FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

SERIES III.

VOL. V.	B E T H A N Y, APRIL, 1848.	NO. IV.

      My dear Clarinda--HAVING in a former letter alluded to my visit to Sunderland, New Castle-upon-Tyne, and Berwick-on-Tweed, places through which you passed, and having my notes yet undecyphered or my tour through Scotland and Ireland, I will not detain you by any farther reflections on these ancient and venerable abodes of men. Still it is difficult to tear one's self away from such localities and their inhabitants without a single speculation upon either their past history or future prospects; especially, too, when in these places we have formed attachments to persons of pure and elevated aims, alike devoted with ourselves to things spiritual and eternal--persons whom we hope to meet again, if not on the shores of time, in that holy happy land in whose vast amplitude not one tear shall [218] ever moisten the eye of parting friends, or one painful sigh for those we left behind disturb the pure perennial joys of those forever with the Lord and one another.

      After walking round the ancient walls or embankments of the little sovereignty of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which, like twilight's dawn, belongs, to neither day nor night, but claims the image of an imperium in imperio--a sort of independent dependence--a place neither in Scotland nor England, nor any where else; but is known in history and Romance as "Berwick-upon-Tweed"--like purgatory, in neither heaven, nor earth, nor hell--we got into a coach and hied away some miles to the grand depot on a fine rail-read passing through the most highly cultivated region we have any where seen in Old World or in New, skirting the sea in a country in which both Nature and Art have combined their powers not only to please, but to delight the cultivated and the sentimental heart. Any one who wishes to see what scientific agriculture can achieve for a country in all the varied productions of a naturally good, though not at all a rich or luxuriant soil, and tolerable climate, had better pass through this region in the end of July or beginning of August; and if he see not here wheat fields, and oat fields, and turnip fields, and potatoe fields to vie with any other fields of the same sort in any part of Christendom, we can only say he has seen some region we never saw, and of which we have not yet read. There are some forty or fifty miles along this road which we certainly think surpass any thing we saw in the agricultural way in Her Majesty's dominions.

      In a few hours we safely arrived in Edinburgh, the celebrated metropolis of Scotland, and found a very comfortable suite of rooms provided for us by the church, at the York Temperance Hotel, almost adjoining the University. In the evening of that day we enjoyed an Edinburgh soiree, at which were present some two or three hundred brethren and friends, collected not from the city alone, but from the surrounding country--from Banff, Dundee, Auchtermuchty, Glasgow, Paisley, Dunfermline, Ireland, England, and I know not where. We had a very social, rational, and religious repast, consisting not only of all temporal good things, but also social prayer, praise, introductions, salutations, speeches, interrogatories, responses, &c. &c. We enjoyed ourselves just as much as ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals in this world of so many tears and sorrows and melancholy bereavements. It was Saturday evening, and we adjourned at about ten or eleven o'clock to repose and prepare for the Lord's day--on which I had to speak to the church in [219] Nicholson's street, and in the evening at the Waterloo Rooms. I reserved the afternoon for myself and stole away to James Haldane's church. I had promised myself much pleasure from seeing and hearing this distinguished anrl excellent man, whose brother Robert and himself, by their exalted piety and liberal fortune, raised out of the more intelligent and conscientious portion of the Church of Scotland and its Presbyterian dissidents, a new aird distinct organization. The piety, benevolence, and self-sacrificing zeal of these excellent men, together with the co-operation of such men as Greville Ewing, William Ballantine, Alexander Carson, Ralph Wardlaw, Mr. lnnis, &c. &c. gave much impulse to the evangelical cause in the beginning of the present century, and raised up a new class of congregations over a considerable portion of Scotland and Ireland. But nurtured and matured in a strictly Calvinistic community, inspired by its spirit, and controlled by its laws of interpretation, they advanced no farther than mere independency, a new ritual, and a more severe discipline. They had, indeed, no new, no great, no original centre of attraction among themselves, and nothing to offer to the world but a more beautiful order and a more refined and sublimated philosophy of Christianity according to the elements of original and unsophisticated Calvinism. Some of them strayed away into one idea, and some into another. Of these preachers some became Baptists--some, Congegationalists--others went over to Universalism--a few returned back to the world, and a few have become reformers, and are now associated with our brethren, espousing the principles and now advocating the church that began at Jerusalem. They certainly are not popular in Edinburgh. Few of them, I learn, maintain their visibility and church state, in the country and cities in which they began.

