he be a vulgar person, a brutal person, a scoundrel, a rogue. A well-known apothegm as to them that has brains and no money, and them that has money and no brains,' stamped the mortal who adopted it: stamped him not simply in the respect of his grammar, but of his deeper nature. So with the man who holds it quite fit on due occasion to thrash his wife. So with him who said, and possibly thought, that it is right to detain his fellow-creatures in 'involuntary servitude.' So with the jaunty toady, not himself a Bohemian but writing a flunkey-like life of a Bohemian, who stated in print (I have read it) that ' a tradesman is an animal who exists to supply a gentleman without payment with what he may want.' Give me rather, as a daily associate, the person who maintains that this world is a flat surface and not a globe. He must be very stupid; but he may be an honest man. Indeed, all one learns of him leads to the assurance that he is so.

But there are opinions which are capable of being held only by a very brutal or a very vulgar person. The person may be brutal without being vulgar; and of course he may be vulgar without be. ing brutal. A Spanish Inquisitor, looking on quietly at the burning of a Jew, was unquestionably brutal, but not necessarily vulgar; while the Puritan preacher in America who got a poor witch burnt, and having complacently beheld her agonies, preached a sermon on the occasion in which he expressed a super-devilish (or infra devilish) satisfaction that she had (as he expressed it) 'gone howling out of one fire into another,' was not only a brute, but a vulgar brute. I have known one or two Puritans very like him. My friend Smith tells me that many years ago, when a young lad, he was talking with a divine (since deceased) named Sampson. Sampson was one of those under-bred, un-scholarly, coarsegrained illiterates who make one think how mysterious a thing it is that God Almighty permits such to represent Christian life and doctrine to any; their apparent vocation being to make the young hate religion. Even so the Pope, if well-advised, might largely subsidize a blatant railer at the Church of Rome, whose whole demeanor tends to make Protestantism ridiculous and disgusting

to such as fancy it is represented in him. It chanced that a poor woman had been sentenced to be hanged, at the period of Smith's conversation with Sampson. Upon this Smith ventured the seemingly innocent remark that this was a sad thing, a woman being hanged. 'No,' said Sampson, always eager to show that any man cleverer than himself was unsound in doctrine: 'No,' said that being God will damn a woman just as soon as a man: and therefore, in saying that it is a sadder thing to hang a woman than to hang a man, you are accusing God.' Such were the words, and Smith did not forget them: though he did not repeat them till the creature that uttered them was removed to another sphere of uselessness. Now, said Smith, here was Brutality in opinion and expression. That particular line of thought and argument was Brutal. And Smith thought of a certain great genius who, like most other men worth counting, thought a little extra-tenderness not unfit towards the more suffering and gentler half of poor humanity:

Then gently scan your fellow-man,

Still gentlier sister-woman. The person who says No to that is brutal besides being blind. Sampson might have remarked, indeed, that he always took the very blackest possible view of the behavior of both man and woman and that the question of degree accordingly mattered but little with him. Smith, in reply to Sampson's cheerful argument, felt much disposed to say that it was a dreadful thing to think of God damning' either woman or man. But he was a youth upon his preferment and in those days a young preacher's 'soundness' was like a woman's virtue: and he was well aware that had he said anything of that sort Sampson could have greatly interfered with his chances of preferment by going about shaking his head and lifting up his hands together with his shoulders, and saying he feared young Smith was unsound, was dangerous, was Negative, was Broad. So Smith, by no small effort, held his tongue, and got away as fast as he could. But Time brings its revenges: and the day came on which Smith was able, without the smallest alarm, to tell Sampson exactly what he thought of him and his

