to the Lamb. Down a little 
 slope : then a long, steady pull up-hill. A street of little 
 promise j then on the right hand a grand gateway, through 
 which a park-like bit of green grass and green trees, 
 horse-chestnuts in their full bloom. On a little further, 
 and the ancient deanery is on the right, and the ancient 
 palace on the left ; and you pass under the west front of 
 the cathedral. The Lamb is but a few yards off: and 
 speedily the pilgrims are under that massive tower. 
 
 Ely varies much from other cathedrals. Of course 
 there are choir, nave, and transepts. But at the west end, 
 instead of two towers, or two spires, or nothing but a lofty 
 gable, there is one great tower, Then, over the intersec- 
 tion of the great transept, taking the place of a central 
 tower which fell five hundred and forty years since, is an 
 octagon tower, from which rises an octagon of two stories, 
 of wood covered with lead. The effect is, that in the dis- 
 
 
A little Tour in May. 289 
 
 tant view of the cathedral the western tower is the greater 
 object, and the central octagon comparatively insignificant. 
 Then the Lady chapel, instead of occupying the usual 
 space, is parallel with the north side of the choir, reaching 
 to the east aisle of the transept. It is plainly fitted up for 
 worship, and occupied as a parish church. Except Win- 
 chester, this is the longest cathedral in England : 540 
 feet. If the Lady chapel had stood in the usual place, it 
 would have added 100 feet more. Thus it would have 
 transcended Old St Paul's, whose length was 629 feet -, 
 but whose unmatched spire, " the glory of the Christian 
 world," was 534 feet in height. Strasburg, the highest 
 remaining in the world, is 468 : Salisbury is 404. 
 
 Entering Ely Cathedral through the Galilee porch at 
 the west end, having lamented the ruin of the half of the 
 turreted western front to the left of the great western 
 tower, the first thing that impresses one is the length and 
 narrowness of the central alley of the church. This 
 greatly adds to the apparent height ; the actual height is 
 76 feet. The roof is of wood : the aisles have stone 
 vaulting. The nave is under repair : half the pavement 
 was up, and lying about in great blocks. It is upon the 
 octagon and choir that the incomparable hand of Mr 
 Gilbert Scott has hitherto spent its pains : no words can 
 express the glory of the result. Many open benches are 
 set under the octagon, for the use of the congregation : 
 the rood screen cuts off the choir, almost too effectually. 
 The stalls are perfect : the stained glass rich and gor- 
 geous: the use of colour on walls and roof brilliant, but not 
 
290 A little Tour in May. 
 
 too brilliant. The place is not for an unskilled visitor to 
 criticise, but simply to stand and humbly enjoy. The 
 reredos, elaborate and lovely as in no other cathedral in 
 England, is of alabaster: bloodstones and other pebbles 
 are inlaid. We must walk about here a great many 
 times before the details can in any worthy degree be taken 
 in. Then, the day's worship being over before our com- 
 ing, we go forth, and walk round the church. Before the 
 west front is an expanse of grass and trees : the quaint old 
 palace stands on its south side. The deanery, curious and 
 old, is hard by the palace. An expanse of graveyard lies 
 to the north of the cathedral, enclosed by the backs of old 
 houses which front a street. Among these houses is a 
 place, looking like a hayloft over a coach-house, which is 
 inhabited by a loud bell : when that bell rings, people 
 may know there is to be parochial service in the Lady 
 chapel. At the east end, a little expanse of grass : on the 
 south side various old houses : and passing through an 
 avenue of horse-chestnuts, blazing with blossoms, you are 
 in the little park-like space which we discerned through 
 the ancient gateway at our first entrance into Ely. Plea- 
 sant walks traverse it : shady and quiet. And from many 
 points in them you realise the vast length of the church, 
 crowning the summit of the swelling ground it stands on. 
 Once Ely was indeed an island, famous for the eels which 
 gave the name. And the desolate and scarcely passable 
 fens stretching all around, made it an almost impregnable 
 fastness, where the last of the Saxons maintained their in- 
 dependence of the Norman yoke a while. 
 
A little Tour in May. 291 
 
 While the light of that Friday evening lasts, let Ely be 
 pervaded till it is well known. Sunday shall be spent 
 here, but Saturday must be given to another place. 
 
