FOUR GREAT SCOTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20318, 28 January 1928, Page 2

FOUR GREAT SCOTS.

VISITS TO THEIR BIRTH PLACES. Written for the Otago Daily Times. By the Rev. A. V. 0. Chandler. I. We are all more or less hero worshippers, and high authority and example bid us praise famous men. If “ biography is history teaching by examples,’ we may study our national history by learning more of our national heroes. And when these men have risen from the ranks to lead men’s thoughts and actions and inspire our national ideals, there is greater reason to tread in these footprints on the sands of time. It was a happy phrase of J. S. Mills when he wrote “ the worth of a State in the long run is the worth of the individuals composing it.” During a recent tour it was a great joy to visit many an ancient and modern shrine— from that of Tutankhamen, the Egyptian monarch, to that of Brusher Mills, the Hampshire snake-catcher—-and as an impartial Englishman I write not of Alfred the Great or Shakespeare or Cromwell, but of four . Scots for whom I have both admiration and affinity. THE SAGE OF CHELSEA. A delightful drive from the beautiful English lakes to Dumfries took us through Gretna Green, the scene of many a runaway marriage, and on to Ecclefechan, where we visited the humble birthplace of Thomas Carlyle. Ecclefechan is an old-fashioned country town, and the house in which the Sage of Chelsea was bom in 1795 is a small twostoreyed stone building with one rooom over an archway through which one can pass into a small courtyard and back garden. Between the house and the main street of the town a little “ burn ” ripples along (now enclosed by a strong stone dyke), in the shallow waters of which young Tom Carlyle often paddled as a bojy. A brief inscription on the house indicated its historic interest, and on application one is shown into the room In which the future Boanerges of literature first saw the light and which is now used as a small museum for Carlyle mementoes. At Dumfries we were delighted to be introduced to Miss M. Carlyle Aitken, a surviving niece of the great writer and a lifelong resident of that town. The old lady haa a strongly-marked Carlyle physiogonomy, with a kindly, intelligent, albeit somewhat sombre, face, and is obviously addicted more to facts than to fun. Her conversation was most interesting and full of reminiscences of her famous uncle. _ One homely and (to me) quite new incident she related concerning Charles Lamb, who was for some time a neighbour of Carlyle’s at Cheyne Row, Chelsea, with many literary affinities. Charles Lamb inquired about the porridge the Carlyles were about to take of, said Miss Aitken, “ and Mrs Carlyle fell out with him because he helped himself to a spoonful from her plate.” Porridge was probably a novelty in London 100 years ago, and the curiosity of the gentle Elia brought down upon him the enmity of the highspirited Jane. Amongst the many interesting family relics with which Miss Carlyle Aitken’s house is adorned is a framed verse of original and hitherto unpublished poetry in Carlyle’s clear handwriting, composed after the death of Margaret Carlyle, his only unmarried sister: To Margaret. Thy quiet goodness, spirit pure and brave, What boots It now with tears to tell; The path to rest Is through the grave, Thou loved one for a u.Alo farewell In parting, Miss Aitken asked our acceptance, as a little souvenir of the great writer, of an envelope addressed to her mother in Carlyle’s handwriting and posted from Windermere to big sister in July, 1865. Both this address and the framed verse indicate that Carlyle’s caligraphy could be quite clear and decipherable—when he so desired. THE NEW HEBRIDEAN APOSTLE. When staying at Dumfries we visited a relative at Porthorwald, and, though I had read his interesting autobiography, £ confess I failed to associate the place with our great New Hebrides missionary until I was asked if I would like to see Dr Baton’s birthplace. I had heard the old man speak years before from C. H. Spurgeon’s pulpit, and the veteran, with his long white hair and silvery beard reminded me of some Oid Testament patriarch, and the perusal of his biography had deepened my admiration for his child-like faith and indomitable pluck, and therefore I was naturally delighted to see the little cottage where he first saw the light. My interest had been quickened when at the Melbourne Presbyterian Assembly on my way to the Old Country I had the pleasure of meeting his two sons_now in the service of the Victorian Church, and at Airdrie, near Glasgow, when associated with the Hamilton Presbytery at the induction of the new minister of Flowerhill Parish Church, I discovered it had been founded by Dr James Patou, a brother of the famous missionary. Porthowald is a beautiful Border village with its whitewashed cottages and ancient parish church, where the Patons worshipped, and ruins of Kirkpatrick’s Castle, one the famous Border keeps. The Galloway hills and Mount Criffel rise in the distance, and one can see Caerlaverock Castle and the white sands and whiter waves of the Solway, with the hills of Cumberland and the English cottages in the distance. John Paton’s birthplace is built of oak posts with oaken wattles fo. ceilings, strongly thatched with a stout stoue wall around, pointed with clay and lime and whitewashed. Though part has been rebuilt, the oak uprights and rafters black and shiny with the peat reek, are proably four centuries old, and are as firm and as solid as when first erected. Solidity, warmth, and durability rather than size and elegance was evidently the architect’s motto. Dr Paton tells us in his own inimitable way of the little Border sanctuary towards which his heart often turned in hia lonely hours amongst the South Sea cannibals. Our home consisted of a ‘ but ’ and ‘ ben,’ he writes, and a ‘ mid room ’ or chamber called the 1 closet.’ The one end was my mother’s domain, and served all the purposes of dining room and kitchen and parlour, besides containing two large wooden erections called by our Scotch ‘ box beds,’ not holes in the wall as in cities, but grand, big, airy beds adorned with many-coloured counterpanes and hung with natty curtains, showing the skill of the mistress of the house. The other end was my father’s workshop filled with five or six stocking frames, whirring with the constant action of five or six pairs of bus; hands and feet producing right genuine hosiery for the merchants of Hawick and Dumfries. The ‘ closet ’ was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table, and a chair with a diminutive window shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the sanctuary of that cottage home. Thither daily and oftentimes a day we saw our father retire and ’ shut to the door,’ and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct; (for the thing was too sacred to be talked about)' that prayers were being poured out there | for us, as of old by the High Priest [ within the veil of the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past the door on tiptoe not to disturb the holy colloquy. . . . Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe swept out of memory or blotted from my undestanding my soul would wander back to those