theology and his general career. The estimate expressed was somewhat unfavorable. But there was no fight in Sampson; and he slunk away, like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Not Brutality in opinion is the writer's present subject, however; but Vulgarity. We are to think of that order of beliefs and notions which imply vulgarity in the persons holding them. Let not any attempt be made at a definition of vulgarity. I never saw a successful one; and the last I saw was by Sir Arthur Helps. We all know the thing when we see it. And some of us unhappily see a good deal of it. There are few more trying forms of it than the historical form: when it states the proceedings of mortal men, putting these in the most repulsive way. I do not at this moment recal any example of a more dreadful fashion of putting the attention of a parish priest to an afflicted family, than that of the individual who stated that when he had trouble in his house, the worthy man under whom he sat ' was most mindful; in point of fact he was ivverly runnin', —that is, making frequent pastoral visits. 'Ivverly runnin':' such was the acknowledgment of much thought and kindness, much bodily fatigue, on the part of a highly-educated and devout gentleman. It is not much fitted to lead a man to devote himself to the sacred office in the country where such is the manner of putting things. Worst of all, the person who used the phrase, though no doubt desirous of putting his parish clergyman in his proper place, had no idea that he was speaking of him in unduly depreciatory phrase. But the faithful and diligent priest, now passed to his rest, who related the fact to me, said rather sadly that he feared even such was the mode in which a good deal of the best work of the best men was expressed in words in a country known to us both. Other sentences, highly analogous, suggest themselves; but they are best put away and forgot. Let it be said, however, that should the evil days of what is called Disestablishment come, and the existing independence. of the National Clergy cease, all those who are known to me will wash their hands of a work which will have ceased to be the work for such as them. Doubtless human beings will be found who will be content

to be regarded as 'fine bodies,' ' ivverly runnin',' and preaching in a fine style o' langidge.' I have no fear that such an unhappy time will be here in the life of any one now living. But oh the suicidal idiotcy of such of the clergy as from temporary irritation join hands with such as would degrade their office in the very dust!

All this, however, is by the way; though it is not quite irrelevant. Let it now be said that an argument is selfcondemned when it commends itself only to an exceptive or abnormal person to a very stupid person, or a very vulgar person; or only to a Scotchman or a Highlander. Many folk know that there are such arguments; if indeed argument be the proper word. And any opinion, or belief, is self-condemned, which as a matter of fact you know can never be accepted by educated folk, by folk of decent culture. The man who stated, in all honesty, that not only he himself had never read either Milton or Shakspere, but that he did not believe any human being had ever read Milton or Shakspere, was capable of accepting and holding opinions which you, my gentle and friendly reader, could not accept or hold though your life depended upon it. Such a one could not at all see or feel many considerations which are most apparent to you. Such a one will discern great force in considerations which you would put aside as not having the weight of a feather. There are opinions, most honestly held, which go naturally with grubby nails, uncultured souls, mean suspicions, coarse jokes received with horse-laughter, wretched tattle recorded and reiterated to a neighbor's prejudice, and statements that the doctor or the clergyman was (not duly kind and attentive, but) ivverly runnin'.

Last Sunday the writer, being in the greatest of Scotch cities, was proceeding towards the grandest of Scotch churches, when he met a Scotch divine whose name is remarkably well known to fame. That excellent individual, holding up a quarto volume bound in morocco, uttered the exclamation What a blessing it is to read one's prayers! It is Peace. Peace.' Then he went on his way, looking very peaceful and comfortable. He serves one of the most influential of the congregations of the Scotch Church;

and in the Scotch Church (as a rule) the prayers are not read. Each clergyman provides his own: either (1) bond fide extemporizing them (and it is wonderful how well this is done, after long habit, by a devout and able man): or (2), having written them and committed them to memory or (3) having, through a gradual process of crystallization, extending through years, arrived at certain seldomvaried forms which cannot be said to have been at any specific time prepared. The good man has gradually grown into these forms, and most of the congregation could repeat them; but they never were written nor got by heart. Here and there, you find an exceptive preacher who spreads out the document before him, and with due solemnity reads his prayers. The late Dr. Robert Lee was the first to do this habitually. The great Chalmers, enlightened far beyond his age, had indeed ventured to do this on occasions, half-a-century since. But so aware was he of the common prejudice against it, that he did it surreptitiously there are those still alive who saw him, when Moderator of the General Assembly, reading his prayers from a manuscript deftly hidden in his cocked hat. The prayers, of course, when read, are incomparably better than when extemporized; and the strain of anxiety upon the officiating clergyman is greatly diminished. And the prejudice against the reading of prayers is a vulgar and stupid prejudice, if such a prejudice there be at all. The minister's duty is to lead the devotions of the congregation as well as possible. Surely he can do so better if he have carefully considered the circumstances and needs of the congregation in the quiet of his own study, and set these forth in reverent and decorous words there, than if in the hour of public prayer, nervous, fluttered, fearful lest some of the many things to be remembered should escape his memory, he attempt to do all that there. And the exertion of the faculty of memory, some know, is very quenching to devotional feeling. A strained mind does not go kindly with a warmed heart. I remember, years ago, being present when one of the most eminent of the Scotch clergy was asked to conduct public prayer upon an important special occasion. He decidedly refused. 'No,' said he. 'In