 Saturday was the loveliest, warmest and brightest of 
 summer days. At 10.45 a Great Eastern train bears us 
 through a great plain, to a great degree under water. 
 Blossoming hawthorns arise amid the watery expanse: 
 flooded gardens and fields speak of recent rain not yet 
 poured out into the German Ocean. Deep drains are at 
 the ends of the fields 5 and in the Fen country one comes 
 to have a dignified idea of a drain : it is sometimes a great 
 artificial river. Beautiful church spires and towers rise 
 over the trees, on a host of spots somewhat raised above 
 the flooded level. After a while, we enter on the rich 
 undulating lands of Norfolk, well-wooded and beautiful. 
 Here the railway stations and houses are built mainly of 
 flints. At last in the distance there rises one great and 
 graceful spire ; many houses crown a height to the left : 
 and we have arrived at the ancient city of Norwich, two 
 hours and a quarter from Ely. 
 
 Of all our cathedrals hitherto, this is the poorest : yet 
 to a mind unsophisticated by Lincoln, Peterborough, Ely, 
 it is a very noble church. It has this graceful central 
 spire, of 313 feet: no western towers ; ending simply in 
 a gable. It has choir, nave, transept : the largest cloisters 
 in England, shady and beautiful in the glaring day : and 
 a length of 411 feet. You may enter by either of several 
 gateways into the close : large, pretty, abounding in bright 
 grass, and the fragrant shadiness of limes. The deanery, 
 
292 A little Tour in May. 
 
 a pleasant-looking ancient bouse, is near the cloisters, on 
 the south side of the church : the ancient palace, with its 
 fine old trees, has the nave for its park fence or garden 
 wall ; and the ruins of an old hall and chapel. The nave, 
 of fourteen bays, vaulted in stone, and with the heavy 
 round arches of the triforium as large as those below, 
 makes the choir, of four bays, ending in a pentagon, seem 
 small in comparison. But the church has great capabili- 
 ties : and we learned with joy that the present dean has 
 had Mr Gilbert Scott looking at it. Already Dr Goulburn 
 has taken the choir from their former place in the organ 
 gallery, and put them in the usual position of cathedral 
 choirs. Norwich was the only cathedral which had this 
 ugly arrangement, now happily at an end. But the 
 choristers still wear blue gowns at service, except on 
 Saturday evenings and Sundays, when they are clad in 
 surplices as usual. 
 
 We must return at four o'clock : so there is time for 
 no more than a hasty glance at two or three of the many 
 remarkable old churches of Norwich. A great crowd of 
 people fills the large station. These are left ; and we 
 journey on through excessive heat and dust, till at 6.10 
 we are again at Ely. There, in the growing darkness, 
 the band of the militia regiment, now out for training, 
 played very prettily before the hotel. 
 
 Here is Sunday morning, sunshiny and still : how 
 beautiful that great tower, rising into the sapphire blue ! 
 Service is at 10.30. The militia regiment passed, its 
 band playing the tunes heard last night : the stock of 
 
A little Tour in May, 293 
 
 music is not great. Let us be in good time. The militia 
 form the larger part of the congregation : not a great one. 
 The care and reverence with which the service is per- 
 formed, are admirable. Gathering first in the south 
 transept, the choir and clergy come in decorous procession : 
 thirty-two surpliced men and boys in the choir. Dean 
 Goodwin came, a man to be looked at with interest : and 
 an old dignitary, looking very like an old country gentle- 
 man. The choir and clergy took their places in the 
 choir, imperfectly discerned through the too-massive rood- 
 screen. Pugin'a idea, that Christian worship ought to 
 consist in the performance by the officiating persons of 
 certain rites which are imperfectly seen by the outside 
 worshippers, prevails here. With difficulty did the wiiter, 
 seated close to the screen, and familiarly knowing the 
 liturgy, follow the prayers: the distant militia, not very 
 familiar with the liturgy, plainly did (for the most part) 
 follow them not at all. Most of them yawned awfully 
 and constantly : they were manifestly very tired of the 
 whole thing. The service was too fine for these plain 
 folk. And indeed it was very beautiful. I could not 
 but admire the not wholly unsuccessful attempts of the 
 dean to read the commandments from the altar loud 
 enough to be heard outside the choir. In due time the 
 old dignitary, not the dean, ascended the beautiful pulpit 
 of stone, just outside the choir. Why was not the pulpit 
 to-day wooden ? It would have been more consistent 
 with the sermon. The sermon lasted twenty-seven min- 
 utes : while it was going on, I thought it had been three 
 