      On inquiring for the house in which Mr. Haldane's church met, I was informed that it had been reduced from being one of the most spacious in the city, to one of very inferior dimensions. Indeed, tile great tabernacle was converted into a set of rooms now rented for secular purposes; and the upper story itself is contracted into a still narrower space. So that on entering the amphitheatre, with a sort of central pulpit, I found rather a sparse congregation of some two hundred persons, in the midst of a house that might scat some seven or eight hundred. Indeed, I noted twenty-five large pews without an individual, and a very great number with but one or two auditors.

      Mr. Haldane was not there. To my very great regret and disappointment, I learned that he was at his country seat, some twenty [220] miles from the city, and might not be home for some two months. After the worship of the afternoon was through, which was attended to with great solemnity and decorum, Elder, or, as some called him the Rev. Mr. M'Kenzie, a missionary from the Highlands, delivered a very systematic discourse from some sentence in Paul's epistles to Timothy. It was just as quaint, and formal, and familiar as an old Quaker that I had seen some forty years ago. While listening to its doctrine, division, application, and the venerable old cadences, the Gaelic intonations, and all its mannerism, it seemed as if, after a lapse of forty years, or a long dream, I had just waked up in the same "auld kirk" in which were echoing the same doctrinal expositions, allusions, exhortations, as familiar to my ear as household words. Certainly, thought I of the good old man, and his very polite, devotional, and attentive auditory, in vain for him and them the progress of the age! The current of their spiritual life seemed to stand still, and not a single ripple moved the smooth surface of its placid bosom--nay, indeed, whether the water moved at all, up or down, it seemed to me could not be ascertained by mortal vision. I learned that Mr. Haldane, once the bold and strong advocate of public exhortation on the part of the members of the church, as they might be moved, every one by his own spirit, had been done away, and that now none exhorted unless at the invitation of the Elder himself. The old-fashioned pulpit had been restored, and really had I not been assured that it was Mr. Haldane's church and congregation, I could not, from either the psalm, the prayer, or the sermon, have known whether it was a High Church, a Free Church, a Covenanter, a Seceder, or a Congregational Church. The preacher seemed to be very careful of the terms which he used lest he should sin against the orthodoxy of his creed or offend the well trained ear of the most scrupulous and rigid sectary.

      Our discourses in the Waterloo Rooms were anticipated in our references to the fiery trials we had to undergo in that city, and thence throughout the kingdom; and, therefore, I will not now allude to them. We have a few notes on the city itself--the grand metropolis of North Britain, whose panoramic grandeur is not only universally admired, but by many distinguished travellers regarded, according to its area, as the most magnificent city in Europe. It is scarce more than its own length distant from Frith of Forth--about two miles; for, with all its magnificence, the city is not more than two miles in length and two in breadth. The estuary on which it stands gradually expanding into an ocean, and near it, in lofty pride, Arthur's Seat, rising midway to the clouds: farther in the [221] distance the gradual acclivities of the Pentland Hills; and farther still, the Lamor Moors and the Grampian Mountains, in all their lights and shadows, lend enchantment to this magnificent abode of Philosophy, Literature, and the Arts.

      The population of this city, since 1801 to 1841, has risen from 66,544 to 138,123, more than doubling itself in that short period; but, most ominous to relate, it has 15,556 females more than males. The reason given for this inequality in the sexes is, that young men push their fortunes abroad, while the females are doomed to serve at home for the humblest pittance. Not devoted to the manufacturing business, it is exempt from the mutations of those great seats of scientific power warring against the bones and muscles, that need both food and raiment. Edinburgh depends on its college and its various schools of learning, its courts of law and civil judicature, mainly for its support. It is the city of lawyers, judges and critics. The first class are the thirteen Judges styled "Lords of Session," who receive from 3000 to 4500 pounds sterling per annum--in our currency, from 15,000 to 22,000 dollars per annum.