my own study here I could think of what was suitable to be said, but I have not that command over my nervous system that I can be sure I could recal or express it before many people when the time comes.' It appeared to me at the time that I had rarely heard a stronger argument for read prayers. Why not, I thought (though nobody said it), write down in the study the suitable words, and so be sure of having them ready at the critical time? Can any mortal suggest any coherent reason against doing so; except that preposterous prejudice requires a Scotch clergyman to look, at the moment, as though he were extemporizing his prayers? And not with the Scotch National Church, but among the ignorant and fanatical English Brownists or Independents of the seventeenth century, did that vulgar prejudice originate. I remember, too, how a clergyman of the very highest ability and deepest devotion, after he had ministered for more than fifty years, told me that each Sunday morning, going to his huge church to officiate, he did so under a misery and anxiety beyond words, in the prospect of conducting public prayer. The misery went off, always, when the duty was fairly entered on. But I thought to myself, If you, being what you are, and what all the country knows you for, feel so, what ought men to feel who are scores of miles below you: and what need is there that any mortal should have to feel so? But that good man was a trueblue Presbyterian, and would have been scandalized beyond words by the suggestion of a provided form of prayer: also he plainly thought that to go through this gratuitous misery each Sunday was somehow enduring and doing more for his Master's sake; it was 'spending and being spent.' No wonder that Dr. Robertson, of Glasgow Cathedral, as wise and good a Scotchman as ever lived, should have said, many years ago, that the reasons in favor of a partial liturgy are quite unanswerable.' Dr. Crawford, the late Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh, said the like in the writer's hearing times innumerable. And the educated population of Scotland is now unanimous on that matter. Unhappily, there is a large inass of decent people who still need to be educated upon that as upon other matters. At the foundation of the pre

judice against read prayers there is the vulgar idea, incapable of being accepted for a moment by educated folk, that the clergyman is somehow inspired to conduct public prayer without preparation. Just as much and just as little as he is inspired to preach without preparation. The help to be looked for comes to the man who has first done his own very best. Here, as elsewhere, Heaven helps those who try to help themselves. There is a still vulgarer idea at the root of the prejudice in question. One would not have believed that its existence was possible unless assured by actual knowledge of the fact. There are those in some congregations who think they are not getting enough of work out of the clergyman if he reads his prayers: who think that he is relieving himself a little, and that his nose is not being kept sufficient ly tight to the grindstone. I have heard this specially vulgar notion expressed in so mary words. I like to see a man break out in a perspiration when he is prayin',' were the words of a horrid animal, known to the writer in his boyhood. 'That minister wad thole mair steerage of the boaddy,' was said of a powerful but quiet preacher, by one who desired greater gymnastic exertion. Our minister's a grand preacher,' said a rustic: 'he whiles comes oot wi' a roar just like a bull.' And the notion that the task is in any way lightened, that the clergyman's work is helped in any way, is specially disagreeable to hearers of that calibre. A vulgarer notion, or one to be more vigorously stamped down, cannot by possibility be imagined.

I have remarked that of recent days, while various enlightened Scotchmen have argued for read prayers, those opposed to read prayers have not argued but bullied. Probably from their stand-point they were right. At a recent meeting in Edinburgh of a singular institution called the Pan-Presbyterian Council, a respectable man from America had the hardihood to get up and state some reasons in favor of a liturgy. He was not met with argument, but with vulgar threats. 'We'll have no liturgy,' said an individual who replied to him: and then the individual went on to speak in praise of the woman Jenny Geddes, who cast her stool at the head of the Dean in the Cathedral at Edinburgh on the day when

