The life, letters and remains of the Rev. Robert Pollok, A.M., author of The course of time and Tales of the covenanters

Front matter

•nil V y il ill'

L PK^p — ^ I

I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. |

Preface

I SPENT the summer, and part of the fall of 1828, the recess of the Glasgow University, in Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, Scotland; and enjoyed much of the society of James Dobson, Esq., surgeon. His friendship was valuable and profitable, for he was a man of rare attainments in science, especially optics, language, and poetry. He had been an early friend of Dr. Mungo Park, the African traveller, with whose family he still kept up intercourse. He had also been the intimate friend of Robert Pollok ; had watched over his progress with something akin to parental solicitude ; and knew well his sti^uggles, successes, and history. Nor was there any locality or incident alluded to in " The Course of Time," of which he could not speak intelligently and eloquently.

There were reasons that occurred during that time, which induced Dr. Dobson to urge me to attempt a Life of the Bard, with a dissertation on the poem. The work was immediately undertaken, the Christian Canticle read and expounded, localities visited, and facts collected ; but soon afterwards, in the face of encouragement to proceed with it, I abandoned it, convinced that it was a subject demanding the energies of a maturer mind.

In 1842, after a residence of ten years on this continent, I was invited to dehver an address before a lyceum,

IV PREFACE,

on the life and writings of Pollok, The reception of the essay, with the fact that no befitting tribute had been offered to the memory of the great Christian Poet, led me to resolve to prepare such a memorial of him as the facts in my possession would enable me.

In 1846, when I had nearly finished the work, a Life of Robert Pollok, by his brother, the Rev. David Pollok, and published in Scotland some three years before, was put into my hands. On reading it, I found that although my plan and views were not developed in it, still there were numerous additional facts which I had not ; besides, the letters and literary remains of the Poet, to which no one could have access but a member of his family ; thus rendering the publication of my volume of doubtful expediency.

, However, after longer reflection, and suggestions from various quarters, it appeared proper to me to rewrite my Life of the Poet, incorporating every fact of his brother's in it, introducing also the Letters and Remains ; and thus to make it not only a volume of authentic biography, but one too of illustrative dissertation on his works and life, this being a desideratum in feligious poetical literature.

Such as it is, with this history of its origin, progress, materials, and interruptions, I present it to the American public, as a loving tribute to the memory of the greatest Christian poet of the century.

J. S.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, APRIL, 1848.

Chapter I, Paqk

Thoughts about the Dead — Biograph}'^— Pollok born in a great Poetic Period — His Poetry alone Religious — His Relicrious Pedigree — Scotland's Religious History — Rise and Progress of the Secession Church — His Ancestry adhere to it — Some of them exposed to Persecution — His Parents' Birth-place — Mid Moorhouse, .13

CHAPTER IL

Mind — Influences on it — Mental Character of Pollok's Parents — The Scotch Pulpit — Philosophy, Preaching, Catechizing — Schools, Influence on Scottish mind — Pollok's Friends affected by them — His Parents efiicient — Letter from his Mother— The Poet's Tribute to her Memory, . . . 23

CHAPTER IIL

The Mind measured by Thought — No Autobiography of PoHok — Incidents of his Childhood— The Mind shaped by Circumstances — Physical and Mental changes of the Poet — His probable Conversion — He tries Chairmaking — Moorhouse Library — the Poet's early Reading — Success In Composition — Scenery around Moorhouse, its Influence on the Poet — Quotation from " The Course of Time," . . . .31

CHAPTER IV.

Plan for writing Biography — Influence of Mrs. Young's deatli on the Poet's Mind— Lines on <' Tlie Dying Mother"— AUu-

VI CONTENTS.

