Scottish Characteristics

H McfiHinney, NEWLONDOS.OHIO. No. .JU.NiyER.sn. SAN-W (ttBRAFY BY AUTHOR Or "CHRISTMAS EVANS," "OLIVER CROMWELL, 11 "ROMANCE OT BIOGRAPHY," STC., ETC. FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NK\V YORK AND LONDON PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. The advance sheets of this work have been pent to us by the Author as fast as they could be got ready. We have had several changes made in the body of the book adding an Index, and other improvements. We realized the fact that in the United States and in Canada there are almost as many Scotch, and people of Scotch descent, as there are in Scotland itself. They are indeed a grand and peculiar race of people, and Paxton Hood, we believe, is of all other writers tne man to do them justice. We issue the volume with full confidence that it will take favorably with our readers. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE OLI> SCOTTISH MINISTER, CHAPTER II. CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR, .... 33 CHAPTER III. THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER, . 43 CHAPTER IV. SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION, ... 74 CHAPTER V. THE SCOT ABROAD, , 94 CHAPTER VI. THE HUMORS OK THE SCOTTISH DIAI.KCT, .... 103 CHAPTER VII. THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND THE LAW COURTS, . 114 CHAPTER Vin. OLD EDINBURGH, 13-J IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY 151 CHAPTER X. SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY, 171 CHAPTER XI. THE OLD SCOTTISH SABBATH, 190 CHAPTER XII. NORTHERN LIGHTS, . 198 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. CHAPTER I. THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. IN every estimate of Scottish character and humor the old minister furnishes a singular variety of illustrations, marking a very distinct and individual type. Among ministers of all orders, and especially in a time not very far remote, there was much more of a brotherly resemblance than a brotherly differ- ence for to the or not ; they might belong Establishment, ; they " " might belong to the United Presbyterian," the Relief," or " the Antiburgher" communions, but they were usually schol- " ars and men of education were versed in their human- ; they ities ;" the framework of their theology was uniformly built up from the Confession of the Westminster Assembly, and their church government was uniformly Presbyterian. Thus they all resembled each other, and from their number it is very easy to distinguish many rich and rare originals, but the uniformity of the type holds even in circumstances which seem to differ. Nor was this national type Presbyterian only. Episcopacy and Prelacy have been supposed to be, until very recently, hateful to the Scottish mind but John the especially ; Skinner, Episcopal clergyman of Longside, in Aberdeenshire, for sixty- four years during the last century, was as true to the type as any whose ecclesiastical relations we have indicated. He was 6 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. the friend of Robert Burns, and the author of the famous and " inspiring Scotch song, or reel, Tullochgorum ;" but he was " the author also of a singularly interesting Dissertation on the Shekinah, or Divine Presence with the Church, or People of God," and of one of the longest and most learned of the Exposi- " tions of the Song of Solomon." For upward of half a century ' ' he lived in his manse, a little low-thatched abode, far from the madding crowd," apart from any public road, in a district of Scotland removed from any animating local scenery : his romantic retreat was by a sedgy burn, or brook, which, without the semblance of a current, served as a fence on one side to his garden. His manse stood in a dreary plain, almost two miles square, in which neither tree, nor stone, nor shrub un- less a bush of broom deserved the name was to be straggling " seen, and there it was his consolation to say, My taper never burns in vain." The light was always at night shining in his window he never curtain or shutter to its ; permitted intercept " rays. He used to say, It may cheer some roaming youth, or solitary traveller, since the Polar Star is not truer to its position than is the position of the Linshart (the name of his house) in its rise and setting, true to the Buchan Hind." He used to say, while there was a chance of any human creature traversing the "Lang-gate" he could not bear to go to bed. John Skinner, with his humor, his strait theology, his benevolent common- sense, has always seemed a fine specimen of the old Scottish minister, although of a communion which has never been acceptable to the Scottish mind. The biographies of such men are innumerable. A charming picture Dr. Norman Macleod gives of his father's life among the old hills of Morvern and it stand as a beau- ; may probably tiful photograph of many a Scottish minister in his relation to " his household and his pariah. Were I asked," says the son, " what there was in my father's teaching and training that did us all so much good, I would say, both in regard to him and my beloved mother, that it was love and truth. They were both so real and human. No cranks, twists, crotchets, isms, or THK OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 7 of but a systems any kind, loving, sympathizing ; giving genu- ine blowng up when it was needed, but passing by trifles, fail- ures, infirmities, without making a fuss. The liberty they gave was as wise as the restraint they imposed. Their home was happy, intensely happy. Christianity was a thing taken for granted, and not enforced with scowl and frown. I never heard my father speak of Calvinism, Arminianism, Presbyte- rianism, or Episcopacy, or exaggerate doctrinal differences, in my life. I had to study all these questions after I left home. I thank God for his free, loving, sympathizing, and honest ' ' heart. He might have made me a slave to any ism. He left me free to love Christ and Christians." And this pleasant minister of re- picture of the manse of the patriarchal Morvern minds us of that other picture of the Scottish minister and his " work, from the same pen, in the Reminiscences of a High- land Parish," for which most likely the ancient father furnished the original. We are apt to think of the old Scottish minister as usually living in wild scenes, amid scattered mountain hamlets, amid " wide and far-spreading moors, amid the sheep that is among the lonely hills," the wail of plovers, and the songs of mountain streams. But this separation from cities, and from what is called cultivated society, must not, therefore, imply, in this instance, a character either less cultivated or less powerful, or, " in its less influential Words- sphere, ; strongest minds," says worth, in his fine portrayal of just such a character as we are to delineate attempting " Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least." There were remarkable oddities in the Scottish ministry in " the times of old. Mr. Kennedy, in The Days of Our Fathers in Ross-shire," recites, with admiration, the life of Mr. Sage, the pastor of the kirk of Lochcarron. He found his parish in a state of extreme depravity, and he* made friends with ' the strongest man in the parish. Now, Rory," he said, SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. " I'm the minister, and you must be my elder, and we must see to it that all the people attend church, observe the Sab- bath, and conduct themselves properly." So it seems to be true that between them they dragged the idlers into the church, to catch then minis- locked the door, and returned more ; the ter mounted the pulpit. Rory stood at the door with his cudgel, and the service proceeded. Mr. Kennedy says one of the earliest sermons was blessed to the conversion of Rory ; and the whole parish, beneath Mr. Sage's pastorate, became remarkable for its orthodoxy of doctrine and behavior. This is a story like that of our William Grimshaw, of Haworth, who used to go out on the Sabbath morning through his long-neg- lected parish, and literally compel the people to come into the church. Before long it was a new place, and the good minister was as much loved as he had been first feared, and then respected. " Johnson, in his Journey in the Western Islands," gives us fine glimpses of the old Scottish minister. Mr. Maclean, on the Isle of Coll, he says, had the reputation of great learn- " ing. He was seventy-seven years old, but not infirm, with a " look of venerable dignity," says Johnson, excelling what I remember in any other man; we found him," continues the " doctor, in a hut that is, a house of only one floor, but with windows and chimney, and not inelegantly furnished." In " Skye, he says of another clergyman, Mr. McQueen, he was courteous, candid, sensible, well-informed, very learned ;" " and he speaks of the whole race of ministers, saying, I saw not one in the islands whom I had reason to think either de- " ficient in learning or irregular in life. Such were the men, the foundations of whose faith were laid amid the silence of mountains and the roar of seas there learned ; they " To look on Nature with a humble heart ; Self it did questioned, where not understand ; And with a superstitious eye of love." Such scattered societies have been favorable to the develop, ment of humor and originality of character. Polite society ia THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER.

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