the Prayer-Book (idiotically enforced against the will of the people) was first read. 'It is a fell creepie,' said the speaker, and could ding down a Dean yet.' That is to say, the speaker (of whom one had hoped better things), instead of arguing against a view which had been introduced with fair arguments civilly expressed, at once appealed to vulgar prejudice. It is admitted by all men of sense, that the folly and infatuation of those who sought forcibly to impose the Book of Common Prayer upon a nation that did not want it (and specially such a nation) were beyond all words. Every man has a right to worship God according to the order he likes best: and admirable as the Anglican Prayer-Book is, such as tried to compel Scotchmen to use it by the thumb-screw and the boot were fools, and worse than fools. It is a surprise to many English folk, to be told that when Protestant Episcopacy was for a few years established in Scotland at the point of the bayonet, no Liturgy was used in churches. The parish-church of St. Andrews was pro-cathedral of the Primacy (the cathedral being in ruins): but when an Archbishop ruled there (ecclesiae parochialis civitatis Sti. Andreae Archi-Episcopus, as some of the existing Communion-Plate has it) the worship was exactly what it is to-day. Possibly the existing order is more careful and reverent than that of two hundred years since. And not against Episcopal government, but against the intrusion of the Service-Book, the memorable riot at St. Giles's in Edinburgh directed. But while Jenny Geddes had an undoubted right to declare, in the manner most congenial to her nature, that she did not want the Volume which commends itself warmly to so many Scotch folk now, it is interesting to remark what was the value of the worthy woman's reasons against it. At the reading of a certain Collect, she arose in wrath, and hurled her creepie, declaring that she was not going to have 'the mass said at her lug,' that is, in her hearing. Here is the prayer, which Jenny esteemed as implying the Mass. I wonder if even a Pan-Presbyterian could say anything against it.

was

Lord of all power and might, Who art the author and giver of all good things : Graft in our hearts the love of Thy

Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jenny, you see, was plainly a hopeless blockhead. Any one who sees The Mass in that beautiful prayer must needs be a vulgar blockhead. Quite lately you might have heard it read in a Scotch church, and by a Dean too: but no stool was thrown, no voice was lifted up against the Mass. Things are changed, very much for the better. The century was the Nineteenth, the year being indeed 1877. The Dean was the Dean of Westminster. The church was the historic church of St. Andrews, already mentioned. And the congregation was the intelligent one which now happily worships there.

Professor Blackie of Edinburgh, liveliest and most amiable of men, has a song in praise of the redoubtable Jenny. One verse is as follows:

It may be hoped, however, that Mr. Blackie is mistaken in the view he expresses. Probably Miss Nightingale, Grace Darling, Joan of Arc, and one or two others, have done finer things than to begin a riot in a church by throwing a stool at an old man's head. And as the poem occurs in a volume in which Mr. Blackie has made several statements, plainly mistaken, this statement may be wrong too. Let another verse be quoted from the poetic Professor :

I am no gentleman, not I!

No, no, no!

ing himself. Plainly his statements in relation to anybody are to be taken under all reservation. In the same work he gives a Confession of his Faith, each article in which is enforced in a manner even more violent than the Decrees of Trent. That famous Council is content to wish that something bad may happen to those who gainsay its creed. Anathema sit, is all it says. Mr. Blackie ventures on the declaration that such as differ from him are in that extremity already.

And who denies this creed
Is damned indeed.

This statement is wholly without foundation. Probably it is about as true as the genial Professor's assertion with regard to the stout-hearted but thick-headed Jenny Geddes.

I am not sure that the subject is one which it is profitable to prosecute farther. For, though profusion of material suggests itself, in the form of opinions which one has heard expressed by various human beings, the opinions are in all cases There is no special good in meditating much better forgotten than recalled. upon exhibitions of human vulgarity and stupidity which cannot be meditated upon without some irritation of soul. Such opinions as that a Bishop cannot be other than a conceited and arrogant person: that no parish clergyman will do his duty if he have so much as a thousand a year: that the competition of a dissenting place of worship is a capital thing to make the Rector work hard: that men of high rank are for the most part idle blackguards: that most ladies of position are very little better than they ought to be: that money expended in providing places of learned leisure is money wasted: that learning is of no value whatever: that Cathedral churches ought not any longer to be used for worship, but ought to be regarded as architectural exhibitions, and even sold to the highest bidder that organs and choirs are Poppish that a Cross placed upon a Christian grave is Ritualistic: stamp their holders. But the only counsel one can offer to such as find the statement of such views insufferably provocative, is, that they should keep out of the way of their fellow-creatures who hold and state such views. Love them, by all means: but give them a wide berth. 'I don't