A Year in Europe

It would never do, when speaking of church matters in Edinburgh, to omit Penelope's account of her landlady's breezy comments on the different preachers.

"It is to Mrs. McCollop that we owe our chief insight into technical church matters, although we seldom agree with her 'opeenions' after we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life, often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly indigestible 'stane.'

"She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the 'meenistry' creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is truth itself.

"'Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?' suggested Mrs. McCollop, spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. 'Wha did he hear the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A.? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there for fifteen years and mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon—off an' on!' with an emphasis showing clearly that in her estimation the times when he is 'off' outnumber those when he is 'on.'... 'Ye have na heard auld Dr. B. yet?' (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) 'He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B., forbye he's growin' maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna heed him withoot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at seventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee bit finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' and expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler, but he gi'es us fu' measure, pressed down an' rinnin' over, nae bit pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no sound, wi' his parleyvoos and his clishmaclavers!... Mr. C.?' (Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first blanket.) 'Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind ance he prayed for our Free Assembly, an' then he turned roun' an' prayed for the Established, maist in the same breath—he's a broad, leeberal mon, is Mr. C.!... Mr. D.? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' the kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he reads his sermon from the paper, an' it's an auld sayin', If a meenister canna mind [remember] his ain discoors, nae mair can the congregation be expectit to mind it.... Mr. E.? He's my ain meenister.' (She has a pillow in her mouth now, but though she is shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing on the linen slip at the same time, she is still intelligible between the jerks.) 'Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond 'oo [wool] wi' a' gude twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. Susanna kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit.' (To 'gang forrit' is to take the communion.) 'Dr. F.? I ca' him the greetin' doctor. He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an' greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecial'y of his ain congregation. He's waur syne his last wife sickened an' slippit awa'. 'T was a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat nane the less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the third Mistress F.! E'nbro could 'a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm thinkin'.

'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away according to his good will and pleasure,' I ventured piously, as Mrs. McCollop beat the bolster and laid it in place.

'Ou ay,' responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over the pillows in the way I particularly dislike; 'ou ay, but whiles I think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!'"

Finally, I cannot refrain from quoting Francesca's account of the peppery conversation she had with the young Scottish minister with whom she was destined to fall in love. She returned from the dinner, at which she had met him, all out of sorts:

"How did you get on with your delightful minister?" inquired Salemina.... "He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he?"

"He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable, condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!"

"Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed. "Lady Baird speaks of him as her favorite nephew, and says he is full of charm."

"He is just as full of charm as he was when I met him," returned the girl nonchalantly; "that is, he parted with none of it this evening. He was incorrigibly stiff and rude, and oh! so Scotch! I believe if one punctured him with a hat pin, oatmeal would fly into the air!"

"Doubtless you acquainted him, early in the evening, with the immeasurable advantages of our sleeping-car system, the superiority of our fast-running elevators, and the height of our buildings?" observed Salemina.

"I mentioned them," Francesca answered evasively.

"You naturally inveighed against the Scotch climate?"

"Oh! I alluded to it; but only when he had said that our hot summers must be insufferable."

"I suppose you repeated the remark you made at luncheon, that the ladies you had seen in Princes Street were excessively plain?"

"Yes, I did," she replied hotly; "but that was because he said that American girls generally looked bloodless and frail. He asked if it were really true that they ate chalk and slate pencils. Was'n't that unendurable? I answered that those were the chief solid articles of food, but that after their complexions were established, so to speak, their parents often allowed them pickles and native claret to vary the diet."

"What did he say to that?" I asked.

"'Oh!' he said, 'quite so, quite so'; that was his invariable response to all my witticisms. Then, when I told him casually that the shops looked very small and dark and stuffy here, and that there were not as many tartans and plaids in the windows as we had expected, he remarked, that as to the latter point, the American season had not opened yet! Presently, he asserted that no royal city in Europe could boast ten centuries of such glorious and stirring history as Edinburgh. I said it did not appear to be stirring much at present, and that everything in Scotland seemed a little slow to an American; that he could have no idea of push or enterprise until he visited a city like Chicago. He retorted that, happily, Edinburgh was peculiarly free from the taint of the ledger and the counting-house; that it was Weimar without a Goethe, Boston without its twang!"