PAGE

fflon to Luther — The two Brothers, David and Robert, resolve to Study for the Ministry — The probable Causes — Quotation — Announcement of the Plan to the Parents — Classical Studies at Fenwick School — The first of January at Moorhouse — The Poet reads Pope's Essay on Man — Influence on his Mind — a Poem — Reads Milton — Influence on his Mind — Lines to Eliza — Finishes his School course, . . .45

Book II. His Life During The University Course

CHAPTER I.

University of Glasgow — First Session in it— Prelection System — Class Ode to the Sun — University Session — Return to Moorhouse — Spring Returned, an Ode— Jane — The Weeping Maid, 63

Chapter II

Second Session — Campbell's Influence on Greek Studies — The Poet studies Oratory with the Author of William Tell — Ode to Moorhouse — Summer recess — Studies — Lochgoin — Poetry — Third Session — Studies Logic, Rhetoric, Greek, French — Letter — Prize in the Logic Class, 76

CHAPTER HI.

Summer Vacation — Letter — Professes Religion — Excursion — Descriptive Composition — Studies — Fourth Session — Moral Philosophy Class— Professor Mylne— Studies Greek — Death of Young — The Preachers of Glasgow — Their Influence on Mind— Old Dargol, 89

Chapter IV

Missionary Society— Address before it— Beauty of the Oration —Hymn, J05

CONTENTS. Vll

Chapter V. Pa.ge

The Biographer Hke the Navigator — Essay on Compositional Thinking — University Library — Letter — Books — Visit to Ayrshire — Journal — Stanzas — Mauchline, Burns, Wishart — Strange Omission — Letters — Death of David Dickie — Letter, 1 19

CHAPTER VL

Fifth Session — Hutchinson, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Meikleham. Miller, Simpson, Watt, Thomson, Nickols, Review of the University course — Death of Durant — PoUok's Talent at Conversation — Coleridge— Essay on Originality— Tokens of the Poet's Industry — Close of the College Epoch — George Buchanan, Graham, Hislop, Tannahill, Burns, Scott, Campbell, Wilson, 139

BOOK III. HIS BIOGRAPHY FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS THEOLOGl

COURSE UP TO THE INCIDENT WHICH ORIGINATED

"THE COURSE OF TIME."

Chapter I

Literary Degrees — The Poet Master of Arts — Great Law of Knowledge — Educated Mind — Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Shakspeare — Letter — Paisley, Robert Bruce, Witherspoon, The Wilsons, Woodrow, Sir WilHam Wallace — Descriptive Letter — Extract— African Maid — Theological Schools, Fisher, Brown, Boston, Hill, Dick, Chalmers, .... 169

Chapter II

Divinity Hall — First Homily and Incident — Versatility in Composition— Studies — British Poets — Dream about Milton — Helen of the Glen — Scene — Drumclog, Claverhouse, Old Mortality — Address on Preaching, . . . .187

Vlll CONTENTS.

Chapter III. Paob

Poet's Correspondence — Beattie, Cowper, Burns, Scott, Byron, Arnold, Simeon, McCheyne — Close of the Second Sessional the Hall — Letter— Visit to Auchindinny— The Lothians, Pentland Hills, Martyr Stone— Letters— Ode to Melancholy — Letters — Agnella — Letter — Finishes the Persecuted Family and Ralph Gemmell, 201

Chapter IV

Visit to Edinburgh and Auchindinny— Letters— Stay at Moorhouse— Letter— The Child— Visit to Galloway, Mauchline, Airdsmoss — Richard Cameron — " Bonny Doon," — " Alloway's auld Haunted Kirk" — "Tarn O'Shanter" — Ballachniel — CrossraguU — John Knox — Quintan Kennedy — Turnberry Castle — " Hallow-e'en" — Daily — Dr. Hill— Girvan — Ailsa Craig — Loch Ryan — Luce Mull of Kintyre — Glenapp — Glenluce — Michael Scot — Letter—Invitation — Divinity Halls — Sermons — Letter — Tales of the Covenanters, , .215

Book IV

HISTORY OF HIS SUBSEaUENT LIFE AND DEATH ; WITH DIS- SERTATIONS ON HIS POEM AND CHARACTER.