early scenes and shut itself up once again in that sanctuary closet and hearing still the echoes of those cries to God - ould hurl back any doubt with the victorious appeal ‘He walked with God; why not I?’” One wonders how a couple with a family of five boys and six girls could find accommodation in such limited space, but it is quite evident they lived a happy, comfortable, strenuous, and Godfearing life. With all their limitations it was “ from scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur sprang.” We went over the ruins of the old castle where Bruce and Kirkpatrick staved th e night aftar they had “ made siecar ” that the Red Comyn had “ gone west,” and then visited the churchyard of the parish church, where the grave and memorial to the Patou family are situated. The large tombstone is surmounted by i. cross, and the inscription reads; Porthorwald—Family Gravestone. James Paton, aged 77, died 1868. Also his wife. Janet Rogerson, aged 62, and their children. 1. Willie, aged 5, died 1838. 2. Mary, aged 33, died 1861. 3. Agnes, aged 32, died 1885. 4. William, aged 32, died 1871. 5. Fanny, aged 45, died 1881. 6. Walter, aged 70, died 1900. 7. Jessie, aged 73, died 1902. 8. James, aged 63, died 1906. 9. John, aged 83, died 1907. Mary buried at Stirling. William buried at Newton Abbot. Walter buried at Londonderry. James buried at Glasgow. John buried at Melbourne. Rev. James Paton, D.D., St. Paul’s, Glasgow, Rev. John G. Paton, D.D., Missionary to the New Hebrides. ‘‘ Loving in their lives, in their death they were not divided.”