"Incredible!" cried Salemina, deeply wounded in her local pride. "He never could have said 'twang' unless you had tried him beyond measure!"

"I dare say I did; he is easily tried," returned Francesca. "I asked him, sarcastically, if he had ever been in Boston. 'No,' he said, 'it is not necessary to go there! And while we are discussing these matters,' he went on, 'how is your American dyspepsia these days—have you decided what is the cause of it?'"

"'Yes, we have,' said I, as quick as a flash; 'we have always taken in more foreigners than we could assimilate!' I wanted to tell him that one Scotsman of his type would upset the national digestion anywhere, but I restrained myself."

"I am glad you did restrain yourself—once," exclaimed Salemina.

And so on, with Francesca's characterization of the Forth Bridge as the national idol, her inability to tell which way to turn a drawing of it so as to make the bridge right side up, his asking her if doughnuts resembled peanuts, and his telling her he had heard that the ministers' salaries in America were sometimes paid in pork and potatoes, his comments on international marriages, and her conclusion, as she retired that night, "I doubt if I can sleep for thinking what a pity it is that such an egotistic, bumptious, pugnacious, prejudiced, insular, bigoted person should be so handsome!"

That is an excellent little volume to give one an idea of the kind of international clashes that are continually occurring in Edinburgh nowadays. But we, being more intent upon getting into the more ancient atmosphere of Scotland, give most of our evenings to the reading aloud, in the family circle, of Rob Roy, and the like, in preparation for our proposed tour of the Highlands, while the older members of the party acquaint themselves afresh with the Heart of Midlothian, The Monastery, The Abbot, and the other works of the Wizard of the North, whose scenes are laid at or near "Edina, Scotia's darling seat."

CHAPTER XIII.

Yet there are some very criticizable things about Edinburgh, such as the unseemly billing and cooing of lovers of the servant class in public places, for instance the Princes Street Gardens, where they may be seen at almost any hour of the day embracing each other in the most unblushing manner, apparently oblivious of the passing multitude. There may be just as much of this going on in the parks of other cities, but the peculiar position of these lovely gardens in the great, green hollow in the very centre of the city, in plain view of the most crowded streets, and the most popular hotels, makes this impropriety more obtrusive here than it is anywhere else.

Why should there be such a plague spot in the heart of Edinburgh? The explanation cannot be found in any lack of native ability on the part of Scotchmen to overcome the conditions that bring about abject poverty. It is universally conceded that in the qualities which make for success in life the Scots are well-nigh unrivalled. Mr. Andrew Carnegie is a pre-eminent example, but the thrift of Scotchmen in general is a proverb. [2]

Nor can the explanation of the dire poverty and wretchedness seen in Scotch cities be found in their disregard of the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath worship, as in the case of some other European peoples, though there seems to be of late some relaxation of their rigid sabbatarianism. Their strictness in this matter has been the subject of many a good story. One is told of a little girl in Aberdeen, who brought a basket of strawberries to the minister's, very early Monday morning.

"Thank you, my little girl, they are very nice,", said the minister; "but I hope you did not pick them yesterday, for it was Sunday, you know."

"No, sir," replied the child, "but," she added, with some dismay, "they were growing all day yesterday."

A devout Scottish minister once stopped at a country inn, in the northern part of his native land, to pass the Sunday. The day was rainy and close, and toward night, as he sat in the little parlor of the inn, he suggested to his landlady that it would be desirable to have one of the windows raised, so that they might have some fresh air in the room.

"Mon," said the old woman, with stern disapproval written plainly on her rugged face, "dinna ye ken that ye can hae no fresh air in this hoose on the Sawbath?"