Chapter I

Origin of the Paradiso, Gerusalemme Liberata, Paradise Lost, The Reformation, The Task, The Cotter's Saturday Night, The Course of Time — Byron and PoUok — Letters— Progress of the Poem — Letters, 239

Chapter II

Death Mysteries — Death of the Poet's Mother, her Grave— His Fourth Session in the Hall — Excursion to Loch Lomond —Origin of the Description of Byron — Letters, and progress of the Poem— Visit to Auchindinny and Dunferinline — Let-

CONTENTS. IX

PAOS

ters, and proposition to publish Three Books — David Pollok's Letter in Answer — The Poet's Heart laid open — Extraordinary Mental Effort — Letter announcing the completion of the Poem, . 252

CHAPTER HI.

Fifth Session in the Hall — His Contemporaries— His Standing as a Student — Transcribes the Poem at Dunfermline — Mr. Campbell's Omission — " The Course of Time" Scenic — Letter — Miss Swan — Poetry— Examination before Presbytery — Calls on Mr. Blackwood— Letter— Homily — The Publisher's Answer — The Press, Wilson, Moir — Manuscript of the Poem — Introduction to Wilson — Letters — Critical Exercise — The Poem Published — Letter — Reception of the Poem — Latin Exercise — Licensed to Preach, 271

Chapter IV

Analysis of " The Course of Time"— The Plot— The Poem a Homily — The Poet Immortalizes Poets, Dante, Shakspeare, Milton, Thomson, Cowper, Byron — Pictures in the Poem — It is the Calvinistic Poem— Its Unction — Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tasso, Milton, Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Byron, Campbell, Scott — The Greatness of Religious Poems — Thalaba, Curse of Keharaa, Endymion, Manfred, Alaster, Remorse, Lallah Rook, Messiah— " The Course of Time" not Symmetrical— True position from which to judge of it, . 285

Chapter V

The Poet a Preacher — First Sermon — Letters — Presbyterial Appointment — Illness — Letters — Proposal to visit Italy — Visit to Aberdeen— Byron, Beattie, Gregory, Jamieson, Burnet, Arbuthnot, Swift, Pope, Campbell, Gerard, Reid — Letter — Darkness— Letters— Movements of Friends in Edinburgh to send him to Italy— Sir John Sinclair— Letter— Poet returns to Moorhouse — Appearance — Moorhouse, .... 303

CHAPTER VL

Departure from Moorhouse for Edinburgh and Italy— Evening in Glasgow— Deputation of the Students— Address —

X CONTENTS.

PAQK

Browning, Hill, King — Journey to Edinburgh — Portrait — Macnee — Calls from Literary Men — Henry M'Kenzie — Mrs. Gilmour's opposition to the Tour — Injudicious Advice — Lockhart's Life — Will of the Poet anent the Poem — His Executors — Letters — Parting at New Haven — Voyage to, and arrival at London — Ex-Mayor Pirrie — Letter — Mallena — Visit to Westminster Abbey — Letters— Singular Providence— Helen's Grave— The Harp no more retouched, . . . 320

CHAPTER Vn.

Southampton — Beauty of the Scenery — Isaac Watts, Leigh Richmond — Desire at Death — Journey and Exhaustion — Lodgings— Sunday Walk— Scene for the Artist — Three states of Human Nature— The Poet's love of the Bible— Sir Walter Scott — Attentions to the Poet — Told that his case is hopeless — Letters — Conversation about Death— A Saint at Prayer — Chalmers— Senses supernatural ly acute — Chamber of the Ikying — His Last Night on Earth— Death— Movement in Glasgow— Letter— Burial, and the whole Visible Church represented at it — Letter of Condolence — Monument and Inscription, .... 336

CHAPTER VIII.