294 -A little Tour in May, 
 
 hours and a half. It was awfully tiresome. The con- 
 gregation, with rare exceptions, did not listen to it at all. 
 I surveyed diligently my friends of the militia : hardly a 
 face had the faintest trace of attention to what was going 
 on. Of course they could not attend. The writer, by a 
 great effort, forced himself to attend carefully. The 
 preacher made many feeble and well-intentioned remarks : 
 one felt getting a faint push in the right direction. But 
 of his subject he had not the slightest grasp. He did not 
 in the least understand what his text meant, though it 
 was a very fine one. Oh why, after that sublime service, 
 this wretched anti-climax ? Why did not Dean Goodwin 
 preach that day ? I don't know what kind of preacher 
 he is : but I know he was second wrangler : and I should 
 hopefully have taken my chance. Yet the preacher was 
 most gentlemanlike, and quite unaffected: doubtless a 
 pious old man. I venture to think he used words, never 
 to be used in church, when he said that " ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, rich and poor," must be saved in one way. I 
 have lately heard of a Scotch parson, who in performing 
 a certain marriage ceremony, said to the man, " Do you 
 take this lady" and so on : but to say nothing of the bad 
 taste of any reference to social distinctions where they 
 ought to count for nothing, nothing could be more need- 
 less than the solemn warning at Ely. Who thinks any- 
 thing else ? There was a day, whereon a godless old 
 reprobate died, saying he felt sure that where he was 
 going due respect would be paid to any one of his family : 
 but that day is fled for ever, in this tract of the universe 
 
 
A little Tour {71 May. 295 
 
 The writer lives in a hard-headed country, wherein to 
 state such a thing would be too much like teaching Sir 
 Isaac Newton the multiplication table. That is under- 
 stood : let us get on to something else ! Service was over 
 at 12.30: two hours. Then the procession departed with 
 all decorous solemnity. 
 
 After service, let us go and walk about that park-like 
 expanse, under the blossoming horse-chestnuts, till the 
 heat drives us in. At four o'clock, to evening service. 
 The militia gone : the congregation small. The music 
 was very good ; and there was no sermon. At half-past 
 six there was service under the octagon. The cathedral 
 staff was gone, and the choir closed : but the parochial 
 congregation, usually assembling in the Lady chapel, wor- 
 ship here in the evening. The cathedral bells do not ring 
 for this service, but the loud bell in the seeming hay-loft. 
 Nor do the worshippers find entrance at the western door, 
 but by a little door in the transept. There was a large 
 congregation, of humble appearance : evincing a hearty 
 interest in the service. A few surpliced choristers appear, 
 followed by two clergymen : they are arranged on benches 
 placed outside the rood-screen. The prayers and psalms 
 were intoned : the music very poor after that of the for- 
 mer services of the day. Carefully did the two clergymen 
 wheel about to the east, as the Gloria returned : so far as 
 I could see, not a soul besides them did so. The sight 
 recalled to me a day, on which I worshipped in another 
 cathedral far away, yet within the realm of England. 
 There, among many clergymen, there was a young lad, a 
 
296 A little Tour in May. 
 
 deacon just ordained, who was often wheeling about to 
 the east, and often bowing very low, when not one of 
 the other clergymen did so. The effect was indescribably 
 ludicrous. This I saw : and thought that the lad should 
 either have stayed away, or conformed to the ways of his 
 betters. Willingly would the wise man turn to the east, 
 amid a congregation in use to do the same : willingly, 
 likewise, to the west, north, south, or NNW. : but where- 
 fore obtrude these little matters, wherein no principle 
 earthly is involved, on good folk who may not like them ? 
 Finally, one of the clergymen ascended the pulpit, and 
 preached most admirably. He preached extempore, with 
 entire fluency : he thoroughly arrested attention from the 
 first word ; and before he closed, had risen into most ani- 
 mated and pathetic eloquence. The views he set forth were 
 unmistakably " high : " but he showed great ingenuity in 
 trying to make them appear consistent with common 
 sense. I could not but think that a man who could 
 preach such a sermon, in spite of all the depressing influ- 
 ence of being a curate, (as I learned he was,) might, 
 placed in a position which would give him greater confi- 
 dence, make a truly great and eloquent preacher. And 
 oh, the contrast with the dismal twaddle which the gentle- 
 manly old dignitary had preached from the same pulpit 
 on the same day ! 
 