Another is related by Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in his autobiography. It was Sunday morning, and Guthrie was preaching, away from home. After breakfast, he asked his host for a cup of hot water to shave with. "Whist, whist," was the response; "if ye wanted hot water for your toddy, 'twould be all right; but if this congregation kenned that ye called for water to shave with, there wad nae be a soul in the kirk to hear ye."

This last incident brings us in sight of the true explanation of Edinburgh's misery. The great curse of Scotland is drunkenness. The real cause of the deplorable change that seems to be taking place in the character of her people is intemperance. Mr. Charles E. Price, of the well-known firm of McVittie & Price, who is the prospective Liberal candidate for the Central Division of Edinburgh, in a recent address, made after a visit to our country, says he was struck with the general sobriety of the American people. He did not see eight persons drunk on the streets during his three months' tour, and he contrasts this showing with the gross drunkenness seen on the streets of Edinburgh. He quotes the startling figures in the letter of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, to the Lord Provost of Glasgow, taken from the annual report of the Commissioners of Prisons, according to which the number of commitments during the twelve months, 1900-1901, was, for England, 571 per hundred thousand of the population, and for Ireland, 793, and for Scotland, 1,402! That is, nearly twice as many for Scotland as for Ireland, and nearly three times as many for Scotland as for England. "Ah!" I said to myself sorrowfully, "whiskey again." Such was the comment of Mr. John A. Steuart, the Scottish author and social reformer, when this shocking official statement appeared in the newspapers; and, referring to Lord Balfour of Burleigh's declaration, that the time has come when it is necessary to consider whether a large new prison should not be erected, he adds, "That is the commentary of your Secretary of State on the morality of the countrymen of John Knox." Mr. Steuart goes on to show that the national drink bill, direct and indirect, amounts to the enormous sum of £300,000,000. "Three hundred millions sterling and one hundred thousand human lives, that is the yearly expense of maintaining the publican. The South African war cost us altogether 20,000 lives; during the period it lasted the drink traffic cost us upwards of 250,000, that is to say, for every soldier who died in South Africa, from wounds or disease, twelve men and women in Britain perished miserably from strong drink. Let Christian people think of it.... Nothing is more certain than this, that religion and the drink traffic cannot flourish together, and one of them is flourishing terribly now.... If the church does not gird herself promptly and vigorously to dispose of the drink traffic, the drink traffic will assuredly dispose of the church." In an American journal I find the statement that, in writing to Dr. T. L. Cuyler recently, sending him a generous contribution to the National Temperance Society, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, after expressing his deep interest in the temperance cause, added, "The best temperance lecture I have delivered lately was my offer of ten per cent. premium on their wages to all employees on my Scottish estates who will abstain from intoxicating liquors."

Speaking still more recently, at an entertainment at Govan, Scotland, Mr. Carnegie said "he wished his countrymen would take to their hearts that the one blot upon the people of Scotland was that they often fell from true manhood through the use of intoxicating liquor. There was a saying in America that a totally abstaining Scotsman could not be beaten, and wherever a Scot has fallen, it was, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, the result of intemperance. Every Scotsman at home or abroad had in his keeping part of the honor of Scotland, and Scotland having so much more honor per man than other lands, it followed that every Scot carried a greater load of honor than the man of other lands. He wished that every word of his to workmen in Scotland would cause them to reflect upon that, and to resolve that henceforth they would never disgrace either themselves or the land that gave them birth. The only defect of the Scot, compared with the man of other lands, was that of intemperance, which, however, he rejoiced to know, was steadily decreasing."

One other ominous feature of present day conditions in Scotland I find referred to in the following clipping from a British journal:

"In Edinburgh of late the Jesuits have been showing unwonted activity. Owing partly to the unsettling effect of Biblical criticism upon the average mind, and partly to some utterances by some of the leading ministers in the Scottish churches, the Society has evidently deemed the moment opportune for pressing the claims of Rome upon the Scottish people. In their spokesman, Father Power, who addresses a great gathering every Sabbath evening in the open, they have an instrument well fitted for their purpose. Of fine presence, manifest learning, and no mean orator, he is bound to make an impression on some minds. Here is one sentence from his last lecture. After referring to the utterance of a noted Scottish divine in the General Assembly, reflecting on some passage in the Confession of Faith, he said, 'So that fundamental basis being removed (the Confession), the Presbyterian Church collapsed like a house of cards. And hence I say that the Catholic Church has an opportunity, let us hope a God-given one, for entering the field once occupied by our late lamented sister.'"