Visit to Moorhouse— The Poet's Pulpit— Dialogue — The Crow Stone— Bochim— Incident— View of Moorhouse and Scenery around— The Poet's Father— The Chamber of Inspiration — The Family Group — Mournful Reminiscences — Characteristics of the Poet— '^ The Course of Time"— The Biographer, 352

Book I The Poet's Childhood And School Days

" A young immortal then was born ; and who Shall tell what strange variety of bliss Burst on the infant soul, when first it looked Abroad on God's creation fair, and saw The glorious earth, and glorious heaven, and face Of man sublime 1 and saw all new, and felt All new 1 When thought awoke ; thought never more To sleep. When first it saw, heard, reasoned, willed; And triumphed in the warmth of conscious life 7"

LIFE OF POLLOK.

Chapter I

" In humble dwelling born, retired, remote In rural quietude ; 'mong hills and streams And melancholy deserts, where the sun iSaw, as he passed, a shepherd only here And there watching his little flock ; or heard The ploughman talking to his steers."

Who has not dreamed about the beautiful faces which have often looked out of the windows of our houses, and that are now covered up with white shrouds in the green graveyards : nor been haunted with wishes to know the story of all those gone off to eternity, whose canticles we sing, books we read, architectural structures we admire, pictures and statues we gaze on ; and whose wisdom, heroic deeds and eloquence, will float forever, like undying angels, along the hill-tops and the sea-shores of earth ? Alas ! few and scanty are the memorials of the dead which time has kept from oblivion.

The desire, too, to meditate on the dead, is infinitely increased, when we consider that they still continue to live, think, act and feel : that the retiring from the house of clay and the going away from earth, is not the utter extinction of being : 2 that they have merely changed locaUties, but not their essential nature. The great thought maker is imperishable, and so are its thoughts. Are not ideas the leaves and blossoms of the immortal soul ? The rod of Moses Vi^ith its leaves and buds w^hich blossomed and w^ithered not, is a beautiful and truthful emblem of the human mind and its thoughts. " If a man die, shall he live again ?" The Gospel "hath brought life and immortality to light."

There is one mind amid the population of disembodied souls, whose existence on earth can never be forgotten by the Christian. " The Holy Harp which God put into his hands," " will roll its numbers down the stream of time." The unction of that song has already fallen like the dews of the Spirit of God on many a heart, and given existence and direction to innumerable trains of holy thought. He has become the centre of an interminable circle. Nor can a finite being put a true moral estimate on " The Course of Time."

In portraying an individual mind, it is necessary to look at it in all its manifold relations : so in this effort to sketch the story of the young Christian Poet, Robert Pollok, I will not only consider the thoughts which he created and uttered, but also the circumstances operating on him and producing them : the men who were contemporary actors with him, and the country itself where he arose and flourished. What would the " Divina Comedia" be, if isolated from the scholastic theology and philosophy of the thirteenth century, and cut off from

EPOCH OF GREAT POETS. 15

Italy and Italian scenery and literature. It is not possible to write biography without frequent digression and episode.

The period in which Pollok appeared was one of uncommon intellectual splendour. The harp of Burns, the real Shakspeare of Scotland, was yet vibrating with his last inspirations. Cowper's " Castaway" thrilled the admirers of " The Task." The hand which had struck the Northern Harp and produced the "Minstrel," was just palsied. Crabbe, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Byron, Shelly, Keats, Moore, and others of immortal name, were all living at the time in the island of Albion. Never before had the English muse such a faculty of bards. It was in this brilliant constellation of poetic stars, that Pollok arose and shone. He was born at North Moorhouse, parish of Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the 19t.h day of October, 1798.