 Cheered by this discourse, (in hardly a sentence of 
 which I agreed,) let us return to the shady paths lying to 
 the south of the great church. The hawthorn perfume 
 fills the air : the blossoming chestnuts please the eye : 
 
A little Tour in May. 297 
 
 the perfect stillness becomes the evening of the day of 
 rest. And from this scene I pass in thought to another 
 cathedral city, with a grander history by far than Ely : a 
 city with just the same population : whose princely 
 cathedral lies in desolate ruins by the shore of a lonely 
 sea ; and whose historic days are done. And I wonder 
 how things have gone to-day in the services of that city's 
 church : in the conduct of whose services the writer has 
 a grave responsibility. 
 
 Next morning at ten o'clock, service again. There was 
 hardly any congregation : yet the service was most heartily 
 and beautifully done. York, on a weekday, is as good as 
 this : but no other church at this time visited. At 12.50 
 we bid Ely farewell, and speeding through a flat country, 
 in half an hour are at Cambridge, never seen before. In 
 the Bull, situated amid the most academic surroundings, 
 we find our resting-place. 
 
 In the time between Monday afternoon and Thursday 
 morning, it is possible for the diligent traveller, who can 
 spend all day abroad, to make Cambridge a possession, 
 and a clear remembrance. Let me not emulate the 
 guide-books : but say that it does not take very long, 
 under judicious direction, to walk through every corner 
 of every college, and visit the chapel and hall of each : to 
 inspect every church worthy of inspection ; and to pace 
 every gravelled path on either side the Cam till the aspect 
 of trees, grass, water, bridges, has grown familiar. Noble 
 trees, verdant grass, glorious retreats of academic quiet 
 and learning, with what feeling shall the homely Scot, 
 
298 A little Tour in May. 
 
 Glasgow-bred, regard you ? Each day in Cambridge, let 
 the visitor go at half-past four to service at King's College 
 chapel. A college chapel indeed, but three hundred feet 
 long : and divided by a great screen, supporting an organ, 
 into chapel and ante-chapel. Doubtless it is the finest 
 specimen of perpendicular Gothic ; and (specially the 
 interior) grand beyond expression : but it cannot hinder 
 one's feeling that the perpendicular style is Gothic in its 
 decadence. The marvellous stone roof, with its fan 
 tracery, is a miracle of mechanical skill, and the stained 
 windows are never to be forgotten : but yet there is not 
 the charm about that huge oblong room which is about 
 Ely choir and octagon, with their lights and shades and 
 recesses. It is remarkable, too, how devoid of pretension 
 is the altar end : there has been no endeavour to make it 
 the cynosure of all eyes. A plain little table, with a 
 couple of candlesticks on it : no reredos : no blaze of 
 glory : just a dull corner, which you do not care to look 
 at twice. But the service is all you can desire. On three 
 successive afternoons there was a congregation that made 
 the place look clothed and hearty. At the appointed hour, 
 sixteen little choristers, in blue gowns, tripped up along 
 the marble floor; and diving underneath their desk, 
 gained their seats in unceremonious fashion. The grown- 
 up men, eight, were in surplices. The music was hearty 
 and beautiful ; the anthem each day was splendid. The 
 lessons were read by students, two each day, in a very 
 nice unaffected manner. The stalls are ugly : the shafts 
 are like a series of whip-tops stuck together by the ends ; 
 
A little Toiir iu May. 299 
 
 and they are united by round arches. The organ is a 
 grand one; and the voluntary after service was played 
 plainly with the purpose of waking the grand echoes of 
 that astounding roof whereof Wordsworth sung. 
 