But he would be a sanguine man, indeed, who could believe that the people of Scotland generally would ever become Roman Catholics. For one thing, there is too much printing there. For the Vicar of Croyden was a true prophet when he said, in the early days of the Reformation, "We must root out printing, or printing will root out us."

CHAPTER XIV.

But the place that interested us most at Stirling was the Old Greyfriars Churchyard, adjoining the Castle, with its monuments of John Knox, Alexander Henderson, Andrew Melville, and especially James Renwick and Margaret Wilson. During our stay in Edinburgh we had read and talked much of the martyrs of Scotland, those glorious men and women who had died for Christ's crown and covenant in "the killing time,"—those heroic ministers, nobles, and peasants, male and female, who to the number of eighteen thousand had laid down their lives rather than submit to the tyranny and popery of the Stuarts. We had visited repeatedly Greyfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, where the Covenant was signed, and where many of the martyrs who were beheaded in the adjoining Grassmarket are buried. The last of those who "kissed the Red Maiden" here was the youthful and gifted James Renwick. His statue at Stirling represents a mere stripling indeed. Not far from Renwick's statue stands the most beautiful of all the monuments of the Covenanters, the snow white group of Margaret and Agnes Wilson, and the figure of an angel standing by them. The inscription is as follows:

I had had the satisfaction, on my former visit to Scotland, of seeing many of the places around which the heroism of the Covenanters has thrown imperishable renown, Bothwell Bridge, Drumclog, Ayrsmoss, Wigtown (where a noble monument to Margaret Wilson and Margaret McLachlan crowns the highest hill and overlooks the sad sands of Wigtown, which all readers of The Men of the Moss Hags will remember), also the little Duchrae (where, by the way, Mr. S. R. Crockett was born), and Earlstoun Castle on Ken Water, and Sanquhar. At Dumfries one morning, I had eaten my breakfast in the room where Charles Edward, the Pretender, the last of the Stuarts to curse and trouble the united kingdom, had dined with his staff, the night before his final withdrawal northward; and at Sanquhar, in the afternoon of the same day, I had eaten my dinner close to the granite shaft which marks the spot where Richard Cameron and the other twenty heroes sat their horses on that memorable day, when they unfurled the blue silken banner, with its inscription in letters of gold "For Christ's Crown and Covenant," and flashed their swords in the sunlit air, and declared themselves independent of the tyrannical and perjured house of Stuart—one of the sublimest actions in the history of human freedom—and the twenty men won, though they themselves perished in the conflict. As I thought of it all, and how much it meant for the civil and religious liberty of our own country, I had taken off my hat, and, standing there in the street, had silently thanked God for the gift to Scotland and the world of such men as Richard Cameron and William Gordon and James Renwick.

I had a very pleasant note the other day from Mr. S. R. Crockett, the novelist, in which he was kind enough to say, "If you are in Galloway, I shall be glad indeed to see you," and in which he expressed a lively interest in the work of the "Covenanters" in our church. In speaking of The Men of the Moss Hags, he says, "I put a great deal of faithful work into it, but that very quality somewhat marred the dramatic element. I think of trying again with a book on Peden—a red-hot one this time—not trying to hold the balance, but going straight for all persecutors and sitters-at-ease in the Covenant Zion."

