Page images
PDF
EPUB

the torch with one hand, while he turned over the notes with the other, a flaming ember fell right down into the midst of the treasure, and before the man, bewildered as he was, could rescue them, as many of the notes were consumed as exactly represented the extent to which he had diluted the whisky.'-p. 64.

After this we are prepared to hear of judgments upon those who were slow to repair the church of the author's father: :

The church of Killearnan, till within two years of my father's death, was almost as bad as it could be. Built in the form of a cross [this seems to aggravate in Mr. Kennedy's eyes the demerits of the building], 'with the pulpit at one of the angles, its barn-like roof unceiled, its windows broken, its doors all crazy, its seats ill-arranged, and pervaded by a dim, uncertain light, it was a dismal, dingy looking place within. But all applications for a new church, or for a sufficient repair of the old, were refused by the heritors. Tradesmen were found to declare that the church was perfectly safe, and, whether it was comfortable or not, the heritors did not care, as they never sat in it themselves. Strange to say, the heritor who chiefly opposed the application for a new church, lost soon after, by fire, much more than his share of the expense of erecting it; the carpenter, who declared the old church to be "good and sufficient," was killed, while going to purchase the wood required for the trifling repair that was granted; and the lawyer, who represented the heritors at the presbytery when the application for a new church was refused, was unable thereafter to transact any business. These are facts, and no comment on them is to be added; but there were some who regarded them as the echo from Providence of the voice that proclaimeth, "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm."-p. 201.

Now, assuming-and it is a good deal to assume that the repairs were improperly withheld, is this text at all applicable? And if the calamities so triumphantly mentioned were God's punishment for a grievous sin, what meaning are we to attach to the terrible visitations which are stated to have befallen some of the most pious and excellent persons mentioned in the book? The text so lightly quoted by Mr. Kennedy is used, if not with more semblance of reason, at least more appositely, in a tale cited by Mr. Buckle from Wodrow's Analecta,' which is a perfect repository of such stories:

[ocr errors]

66

In the time of sermon the Laird of Hiltoun comes in, and charges him, in the midst of his work, to come out of the pulpite, in the King's name [the pulpit not being his own]. Mr. Douglasse refused; whereupon the Laird comes to the pulpit, and pulls him out by force! When he sau he behoved to yield, he said, Hiltoun, for this injury you have done to the servant of God, knou what you are to meet with. In a little time you shall be brought into this very church, like a sticked sou." And in some little time after, Hiltoun was run throu the body, and dyed by, if I mistake not, Annandale's

brother,

brother, either in a douell or a drunken toilzie, and his corpes wer brought in, all bleeding, into that church. "Touch not mine annoynted, and doe my prophets noe harm!"'-vol. ii. p. 154.

[ocr errors]

So in the Memoirs of Huntington, S. S.' (reviewed by Southey in the twenty-fourth volume of this Journal), it is made to appear that every one who offends the S. S., or speaks of him contemptuously, is punished by some visible manifestation of Divine vengeance, while all his wants, expressed by prayer (e. g. the want of a pair of leather breeches), are immediately and tangibly supplied.

*

But these things are older than Mr. Kennedy, or Huntington, or Wodrow. All popish chronicles swarm with tales of this kind. We may refer to an article in this Journal on the manners of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in which we had occasion to state, from a letter of that age, the fate of a wicked countess, who carried off and roasted the pig of a poor widow, and refused her even a morsel of the flesh; but the very same day after dinner, having thus fattened her stomach by this robbery of another person,' she went out for a stroll, and was buried by the fall of some of the fortifications of the castle; and so she who had denied a piece of pork to the widow was smashed into pieces herself. In a like spirit the O'Donoghue traces the finger of the justice of God' in the untimely death of Cavour. So nearly allied are Popery and Puritanism. To adopt the language used by Addison, in a paper † written in the very spirit of Christian Philosophy, we cannot but look upon this manner of judging upon misfortunes, not only to be very uncharitable in regard to the person whom they befall, but very presumptuous in regard to Him who is supposed to inflict them.'

6

We are astonished at Mr. Buckle's assertion that the Scottish clergy prolonged the reign of ignorance. On the contrary, one of the earliest steps taken by the Kirk was to obtain the establishment in every parish of a school supported by the landowners and superintended by the clergy, in which the Bible was regularly read, and in which also, as the schoolmasters became better educated, instruction was given in Latin and in arithmetic, and, in short, in such branches of knowledge as the teacher himself had mastered. It is to this widelyextended education that the singular intelligence and good conduct of the Scottish peasantry have uniformly been ascribed. We have already adduced the valued testimony of Colonel Stewart regarding education in the Highlands in the early part of the last century; and in very late returns it is stated that the per-centage † 'Spectator,' No. 483.

*Quarterly Review,' vol. lviii. p. 419.

of

of persons who signed their names on the occasion of their marriage was greater in Scotland than in England: being in the former country, men 88.6 per cent., women 77·2; and in the latter, men 70-5, and women 58.8. When to this we add that the clergy, though reproached—and often with too much justice —for their neglect of exact scholarship, have always been zealous students, and many of them contributors to or distinguished expositors of that Scotch philosophy to which Mr. Buckle allows much value, as well as of general literature and of science; and that they have, since the very dawn of the Reformation, insisted on the most diffused and general use of the Scriptures; we have said enough to indicate, what it is not possible to discuss here in detail, the extreme injustice of many of Mr. Buckle's charges against them.