 My space draws in : and it is not safe to begin any rela- 
 tion of the glories of the great University. Suffice it to 
 say that a rapt attention and a tolerable memory may in 
 a few days turn these into familiar things. Thursday 
 morning comes : at eight o'clock the pilgrims depart, 
 without a tear. Hitchin, Peterborough : thence the swift 
 Scotch express. York, Newcastle, Berwick : and at half- 
 past eight here is Edinburgh. Rest for the night : tra- 
 verse the well-known scenes next day, till the afternoon 
 is melting into evening. Then the tunnel again : the 
 stormy Frith : the railway that traverses an ancient king- 
 dom : till amid the gathering shadows we reach that 
 sacred spot whence the pilgrimage began, and gratefully 
 find the little faces all right. 
 
 Here, too, we have our cathedral : and on this sunshiny 
 afternoon we may go and contrast it with those elsewhere 
 seen. A noble church, four hundred feet in length : 
 with nave of twelve bays, choir of five bays, transept a 
 hundred and sixty feet long, having an eastern aisle 5 
 chapter-house and Galilee. No western towers : the 
 nave ended in a gable, with turrets, each a hundred feet 
 high. And over the intersection of the transept, there 
 was doubtless something : but whether tower alone, or 
 tower and spire, no one knows. Alas, alas ! the noble 
 
300 A little Tour in May. 
 
 church is a desolate ruin. Only the eastern and western 
 gables remain, with the south wall of the nave, the beau 
 tiful windows framing bits of sky. Almost everywhere, 
 you can trace the foundations : and the bases of the shafts 
 that bore up the central vault remain. In this carefully 
 tended grave-yard, with innumerable daisies growing over 
 them, Christian folk have been buried for twelve hundred 
 years : through niches in the fortified wall, that looks 
 north and east, you discern the ceaseless fluctuation of the 
 wide sea. Doubtless the Reformation brought inestimable 
 gains : yet in this country we had to take them accom- 
 panied by grievous aesthetic loss, which need not at all 
 have been. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 LET a small essayist, departing from the field wheron 
 -/ he has had his day, say a word about his craft. 
 He has always tried to write fairly and kindly : to say 
 what he thought true : and if possible to help his anxious 
 fellow-pilgrims to bear the burden of the day. He has 
 sought to set things in an encouraging and consolatory 
 light. To this end he has turned away as far as might 
 be from the great field of the tragical and distressing, of 
 which we have all known only too much. I knew well 
 that round my little precinct there howls a great stormy 
 wicked world : I did not want to see or hear more of it 
 than I could help. I have kept to a small region of un- 
 exciting topics, fit to be thought of quietly. We have 
 quite enough of vexation and worry in our actual life : I 
 wished that any one taking up such' a volume should be 
 sure that he would not find any additional vexation here. 
 There are wild tracts in the world of thought : very sub- 
 lime, very awful, very heart-breaking : sometimes no 
 worse than stinging with a million little envenomed 
 stings. Other feet walk these. Great geniuses, in fiction 
 
3C2 Conclusion. 
 
 and in tragedy, have led us through these realms, fasci- 
 nated, shuddering, catching glimpses of awful black 
 chasms, of irremediable wrong, of grinding misery, of 
 inexpiable crime. Doubtless it is good for us sometimes 
 to give ourselves up to that grand guidance : but it is not 
 rest that we get under it. Many human beings find it 
 hard wear of heart and head. " Of course, I read it," 
 said Dr Parr of Sardanapalus ; "and could not sleep a 
 wink after it." Not such should be the result of reading 
 an essay. Indeed, just the contrary. I wished that who- 
 ever came with me should (as it were) turn into a little 
 green corner of a quiet garden, to rest a while. I was 
 quite sure that we should not be suffered to rest too long. 
 Something would soon come, and call us away from the 
 peaceful place. But one would go back to the worry, the 
 better for the quiet. And written in little intervals of 
 rest, these pages were meant to be read in the little inter- 
 vals of rest intercalated in the lives of busy people. 
 