Those who go to The Trossachs by way of Callander, as most tourists do, and as I did on my former visit, miss the finest scenery of this region. Readers of The Lady of the Lake naturally wish to go by Coilantogle Ford, Clan-Alpine's out-most bound, but by doing so they miss not only the finest mountain views of the district, but also the scenes of Rob Roy, on the upper waters of the Forth. So this time we went by rail from Stirling to Aberfoyle, spent the night at the delightful Bailie Nicol Jarvie Hotel, antipodal in every respect to the wretched inn of the clachan described by Sir Walter, and took the coach over the mountains next morning for the Trossachs and Loch Katrine. The beauty of the mountains, seen in this way, with their rocks and ferns and heather all around us, and the glittering lakes far below us, was a revelation even to one who had been through the district on the other route. At the Loch Katrine pier we took the little steamer Sir Walter Scott, and passing Ellen's Isle, were soon favored with another memorable view. Surely Ben Venue was never lovelier than it was that day, with the sunlight and shadow alternating on its rugged sides. The Stronachlachar Hotel, at the foot of the lake, is another excellent place of entertainment. We could not tear ourselves away at once, so after luncheon we rowed on the lake, and climbed on the rocks, and gathered the heather till late in the afternoon. Then we took coach for Inversnaid. We thought we had seen it rain in Scotland. We had not. Those downpours which had so often drenched us in and around Edinburgh were mere showers compared to the floods which fell upon us on that drive to Inversnaid. The best opportunity I ever had to observe, in perfect comfort, the effect of a heavy rain on Highland scenery was on a steamboat ride up Loch Tay some years ago. From the windows of the saloon we could see everything on both sides. All the trickling burns, swollen by the rain, had become full and foaming streams, and, dashing down the mossy mountains, gave them the appearance of immense slopes of green velvet, striped from top to bottom with ribbons of silver. But on this drive from Stronachlachar to Inversnaid we were too busy trying to keep ourselves dry to take account of the effect of the rain on the scenery. We were much more concerned about its effect upon ourselves. But on reaching the hotel we hung up our dripping wraps, and were quite comfortable again in a few minutes. Next morning was fine. We walked to Rob Roy's cave in the tumbled rocks overlooking the water. We climbed the hills above Inversnaid Falls. Some of the party rowed across the lake to the Arrochar mountains. From every point of view we were enchanted with the loveliness of Loch Lomond. It is the largest and most beautiful of the Scottish lakes. We left Inversnaid reluctantly, after a too brief stay of a day and a half, and steamed down to Balloch. Taking the cars there for Glasgow, we soon came in sight of the gray stone mansion of Lord Overtoun, standing high and clear to the view on our left. The sight of it rendered the senior member of the party reminiscent again, and he told the others of the garden party given there to the Pan-Presbyterian Council in 1896.

About 850 people had come by rail from Glasgow to Dumbarton on a specially chartered train, and were conveyed the two or three miles from there to Overtoun in breaks, thirty-five in number. Over the door of the mansion ran the chiselled words, "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." The host and Lady Overtoun received the delegates in the hall. After passing through the elegant apartments on the first floor, they dispersed over the beautiful grounds where ices were served at various places, and ten pipers of the celebrated Black Watch, in their picturesque Highland costume, marched up and down the lawn, playing their national instrument, one which, with its "tangled squeaking," as Hawthorne calls it, has always seemed to me more picturesque than musical. At four o'clock the guests, to the number of nearly one thousand, all assembled in the great marquee which had been erected on the lawn, and were seated at tables for refreshments, after which they were welcomed by Lord Overtoun in a most cordial speech, to which responses were made by Dr. Roberts, Dr. Blaikie, Dr. Hoge, Rev. John McNeill and others, and at about six o'clock we all went back to Glasgow, fully agreed that this was far and away the most elaborate and elegant entertainment we had ever seen.