We cannot agree with Mr. Buckle in thinking that the works of the Scotch philosophers are not framed according to the inductive method, generally speaking, as much as the nature of the subject requires or admits of. They have assuredly been brought fully to bear on the minds of those by whom, according to him, the people of Scotland are led. A large proportion of the laity, likewise, comprising many who would be too poor to obtain a college education in England, have enjoyed similar advantages. The prevalence, therefore, of that superstition which he seems. to think ought to have melted away before the genial warmth of philosophy, must be otherwise accounted for.

But what does he mean by superstition? Where in the doctrines or formulas of the Scotch Kirk is it to be traced? We do not say that there may not be many old prejudices and narrow dogmatic views upon particular subjects current in Scotland, and we have shown that in some remote districts they prevail to a remarkable degree; and also that in Scotland,as in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, and probably in all European countries, England certainly not excepted, there are yet traces of the superstitions which prevailed before the introduction of Christianity. But setting this aside, unless by superstition Mr. Buckle means the Christian religion, we are utterly unable to understand him.

Spain alone, Mr. Buckle thinks, is as priest-ridden as Scotland. If so, according to his principles, like causes ought to have produced like effects in both countries. But the reverse of this has taken place. The course of Spain has been almost uniformly downwards for the last three centuries, while Scotland has gradually risen during the same period to be one of the most peaceable, prosperous, and enlightened countries in Europe. It is. therefore plain that if Scotland be priest-ridden, her priests are Vol. 110.-No. 219.

N

good

44

good riders. But Mr. Buckle does not explain how or in what the people of Scotland are priest-ridden. We should rather be inclined to complain that, in the districts where that which we call Superstition chiefly prevails, the clergy, instead of holding their own place with a becoming confidence, are ridden by the ignorant laymen to whom they ascribe such mysterious powers. And the great secession of modern times (of which we need not here repeat that we wholly disapprove) turned upon the question whether the congregation-that is, the laity-should have the power of rejecting a minister without assigning reasons.

We can see no excuse for Mr. Buckle's rash generalizations, nor for his extreme discourtesy of language. How can he hope to be accepted as a scientific investigator of history, who shows himself so full of passion and prejudice as Mr. Buckle does throughout this work? But we despair of satisfying one who could write as follows:

'In the philosophy of ancient Greece we find a vast body of massive and original thought, and what is infinitely better, we find a boldness of inquiry and a passionate love of truth, such as no modern nation has surpassed, and few modern nations have equalled. But the method of that philosophy was an insuperable barrier to its propagation. The people were untouched, and went grovelling on in their old folly; a prey to superstitions, most of which the great thinkers despised and often attacked, but could by no means root out. Bad, however, as these superstitions were, we may confidently say that they were less noxious, that is, less detrimental to the happiness of man, than the repulsive and horrible notions advocated by the Scotch clergy and sanctioned by the Scotch people. And on those notions the Scotch philosophy could make no impression.'-vol. ii., p. 586.

We really think that the passage which we have given in italics may relieve us from further discussion with one who prefers the Paganism of Greece to the Christianity of Scotland, and we can only express our satisfaction that the educated classes in Scotland have found in the conclusions of philosophy nothing inconsistent with a sincere belief in the truths of Revelation.

To return to the national character. It has defects, of which the Scotch have the advantage of hearing pretty freely from their neighbours, by whose criticism they have often profited. It has also merits of its own. We have seen abundantly that the nation has not been nursed in prosperity nor softened by luxury. Its boast is that it has held its own against powerful and hostile neighbours; that it has made a harsh climate and soil yield better harvests than the warm plains of more favoured lands; and that its sons have contributed their share to science and literature, and have obtained distinction in the civil and military

military service of their own and other countries, and success in honourable enterprise all over the world. They have had many obstacles to overcome :

'Pater ipse colendi

Haud facilem esse viam voluit.'

And their whole character and temper are in accordance with this: frosty, but kindly;' in one aspect hard and forbidding, but to those who understand them warm and genial, capable both of enthusiasm and of self-sacrifice.

ART. VI.-1. The Russians on the Amur; History of Discovery, Conquest, and Colonisation up to the Treaty of Peking in 1860: with a detailed Description of the Country, its Inhabitants, Productions, and Commercial Capabilities, together with Personal Accounts of Russian Travellers. By E. G. Ravenstein, F.G.S., Corresp. F.G.S., Frankfurt. London, 1861.

2. Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower Amoor, and the Russian Acquisitions on the Confines of India and China. By Thomas Witlam Atkinson, F.R.G.S., and F.G.S., Author of 'Oriental and Western Siberia.' London, 1860.

3. Japan, the Amoor River, and the Pacific, with Notices of other Places: comprised in a Voyage of Circumnavigation in the Imperial Russian Corvette Rynda," in 1858-1860. By Henry Arthur Tilley. London, 1861.

6

4. Les Nouvelles Acquisitions des Russes dans l'Asie Orientale. Le Fleuve Amoûr. Par V. A. Malte Brun. Paris, 1860. 5. The Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East: an Historical Summary. London, 1854.

6. Commentaries on the Productive Forces of Russia. By M. G. Tegoborski, Privy Councillor and Member of the Council of the Russian Empire. London, 1856.

7. The Chinese Empire. By M. Huc, formerly Missionary Apostolic in China. London, 1859.

8. Correspondence respecting Affairs in China. Presented to both Houses of Parliament. 1859-1860.

WH

THEN the Plenipotentiaries of the Western Powers were seated at the diplomatic table in 1856, arranging the terms of a treaty which was intended to restrain the ambition of Russia, and relieve Europe for some time at least from the necessity of incessant vigilance, it could scarcely have occurred even to a statesman sensitively alive to the dangers to be apprehended N 2

from

« PreviousContinue »