      Edinburgh is the city of critical reviews and periodical learning. There are now published "the Edinburgh Review," "the North British Review," "Blackwood's Magazine," two "Medical Journals," "the Journal of Agriculture," and "the Philosophical Journal," &c. It has ten newspapers--four of these are weeklies; one thrice-a-week, and five twice-a-week. It has no daily; but makes up for this by its CBLEBRATED PLACARDS.

      I had not time to travel extensively through the city. Edinburgh differs from many European and American cities in this, that on entering it you have not first to pass through streets of despicable dwellings. Its poorest inhabitants frequently live in houses eight or ten stories high--one family above another. In other cities the poor descend, but here they ascend in the ratio of their levity. They ascend according to the lightness of their purses.

      The Calton Hill within the city generally first interests the visitors--not, indeed, because of the pondrous and somewhat inelegant monument erected upon its summit to Lord Nelson, nor because of the abortive National Monument, whose twelve splendid columns, after the model of the Parthenon, stand there without a covering, and, instead of commemorating the heroes that fell at Waterloo, as at first proposed, it merely commemorates the mutability of human purposes, and reminds us of a certain parable concerning one who began to build and was not able to finish.

      Brother Henshall and myself were invited to breakfast with [222] brother John Tener of Ireland, at the Nelson Monument on the summit of the hill. We enjoyed the sumptuous breakfast not only for its own sake, but more for the magnificent horizon which we surveyed, and especially for the delightful view of Arthur's Seat, and of the New City, which George IV. from the same spot called "the City of Palaces." In ascending Calton Hill two monuments arrest the attention of the inquisitive:--The circular tower erected as a monument to David Hume. Standing at the head of the stairs, and looking across to the other street where expands the church-yard, we see the monument on which an ingenious student of the University once inscribed the following lines:--

An excellent satire on the philosophy of the celebrated infidel historian!

      But at the head of the next flight of stairs the superb monument of the great metaphysician Dugald Stewart, rises in all the graceful elegance of the most delicate yet splendid taste. And not far off stands the monument of the great Playfair, the distinguished contemporary of the Scotch philosopher.

      But there was one antique thing that I wished more to see than any of these mementos of Scotland's great men. And, courteous reader, what think you was it, but the actual house in which John Knox lived and preached?--! Yet the antiquated thing stands at the head of the Netherbow, where it suddenly enlarges into High Street. Over the door, under the present sign of its occupant, John's motto may be read in the words following, to wit:--

      This is that same John Knox, born near Haddington, in 1505, the fellow-student of the celebrated George Buchanan, classical tutor to James VI., the companion and friend of George Wishart, the martyr; who once in priest's orders, on becoming a Protestant, was compelled by the "bloody Mary" to flee to Geneva, but returned to Scotland determined to rescue it from the grasp of the Roman Pontiff, and more than any one man--I had almost said more than all other men,--effected that glorious object.

      On hearing that the recreant Mary Queen of Scots, educated in France, was about to restore the Mass, Knox said:--"One Mass is more fearful to me than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm of purpose to suppress the whole religion." [223] On hearing this, the Queen sent for him; and on charging him with introducing a new religion, he responded to her Majesty in the following style:--"True religion, Madam, derives its origin and authority from God, and not from princes; that princes were often most ignorant of it, and referred to David and the primitive Christians," "Yea," said the Queen, "but none of these men raised the sword against their princes." "Yet you cannot deny," said Knox, "that they resisted; for those that do not obey the commandment, do in some sort resist." "But they resisted not with the sword." "God, Madam, had not given to them the power and the means." "Think you, then," said the Queen, "that subjects having the power may resist their princes?" "If princes exceed their bounds, Madam," replied the reformer, "no doubt they may be resisted even by power. For no greater honor is to be given to kings than God has commanded to be given to father and mother. But the father may be struck with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. Now, Madam, if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison till the frenzy is over, think you, Madam, that the children do any wrong! Even so, Madam, it is with princes that would murder the children of God that are subject to them."