 Not without awe does the humble essayist think of 
 the feverish wear through which writers of great genius 
 do their work. These distinguished men work at an 
 immensely high pressure. Most human beings work at 
 low pressure. They do not know what they are 
 capable of doing, under some awful necessity. We are 
 told that any one seeing the fearful effort with which 
 the French galley-slaves bent to their oars, would have 
 said that no human being could have kept it up for so 
 much as half an hour: yet by the very extremity of 
 savage cruelty these poor wretches were often forced to 
 
Conclusion. 303 
 
 row with that mortal exertion for fifteen hours at a 
 stretch. Something analogous to that unutterable strain 
 is in the case of writers who delineate the grander pas- 
 sions. Shakspere, indeed, probably wrote with pulse un- 
 quickened the wildest bursts of Othello : not so with 
 lesser men. Once upon a time, there sat a man at a 
 London window, whence he looked across the narrow 
 street into an opposite chamber. Therein he beheld 
 another man, who appeared to him as one mad. For he 
 wildly strode the floor: tore his hair: dashed his head 
 against the wall : then with eldritch laughter flew to- 
 wards a little table, and sitting down wrote a few words 
 on an awfully blotted leaf. But it proved not to 
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 to exciting and painful reflections, he has learned by much 
 use to evade them. Doubtless the essay-writing I mean 
 would be a school of unworthy self-indulgence, were 
 
304 Conchtsion. 
 
 it not that it takes up so small a part of the writer's 
 life. 
 
 It soothed and quieted one, amid much work and 
 worry, to write all these pages : it was meant to do the 
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 he never in any degree cared. But he is resolved not to 
 go on with the old thing till it becomes a weariness. And 
 so, thanking many unknown friends for their patience, I 
 cease for the while : in all likelihood, for altogether. 
 
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INDEX. 
 
 Acton's Modern Cookery 27 
 
 Alcock's Residence in Japan 22 
 
 Allies on Formation of Christendom 20 
 
 Alpine Guide (The) 23 
 
 Alvenslbben's Maximilian in Mexico .... 5 
 
 Apjohn's Manual of the Metalloids 12 
 
 Arnold's Manual of English Literature. ... 7 
 
 Arnott's Elements of Physics 11 
 
 Arundines Cami 25 
 
 Autumn holidays of a Country Parson . . 8 
 
 Ayre's Treasury of Bible Knowledge 19 
 
 Bacon's Essays, by Whately 5 
 
 Life and Letters, by Speddino 5 
 
 Works 6 
 
 Bain on the Emotions and Will 9 
 
 on the Senses and Intellect 9 
 
 on the Study of Character 9 
 
 Ball's Alpine Guide 22 
 
 Barnard's Drawing from Nature 16 
 
 Bayldon's Rents and Tillages 18 
 
 Beaten Tracks 22 
 
 Becker's Charicles and Gallus 23 
 
 Beethoven's Letters 4 
 
 Benpey's Sanskrit Dictionary 8 
 
 Berry 's Journal s and Correspondence .... 4 
 
 Billiard Book (The) 26 
 
 Black's Treatise on Brewing 28 
 
 Blacki.bt and Friedlander's German and 
 
 English Dictionary 8 
 
 Blaine's Rural Sports 25 
 
 Veterinary Art 26 
 
 Blight's Week at the Land's End 23 
 
 Booth's Epigrams 9 
 
 Bourne on Screw Propeller 17 
 
 Bourne's Catechism of the Steam Engine.. 17 
 
 Handbook of Steam Engine 17 
 
 Treatise on the Steam Engine ... 17 
 
 Bowdler's Family Shakspearr 25 
 
 Boyd's Manual for Naval Cadets 27 
 
 Bramley-Moore's Six Sisters of the Valleys 23 
 Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature, 
 
 andArt ... 13 
 
 Bray's (C.) Education of the Feelings 10 
 
 Philosophy of Necessity 10 
 
 on Force .... 10 
 
 Brinton on Food and Digestion 27 
 
 Bristow's Glossary of Mineralogy 11 
 
 Brodie's (Sir C. B.) Works 15 
 
 Constitutional History 2 
 
 Browne's Exposition*39 Articles 18 
 
 Bockle'j History of Civilization 2 
 
 Bull's Hints to Mothers 28 
 
 Maternal Management of Children. 28 
 
 Bunsen's (Baron) Ancient Egypt 3 
 
 Bunsen's (Baron) God in History 3 
 
 Memoirs 4 
 
 Bunsen (E.Dk) on Apocrypha 20 
 
 's Keys of St. Peter 20 
 
 Burke's Vicissitude^ of Families 5 
 
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 Cabinet Lawyer 28 
 
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 Cats' and Farlie's Moral Emblems 16 
 