Scotland too, is, to a mental portraiture of the author of " The Course of Time," what background is to the landscape. It gives a colouring to every characteristic of his genius. Its history, poetry, philosophy, legend, scenery, sons, daughters, and religion, are the many-coloured rainbow which span his whole life. They are the warp and woof of his song. Scotland is to hiai a land suggestive and fruitful of ideas. His visions are of her eventful story. " Her solitudes" are the places " where nature sowed herself and reaped her crops." *• Her brooks" were his " minstrels ;" her " moon and stars" his lumps ;

hei' " thunderbolts" his orators ; and her '* everlasting hills" his rural palaces.

" The Course of Time" is a poem, too, which hangs alone in the gallery of the epoch. The most beautiful and finished of the others appertain to earth ; this alone is a heavenly song. Scott had struck the " Harp of the North" to chivalry and love. Byron worshipped at the shrine of the classic muse, and embroidered his songs with eastern garlands. Shelly sung of Deism, Southey of Pantheism, while Pollock undaunted arose and touched a *' Holy Harp, which God had put into his hands." The heart of religious Scotland was instantly moved by his numbers. It is impossible to look back over that tract of time without feeling that " The Course of Time" appeared on the earth and testified in behalf of the remedial scheme. It was a canticle about the God of the Bible; rich, too, with the jewels of the Gospel, as well as gorgeous with the colourings of earth's most variegated scenery.

But there can be no likeness given of Robert Pollok which overlooks his pedigree ; nor is this anomalous in biography. Did not the ancients trace the origin of their heroes up to the gods ? He had a long line of pious ancestry, which sustained peculiar relations to Scodand, and to religion in the kingdom, especially after the great Reformation of the sixteenth century. A brief sketch of Scotland's religion will not be irrelevant to the establishment of this point.

In no other country on the earth has the history

Scotland's religious story. 17

of the church been more eventful and tragic. In the third century Paganism was abolis'ied and Christianity estabhshed. In the fifth, Prehicy was introduced at the very time the heresies of Pelagius were producing immense excitement. In the seventh Pontifical, Itahan missionaries arrived, who harassed the native clergy and people, because they refused to acknowledge the Pope's supremacy, and recognize the unscriptural law of priestly celibacy. In the twelfth, many of the abbeys were built for the promotion of monkish devotion. In the fifteenth, WicklifF, " the morning star of the Reformation," taught in Ayrshire the very doctrines afterwards proclaimed with such vehemence and success by John Knox. The sixteenth century stands out on the canvas of history with uncommon prominence, as the era of Hamilton, Wishart, John Knox, Buchanan and the Melvills. In the seventeenth century there was a great baptism of blood. The pen of history has always had to record the fickleness of the human mind as exhibited in the unsanctified masses : but here we turn aside to notice the tergiversation of the church of God. In the very advent of the eighteenth century, a spirit of worldliness began to come in upon the church like the coming in of waters. The principles for which the martyrs had contended and spilled their blood w^ere lost sight of In the chief places of the kingdom, ministers w^ere settled who were destitute of the spirit of their predecessors. Indeed, in a very few years, much of the fervid spirituality of the 2*

18 LIFE OF PCLLOK.

Gospel, for which so many prayers had been offered from the tops of snowy hills, and for the maintenance of which so much of Scotland's best blood and treasure had been expended, was supplanted by a cold, Christless formalism.

In the year 1732, this state of things reached a crisis. Ebenezer Erskine preached a sermon on the prevailing worldliness of the Kirk, in which he animadverted with great yet faithful severity, on the ministry. Much excitement was produced by it, among all classes of society. In a year or two, after much injudicious policy on the part of inferior judicatories, he and three others were suspended from the ministry by the General Assembly.

God, however, was in this movement ; for these men, with their adherents, have become a great nation, and were made in his hands a conservative influence to the whole Kirk of Scotland. It was this nucleus which grew, spreading its branches not only over Scotland and Protestant Ireland, but among many of the states of the American confederacy, and which gave birth to such divines as the Erskines, Fisher, Boston, Dick, and the late Dr. John Mason, of New York.