One of the raciest men I met at Glasgow, on that occasion, was the Rev. John McNeill. I had the good fortune, with some other friends, to travel in the same compartment with him the day we went to Lord Overtoun's Garden Party. Noticing the river through the car window, he began to speak of the filth of the Clyde below Glasgow, and then naturally enough of the Chicago river, which is probably the filthiest ditch on this planet, and quoted the remark he had made while there, that Peter could have walked on the Chicago river without faith. This led him to speak of exaggerations in general, one especially in which a local Scotch orator indulged when offering the congratulations of his community to the owner of three or four small coasting vessels when he was about launching another one. After "disporting himself in the empyrean," as Dr. Alexander used to say of such sky-scrapers, this bailie wound up with the statement that "the sails of your ships whiten the universal seas." The local minister was the next speaker, but after such a burst of eloquence as the foregoing, his remarks were, of course, very tame, so much so that the bailie who had covered himself with glory turned to another bailie sitting next to him, and said, "Bailie, mon, some o' them that have never been to college can make a better speech than them that have been through the hale corrycolium!"

Another example of unconscious Scotch humor, related, I think, in Lockhart's Life of Scott, was that of the pastor of the small islands of Cumbrae, near the mouth of the Clyde, who was accustomed to pray that the Lord would "bless Great Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland." Still another was that of the simple Highlanders on the estates of the great Presbyterian nobleman, the Duke of Argyll, who when the Duke's son, the Marquis of Lorne, married the daughter of Queen Victoria, said, "The Queen must be a great woman if her daughter could marry the son of McCallum More."

"Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word." From time immemorial that has been the motto of this stately city, now the second in size in Great Britain, numbering some nine hundred thousand souls. It should, therefore, be no surprise that there are two hundred and seventy-five Presbyterian churches here. "Glasgow is the largest Presbyterian city in the world, whether it be measured by the number of churches, of communicants, or of aggressive work done in the cause of Christ." It was in Glasgow that the first missionary society, to send the gospel to the heathen world, was formed in Scotland. Glasgow was also the principal scene of the great home mission enterprise of Dr. Chalmers. Thus, as Prof. Lindsay says, Glasgow has taken the lead in the two greatest characteristics of modern evangelical Presbyterianism—missions to the heathen, and to the lapsed and drifting population at home. Besides what is raised by the churches of the city, Glasgow spends annually more than seven hundred thousand dollars in the support of various charitable institutions. For instance, over nine hundred orphan children are cared for in the "homes," all the money for buildings and daily bread being sent in, in answer to prayer. Eighty-eight services are held on Sabbath forenoons for non-churchgoing lads and girls, superintended by two thousand monitors and workers. The Boys' Brigade took its rise in Glasgow. There are ten thousand young men enrolled as members of the Young Men's Christian Association. These bare statements will give some idea of the religious activities of this great Presbyterian city, and of its suitableness as a rallying centre, in 1896, for the three hundred representatives of that vast army of more than twenty million people of God, who, in every nation under heaven, march under the blue banner, constituting the largest Protestant Church in the world.

Glasgow is, moreover, an ancient seat of learning, and a great centre of commerce. For five hundred years its University has shed light over Scotland, and other countries as well. As for primary education, the official report says, "it is a rare thing now to find a child in the city, over ten or eleven years of age, who cannot read and write. Its art galleries, museums, music, lectures, its magnificent municipal buildings erected at a cost of two million six hundred thousand dollars, its sanitary arrangements, under the influence of which the rate of mortality is steadily decreasing, its water system, which, at a cost of seventeen million five hundred dollars, has brought an abundant supply of pure water from Loch Katrine through thirty-five miles of mountainous country—all are worthy of the second city of the kingdom. And, as everybody knows, Glasgow is the place where "the stately ocean greyhounds" are built. Fifty-five million dollars have been expended in "turning what was once a little salmon stream into one of the greatest navigable highways of the world." In 1768, the Clyde, at low water, was one foot deep, where now it is twenty-four feet. What is it that has given this venerable Presbyterian city this proud position, next to London? "Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word."

It is said that the word "Glasgow" comes from "Glescu," gray mist. It deserved its name when we arrived there on the 30th of August, 1902, and it continued to deserve it throughout our stay. The fog was so heavy and dense that one felt almost as if it could be sawn into slabs.