      On hearing these bold sentiments, so different from any thing that she had been accustomed to, Mary stood, for nearly a quarter of an hour, silent and amazed. At length, addressing the reformer, she said, "Weel, then, I perceive that my subjects shall obey you, and not me." "God forbid," answered he; "but my travail is that both princes and subjects obey God. And think not, Madam, that wrong is done to you when ye are willed to be subject to God; for he it is that subjects the people under princes: yea, God craves of kings that they be, as it were, foster-fathers to his kirk, and commands Queens to be nurses to his people." "I'co," quoth she, "but ye are not the kirk that I will nourish. I will defend the kirk of Rome; for it is, I think, the true kirk of God." "Your will, Madam, is no reason; neither cloth your thought make that Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ." He added, he was ready to prove that the Roman church had, within five hundred years, degenerated farther from the purity of religion taught by the Apostles than the Jewish church, which crucified Christ, had degenerated "from the ordinances God gave them by Moses." "My conscience is not so," said the Queen. "Conscience, Madam, requires knowledge; and I fear that right knowledge ye have nane." "But I have both heard and read." "So, Madam, did [224] the Jews, who crucified Christ Jesus; they read the Law and the Prophets and heard them interpreted after their manner. Have you heard any teach but such as the Pope and Cardinals have allowed? and you may be assured that such will speak nothing to offend their own estate." The Queen, after some further reasoning, told him, that although she was unable to contend with him in argument, she knew some who would answer him. "Madam," replied Knox, fervently, "would to God that the learnedest Papist in Europe were present with your Grace to sustain the argument, and that you would wait patiently to hear the matter reasoned to an end!" "Well," said she, "you may get that sooner than you believe." "Assuredly," said Knox, "if ever I get that in my life, I get it sooner than I believe; for the ignorant Papist cannot patiently reason; and the learned and crafty Papist will never come to your presence, Madam, to have the ground of their religion searched out. When you shall let me see the contrary, I shall grant myself to have been deceived in that point." Thus ended this extraordinary conference. On taking leave of her Majesty, the reformer said, "I pray God, Madam, that you may be as blessed within the commonwealth of Scotland as ever Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel!"--Sketches of Scottish History by Thomas M'Crie, pp. 82-84.

      Such was the spirit of the man John Knox. Having in my youthful days formed some acquaintance with his history, you may judge with what mingled emotions and associations I looked at the house in which this heroic man lived, and at the window through which he preached to listening crowds, when there was but one minister in Edinburgh and one place of Protestant worship--St. Giles'; which, indeed, seated 3000 persons.

      Having said so much of the great apostle of the reformation in Scotland, I must transcribe, from James Melvill's Diary, the portraiture of this great preacher:

      "Of all the benefits I had that year (1571,) was the coming of that maist notable prophet and apostle of our nation, Mr. John Knox, to St. Andrews. I heard him teach there the prophecies of Daniel. I had my pen and my little book, and tuck away sic things as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text, he was moderate, the space of an half-houre; but when he enterit to application, he made me sa to grew and tremble, that I culd nocht hald a pen to wryt. I heard him oftimes utter those thretnings, in the hicht of their pryde, whilk the eyes of monie saw cleirlie brought to pass. Mr. Knox wald sumtyme come in and repose him in our college-yard, and call us scholars to him and bless us, and exhort us to know God and his wark in our country, and stand by the guid caus. I saw him evrie day of his doctrine (preaching) go hulie and [225] fear (cautiously) with a furring of matriks about his neck, a staff in the ane hand, and guid godlie Richart Ballenden, his servand, haldin up the other oxtar, from the abbey to the paroche kirk, and by the said Richart and an other servant, lifted up to the pulpit, whar he behovit to lean at his first entrie; bot or he had done with his sermon, he was sa aclive and vigorous, that he was lyk to ding that pulpit in blads and flie out of it."

      Suffice it to add, that the next generation will not see the house of John Knox, for as much as the Free Church have purchased the ground for the purpose, I presume, of building a meeting house, or stone church, on the same ground.

      I will reserve something further on Edinburgh to my next.

[The Millennial Harbinger, Third Series, 5 (April 1848): 218-226.]