This secession gradually gathered around it much of the deep, decided piety of the kingdom. It was only a spark at the beginning, but it soon became a great fire. Those, whose minds were imbued with the martyrology of the kingdom, with the memories of the Reformers, and filled with the annals of the religious struggles, adhered to it. Be-

THE poet's martyr LINEAGE. 19

sides these, there were the enemies of a state religion, and many of the ardent lovers of civil freedom. Among those in the west of Scotland who cast their influence in with it, were the immediate progenitors of the Author of " The Course of Time." His father was nurtured in the first congregation of this body, which was organized in Renfrewshire, and his mother in the first in Ayrshire.

This digression casts light on " The Course of Time." Nor is it possible to avoid the conviction that the mind which produced it was raised up for that purpose by the God of truth. There is, truly, a pedigree of mind which is more worthy of notice than that which is merely physical. The principles and habits of parents are often entailed on their children. National traits and peculiarities are traceable to this affinity. There are characteristics which distinguish families. The wife of John Welsh was the daughter of the Scottish reformer, and inherited his mental peculiarities. Her biography would make a beautiful and befitting sequel to his. The history of Pollok's ancestry is essential to the development of his literary life. The fervour, spiritualism, and lofty aspirations after religious liberty, which pervade his great poem, compel us to look back to this noble source. Three of his immediate ancestry suflfered during the religious persecutions of the latter part of the seventeenth century. One of them was shot ; another escaped to Ireland, where he remained three years in exile ; and a third was banished to Barbadoes, whence he returned at the Revolution. The Dickies and Gemmells, of Ayrshire, are names which have been tried by fire and blood, and are inscribed among those worthies whose memory shall never be forgotten while there is one heart filled with love to Christ and his cause, in Scotland.

John Poliok, the father of the poet, was the third generation who had occupied the same lands on lease from the Eglinton family. Margaret, his mother, was the daughter of James Dickie and Margaret Gemmell, who occupied a farm in the neighbouring parish of Fenwick. The Rev. Mr. Guthrie, author of the celebrated treatise, " Saving Interest," and champion of the National Covenant, has given a prominence and notoriety to this place ; indeed, after the lapse of a century and a half, there are not wanting proofs of his graces in the lives of the descendants of his parishioners.

Robert Poliok was the seventh child of his parents. The family consisted of four sons and four daughters ; but three of whom, with the mother, had gone to the spirit land before the publication of " The Course of Time." He was baptized in the Secession church at Newton of Mearns, when he was a few weeks old, by the Rev. Andrew Thomson. It was, however, in the Secession church at Eaglesham, which became the family sanctuary, that he worshipped God, when a boy, Sabbath after Sabbath, in the great congregation. He was in his seventh year when the family moved to Mid Moorhouse, which is about a mile to the south of North

HIS "christian song. 21

Moorhouse. It was here he grew to manhood, and wrote the great "Christian Song.'' His own pen hath sketched the scenery :

" Four trees I pass not by, which o'er our house their evening shadow threw : Three ash and one of ehn,"

Chapter II

" What tongue 1 no tongue shall tell what bliss o'erflowed The mother's tender heart, while round her hung The offspring of her love, and lisped her name : As Uving jewels dropt unstained from heaven, That made her fairer far, and sweeter seem, Than every ornament of costliest hue."

The human mind may properly be compared to soil ; if cultivated it will bring forth a larger fruitage of ideas; on the other hand, if neglected or placed in circumstances where it receives few impressions, it will be utterly unproductive. Ideas are the inhabitants of the mind, and it will be populous or deserted in the ratio of the effort to people it. Nor ought it ever to be forgotten, that among the foremost agencies in its formation and development, are those of parents, associates, scenery, and religious institutions. The Biography of the Author of " The Course of Time," cannot be fully written without giving an important place in it to the consideration of these causes and influences.

