ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 12027, 31 October 1904, Page 5

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE'S SCOTTISH REMINSICENCES. (From "ThoTinK.o."') The derivation of tile word " chrptnut " in tile of bh .nnnicnt jnkc or st«ry i.«s obscure. Can it-ho derived from the n<<nn» given to those indurated excVePcrncos on tho U-gfi of the Irorco, concerning which the curious may consult Professor Cos-ir V, wart's le.'irri'fd and ingoriiou« wfnys on equina evolution? In oompiliug his own collection of chestnuts, "Scottish Reminiscpnors." Sir Arcliibald Geikio His uk that ho h"« comparpil and fennel thflfc manr jokce by him discovert in oral tradition already exi>t in print, lie. lias dropped thvK> rlicplnuts u-uaJly, unloss he has a better version. He remarks on tho fact t.liat ancient tain? aro re-to.]d in every generation wrth m-w settings. Tims the yarn about n man who snored w> loud in church that "ho vrn.ulwnert us a , ," is told in an. epigram of the Restoration, about a pcrmon by South: — • "Thp doctor stopped; l>cgan to call: ' Pray wake the Earl of Lauderdale! My lord, why, 't is a thing. You snore .«o loud—you'll wake the King!' " This variant mui«t be dated before dcrdalo civnted a. Puke*. We can attest the existence of two Scottirh chestnuts of to-day, in the "Cymboium Mundi,' and in Boroald d<» Vervilk, -vvhilo nn American about General Jackwn occurs in a manuscript of the age of our John Lackland. Gh-os't stories may be traced back in tho same way. Sir Archibald, naturally, is rich in anecdotes of ministers, like all Scottish collector?. The humour arises from the circumM-iince that, according to Knox's " Book of Discipline," preaclwra arc to b? obeyed as Go<l himself, have "tlve itPVR," and the power "to bind and loose," fit. in the seats of the Apostles, and altogether are a mystically potent set of men. The contra** between the " trew minstrels" of Knoxian theory and the actual preachers of everyday life, gradually, and in the course of'three centuries, worked itself into the Scottish head sis a joke. Though Knox had a. Book of Common Order, he, and still more his successor?, preferred "conceived prayers," in .which the minister said whatever came into his head, and we have heard a conceived prayer d<tscribe eternal punishment as " exceeding abundant, above all that we can ask or hope." As early as tho year of the happy Restoration, a leading Covenanter, Brodie of Brodte, went up to town, and, after being preranfc at an Anglican service, confided to his Diary that ho had suffered much in iS'cotland from the nonsense of extempore prayer. But the Kirk, in Knox7> time, would not have approved of Sir Archibald's minister, who dronsed a family at night and christened the baby in the water which had been used to wash the teacups. "It will do as well as any other," he remarked. The present reviewer, was .himself baptised out of a punch bowl; but tho Kirk has now returned to a fcemlier service, in church. An interesting caw of "conceived prayer ' \», " may wo be saved from the horror% of war as depicted in the ' Illustrated London News' and the 'Graphic,'" Yet Scotland plunged into the Bishops' wars and tho Great Rebellion, all.-or mostly, to preserve tho institution of 'conceived j prayers," as against M'hat Baillie calle'l "the anti-Christian lituTgy" of Laud. There survives an objection to the use of the Lord'e Prayer... A minister employed it rewntly, find., was censured by general, opinion in the parish, till a milder critic said, "he warna. praying, he was just quoting Scripture." Sir Archibald actually r?pcats the hoariest of chestnuts, , "Who the Devil he is." Sir Lauder Brunton is responsible for the anecdote of opposition to a stove in a cold kirk on tho Border. A stove has a pipe, organs have pipes; therefore stoves are Papist. However, organs, or at hast harmoniums, havo been coming in as sound theology ha» been going out. The story concerning theoloctical opposition to a winnowing machine as providing wind and interfering with Providence in far older ■•thaji -Sir Archibald's variant of the chestnut. But the idea is Pagan. WitnT«? tho horror of Horace when contemplating tho impiety of the first boat-builder. ! The Highlanders, when they are not Roman Catholics, or of the persecuted Kpiscopal remnant, are Free Kirk, "irhet her "Wee Frees" or "Muckle Free»." Sir Archibald gives a caw in which the Auld Kirk's minister's mm alon? camo to church. "Ht-, only he, were tb" parishioners" of the Auld Kirk. We are reminded of Baldoon, the husband of the original of the Bride of Lammermoor. "Kirk di>xipline," as.Sir Archibald find.", "has not. prevented the statistics of drunkenness and illegitimacy from attaining an unenviable notoriety." Knox, at Frankfort, found that the English exile* under Mary Tudor would insist on repeating the responses, and would not stand Kirk discipline. In. Scotland it never was of any use, and oue

KOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

laird, when tiie Kirk wa«> " terrible as an army with banners" (1634-1651), bad 65 natural children, while tho .sisters of pious Brodie of Brodie (whom' he- calls by * plain old word) " i-outlicred yin wi' matrimony." T!ie minister of a Lowland kirk, fifteen years ago, was aroosrd by a terrible din rarly on the morning of the Sabbath. It was caused by the public prosecutor ("a writer body"), two members of the iVhool Beard, and the policeman. The minister's man wheekd the policeman home in a wlwelbarrow, but. no Kirk censure was inflicted. The Kirk Iris not failed all along tho line with her discipline. A ■glance at-'the rword* of-the St. Andrews Kijk Sessions shows that, Thomas Morris, not long after rlip Reformation, had to sit on tJie stool of penitence for playing golf on Sunday. Here wo confess discipline has prevailed. Old Torn Morris never playe on Sunday, nobody docn at St. Andrews. Tlie grcfti Cets a rest. But if nobody "pile back ilia divots" on tho Sabbath, that is, restores the hacke<l up bits of turf, then someiodj U sadly maligned. As to what- is eaJled "superstition," the Kirk lias failed. Fairy well* are Mill v.i-wted a*» places of healing. Shoulder blade, bones of sheep are uwd for divination, and flint arrow-heads (elf shots) placed in water have recently been u.sed to cum a minister's hairn of some malady or other. Second sight is nearly as common as short sight, in some regions, and what can a minister do to stop it, when he is second-sighted himself? As to "Sabbath observance," it is the natural result, of the Reformation. t The old faith prescribed a variety of things which could ho done, and done with. The RefonnerH had only Sunday, which became all the Law and the Prophets. In one Highland parish the minister was criticised for reading the newspaper on Saturday—it was too near Sunday; and on Monday, by parity of reasoning, boys were forbidden to whistle. In leaving Sir Archibald - * book, which, lws no fault bub the occasional repetition of too familiar a tale, it should be eaid that he is far from desiring to belittle the Scottish clergy. Even in the worst times, say, from 1560 to 1650, they were often men of learning and almost always examples of spotless life, dignified and frugal. . They are. not all .«o leornthi as Dr. Johnson found many of them, but, with the cessation of the old Genevan pretensions, they have naturally become more human, without losing their ancient virtues.