 Chorale Book for England 16 
 
 Christian Schools and Scholars 10 
 
 Clough's Lives from Plutarch 2 
 
 Colenso (Bishop) on Pentateuch and Book 
 
 of Joshua 19 
 
 Collins's Horse-Trainer's Guide 26 
 
 Commonplace Philosopher in Town and 
 
 Country 8 
 
 Coninoton's Chemical Analysis 14 
 
 Translation of Virgil's j&nzid 25 
 
 Contansbau's Pocket French and English 
 
 Dictionary 8 
 
 Practical ditto 8 
 
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 of St. Paul 18 
 
 Cook on the Acts 18 
 
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 Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit .. 8 
 
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 Tales of the Great Persian War 2 
 
 Tales from Greek Mythology 24 
 
 Tales of the Gods and Heroes 24 
 
 Tales of Thebes and Argos 24 
 
 Cresy's Encyclopaedia of Civil Engineering 17 
 
 Critical Essays of a Country Parson 8 
 
 Crowe's History of France 2 
 
 Crump on Banking, Currency, & Exchanges 27 
 
 Dart's Iliad of Homer 25 
 
 D'Acbigne's History of the Reformation in 
 
 the time of Calvin 2 
 
 Davidson's Introduction to New Testament 19 
 
 Dayman's Dante's Divina Commedia 25 
 
 Dead Shot (The), by Marksman 2b 
 
 De Burgh's Maritime International Law.. 27 
 
 De la Rive's Treatise on Electricity 11 
 
 De Morgan on Matter and Spirit 9 
 
 De Tocqoev.lle's Democracy in America.. 2 
 Disraeli's Speeches on Parliamentary Re- 
 form 6 
 
 Dobson on the Ox 27 
 
 DovEonStorms 10 
 
 Dyer's City of Rome 2 
 
30 
 
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 Visits to Remark abl e Places 23 
 
 Hudson's Executor's Guide 28 
 
 Hughes's (W.) Manual of Geography 10 
 
 Hullah's Collection of Sacred Music 16 
 
 Lectures on Modern Music IS 
 
 Transition Musical Lectures .... 15 
 
 Humphreys' Sentiments of Shakspeare 16 
 
 Hction's Studies in Parliament 8 
 
 Inoelow's Poems 25 
 
 StoryofDoom 25 
 
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 tyrs 16 
 
 Legends of the Madonna 16 
 
 Legends of the Monastic Orders 16 
 
 Jameson and Eastlake's History of Our 
 
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 Jenner's Holy Child 25 
 
 Johnston's Gazetteer, or Geographical Dic- 
 tionary 10 
 
 Kalisch's Commentary on the Bible 7 
 
 Hebrew Grammar 7 
 
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 Greene's Corals and Sea Jellies 12 
 
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 Gwilt's Encyclopaedia of Architecture — 16 
 
 Handbook of Angling, by Ephemera 26 
 
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 Polar World 12 
 
 Sea and its Living Wonders 12 
 
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 Hearn's Plutology 1 
 
 on English Government 1 
 
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 Henderson's Folk-Lore of the Northern 
 
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 Herschel's Essays from the Edinburgh 
 
 mid Quarterly Reviews .... 13 
 
 Outlines of Astronomy 10 
 
 Hewitt en Diseases of Women 14 
 
 Hodgson's Time and Space 9 
 
 Holmes's System of Surgery 14 
 
 Hooker and Walker-Arnott's British 
 
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 Hopkins's Hawaii II 
 
 Horne's Introduction to the Scriptures 19 
 
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 31 
 
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 Macfarren's Lectures on Harmony 15 
 