His parents were not learned in the arts, sciences and philosophy of the schools, yet they were thoroughly conversant with Bible truths. They held the Calvinistic scheme to be the only one revealed ;

HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH PULPIT. 23

considering all the opposing theories as dishonouring to God. They knew the positions of conflicting theorists. Scotland, in their youth, was a great school of polemics. Every sermon which they heard was a compendium of divinity ; and many of them were rich with sacred and profane literature. The Bible was an unlocked and open volume to them, and formed their chief library. Every person in Scotland could read in those days. It was an era of sanctified Sabbaths and reverenced sanctuaries. The noble and the peasant studied the remedial system. God dwelt in the land !

Scotland, about that time, was also busy laying the foundations of mental philosophy. The sermons, while abounding with Bible doctrines and exhortations, were often metaphysical. Nor is this strange when it is remembered that the great mental gladiators, Hume, Reid, Beattie, Stewart, Smith, and others, contended successively in " the foughten field." The whole Scottish people were not only spectators, but became, at length, interested partisans. The teachers in the parochial schools, who were an educated class, spoke freely to their pupils concerning the conflicting philosophic theories, and the clergy discussed them, both publicly and privately. In a letter from Dr. Porteus, author of the celebrated poem -'On Death," and Bishop of London at that period, to Dr. Beattie, the philosopher, which may be found in Beattie's fife by Sir William Forbes, he makes use of the following remarkable language : " In the range of my acquaintance, which IS pretty extensive, both among the clergy and laity, I have never yet met w^ith a single person of true iste and sound judgment, who did not speak of your ' Essay on Truth' in the warmest terms of approbation." Now, if so great an interest obtained in Englani concerning the philosophy of the period, how muci greater must it have been in Scotland, the very theatre of the antagonist parties.

It is not to be inferred from this allusion, that the preachers of the day substituted philosophy for theology, as was partially done at a more recent time, in certain quarters in the kingdom. On the contrary, they introduced philosophy for the purpose of defending the true theory of mind and ethics, and neutralizing the dogmas of infidelity against the genuineness of miracles. Hermeneutics and sacred history were also made available by the ministry to stem error. Nor was there ever an epoch in the Scottish pulpit when greater attention was paid to instructive, textual, spiritual preaching. The system of lecturing every Lord's day also prevailed. The ministers were in the practice of enunciating from the pulpit the Hebrew and Greek words which had a disputed rendering, or peculiar signification. The people, too, were in the habit of carrying their Bibles with them to church, marking the passages quoted, and studying them carefully afterwards at home.

Indeed, few persons who had arrived at mature years were ignorant either of the disputed passages in the Old and New Testaments, or the best ren-

HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH PULPIT. 25

derings of them. There was not, perhaps, a pious shepherd on the heath-covered hills of the Lowlands, who did not know that the words in itaHcs were not in the original languages: that there are only two passages which allude to Job, out of the book called by his name : that the translation of the third verse of the ninth chapter of Romans may well be, "could have wished" instead of "could wish!'* also, the numerous criticisms about 'Slehovah,'' "Jehovah Tsid-kenue," " heavens," '' firmament ;" especially the fact that three of the constellations are alludedto by Job. The word " covenant" too was known by them, its Hebrew meaning and use; and that portion of the eighth chapter of Proverbs referring to the divinity and eternity of the Second Person of the Godhead. I particularize these with a view of showing the character of the Scottish pulpit in the infancy of the poet of "The Course of Time;" and especially the philosophical, critical, and theological information possessed by his parents.

The history of th«e church in the world, and particularly in the kingdom of Scotland, was also thoroughly enlarged on in the pulpit. This custom was greatly facilitated by the epitome of history introduced into the Bibles of that period. It extended only to two or three leaves at the close of the New Testament, and was divided into seven historic ages. The preachers often alluded to this compendium. Their glowing, extemporaneous sermons, were indeed interwoven with history and prophecy idJ<.e sister threads of gold and silver. They expa-