I can testify further that the city deserved its name also on the 17th of June, 1896, when the delegates to the Sixth General Council of the Reformed Churches Throughout the World Holding the Presbyterian System, gathered in the Barony Church, and marched through a cold rain, across the wide paved square, to the ancient cathedral, where the opening sermon was to be preached. This majestic building, now more than seven hundred years old, is thus described by Sir Walter Scott in the nineteenth chapter of Rob Roy, "The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture; but its peculiar character is so strongly preserved, and so well suited with the accompaniments which surround it, that the impression of the first view was solemn and awful in the extreme." As Andrew Fairservice said to the hero of that stirring story, whom Scott represents as addressed by Rob Roy from behind one of the pillars in the crypt, "It's a brave kirk—nane o' yer whigmalieries and curliewurlies and opensteek hems about it—a solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as long as the world, keep hands and gunpowder aff it." And, indeed, it looks as if it would. On the crest of the hill, in the adjacent necropolis, stands a splendid Doric column surmounted by a statue of John Knox.

The Preëminence of Scotland in Theology, Philosophy, and Medicine has long been recognized the world over. But it may not be known to all of my readers that the most eminent scientist now living is also a resident of this country, a citizen of Glasgow—Lord Kelvin.

In the Regalia Room of Edinburgh Castle, on my way to Glasgow in 1896, I had the pleasure of meeting, for the first time, one of the most intellectual young men that the South has produced since the war, Professor Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, a former fellow student at Davidson College of one of my fellow-travellers at that time. He told us he was on his way to Glasgow, too, for the purpose of representing Princeton in the celebration of Lord Kelvin's jubilee. This veteran professor, who thus completed fifty years of service as a teacher in the University of Glasgow, and who, by the way, like so many other epoch-makers, is a Scotch-Irishman, has long been recognized as one of the most eminent scientists of modern times, and the greatest of all electricians. As Professor William Thomson, he first won renown by the wonder which he wrought in annihilating space by enabling us to telegraph across the Atlantic ocean, for it was he who solved the difficulty which, in 1856, threatened to defeat all the plans of the late Cyrus W. Field just as he seemed about to realize his gigantic dream of uniting two continents. The signals passing through a long submarine cable were found to "drag" so much as to make it practically useless. Thomson discovered the law governing the retardation, and invented the "mirror instrument," by which all the delicate fluctuations of the varying current could be interpreted. "So sensitive is the arrangement that on one occasion a signal was sent to America and back through two Atlantic cables with the current from a toy battery, made in a silver thimble with a drop of acidulated water and a grain of zinc." By means of Thomson's magical apparatus, on August 17, 1858, this message was flashed from shore to shore, "Europe and America are united by telegraph: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." For this success he was knighted. In 1892, after many other successes, he was raised to the peerage. The submarine telegraph is not the only invention which connects his name with the sea. By substituting piano-forte wire for the old-fashioned rope, he made it possible to measure quickly and accurately the depth of water at any spot under a moving ship. When Dr. Toule was visiting Prof. Thomson, he noticed a bundle of this piano-forte wire, and, inquiring what it was for, was informed by Thomson that he intended using it for "sounding purposes." "What note?" innocently inquired Toule, to which Thomson promptly replied, "The deep C." But Lord Kelvin's most valuable aid to navigation is the adjustable compass, which bears his name, and which is now used on every first-class ship in the world.

So numerous and useful are his inventions that there is an establishment at Glasgow devoted solely to the manufacture of his patents, and employing nearly two hundred highly skilled workmen, and a staff of electricians. His home, in the precincts of Glasgow University, was the first house in the world to be lighted with electricity. It is not strange, then, that we found the whole city doing him honor on our arrival in 1896, and scores of scholars convened to offer the congratulations of other institutions in every part of the world.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of hearing a very thoughtful and striking sermon from the Rev. P. Carnegie Simpson, author of The Fact of Christ, a book which in a very short time has gained a deservedly wide circulation. I am constrained to believe that, generally speaking, Scottish ministers have more intellectual ability and better theological furnishing than those in America.

CHAPTER XV.