 MacLeod's Elements of Political Economy 6 
 
 Dictionary of Political Economy 6 
 
 Elements of Bankin.' 27 
 
 . Theory and Practice of Banking 27 
 
 McCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce 27 
 
 Geographical Dictionary 10 
 
 Magcire's Irish in America 23 
 
 Life of Father Mathew 4 
 
 Rome and its Rulers 4 
 
 Malleson's French in India 3 
 
 Ma.n nino on Holy Ghost 20 
 
 's England and Christendom 20 
 
 Marshall's Physiology 14 
 
 Marshman's Life of Havelock 5 
 
 History of India 3 
 
 Mahtinbau's Endeavours after the Chris- 
 
 tianLife 21 
 
 Masse y's Historv of England 2 
 
 (G.) on Shakspeare's Sonnets 25 
 
 Massingberd's History of the Reformation. . 4 
 
 Maunder's Biographical Treasury 5 
 
 Geographical Treasury 11 
 
 Historical Treasury 3 
 
 • Scientific and Literary Treasury 13 
 
 Treasury of Knowledge 28 
 
 Treasury of Natural History .. 13 
 
 Mac r y's Physical Geography 10 
 
 May's Constitutional History of England. . 2 
 
 Melville's Digby Grand 24 
 
 ■ General Bounce 24 
 
 Gladiators 24 
 
 Good for Nothing 24 
 
 Holmby House 24 
 
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 Kate Coventry 24 
 
 Queen's Maries 24 
 
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 Miles on Horse's Foot and Horseshoeing... 26 
 
 on Horses' Teeth and Stables 26 
 
 Mill onLiberty. 6 
 
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 Mill's Dissertations and Discussions 6 
 
 Political !- conomy 6 
 
 System of Logic 6 
 
 Hamilton's Philosophy 6 
 
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 Montgomery on Pregnancy 
 
 MooRs'sIrish Melodies 24 
 
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 'Dr. GOFirstMan 12 
 
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 Mozart's Letters 4 
 
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 (K. O.) Literature of Ancient 
 
 Greece 2 
 
 Murchison on Continued Fevers 14 
 
 Muke's Language and Literature of Greece 2 
 
 New Testament,illustrated with Wood En- 
 
 ■ eravings from the Old Masters 16 
 
 I Newman's History of his Religious Opinions 4 
 
 Nicholas's Pedigree of the English People 9 
 
 Nichols' Handbook to the British Museum 28 
 
 Nightingale's Notes on Hospitals 28 
 
 Nilsson's Scandinavia 12 
 
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 Course of Practical Chemistry.... 14 
 
 Manual of Chemistry 14 
 
 Original Designs for Wood Carving 17 
 
 Owen's Lectures ou the Invertebrate Ani- 
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 Comparative Anatomy and Physio- 
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 Chemical, Natural, and Physical 
 
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 Pike's English and their Origin 9 
 
 Pitt on Brewing 28 
 
 Playtime with the Poets 25 
 
 Pratt's Law of Building Societies 28 
 
 Prescott's Scripture Difficulties 19 
 
 Proctor's Saturn 10 
 
 Handbook of the Stars 10 
 
 Pycropt's Course of English Reading 7 
 
 CricketField 26 
 
 Raikes's Englishman in India 23 
 
 Reade's Poetical Works 25 
 
 Recreations of a Country Parson 8 
 
 REiLY'sMapcf Mont Blanc 22 
 
 Rivers's Rose Amateur's Guide 13 
 
 Rogers's Correspondence of Greyson 9 
 
 Eclipse of Faith 9 
 
 Defence of ditto 9 
 
 Essays from the Edinburgh Review 9 
 
 Reason and Faith 9 
 
 Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and 
 
 Phrases 7 
 
 Ronalds's Fly-Fisher's Entomology 26 
 
 Rowton's Debater 7 
 
 Rood's Aristophanes 25 
 
 Russell on Government and Constitution. . 1 
 
 Sandars's Justinian's Institutes 5 
 
 Schd bert's Life, translated by Coleridge.. 5 
 
 Scott's Lectures on the Fine Arts 1ft 
 
 Seebohm's Oxford Reformers of 1498 2 
 
 Sewell's After Life 23 
 
 Amy Herbert 23 
 
 — Cleve Hall 23 
 
 —Earl's Daughter 23 
 
 Examination for Confirmation ... 20 
 
 Experience of Life 23 
 
 ■ Gertrude 23 
 
 Glimpse of the World 23 
 
 History of the Early Church 3 
 
 Ivors 23 
 
 Journal of a Home Life S3 
 
 Katharine Ashton 23 
 
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 Margaret Percival 23 
 
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 Short Whist 28 
 
 Short's Church History 3 
 
 Smith's (Southwood) Philosophy of Health 28 
 
 (J.) Paul's "Voyage and Shipwreck. . 18 
 
 (G.) King David 19 
 
 — Wesleyan Methodism , — 4 
 
 (Sydney) Miscellaneous Works .... 8 
 
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 Wit and Wisdom 9 
 
 Smith on Cavalry Drill and Manoeuvres .... 2fi 
 
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