“ The Westminster Directory qualifies this by ruling that the consent of parents should be obtained to first marriages, especially if the parties were under age. It is not clear whether non-age means under the age of twenty-one, or is to be interpreted by the decree of the General Assembly of 1600 that, “considering that there is no statute of the kirk,... defining the age of persons which are to be married, ordain that no minister within this realm presume to join in matrimony any persons in time coming, except the man be fourteen years of age, and the woman twelve complete.” ”

“ Nothing has been left to chance or the sweet will of the co-operating craftsmen, but the one master-mind has dictated every moulding and every combination, and has left the impress of his genius upon it all.” (“Book of Glasgow Cathedral,” p. 274.) It is a remarkable fact that the name of this gifted architect is quite unknown, though a theory has been advanced that seeks to identify him with a certain John Morvo or Moray, a man of Scottish descent, born and trained in Paris, who was also architect of Melrose Abbey. ”

“ Margaret of Scotland, a queen worthy of everlasting remembrance, who died in the year 1093, gave to one of the churches in her husband’s dominions a splendid crucifix, on which was a figure of the Redeemer in pure gold. The one historic crucifix of the country, however, is the famous Black Rood of Scotland, round which gathers much both of legend and of history, and from which the royal palace and abbey in Edinburgh received its name of Holy Rood. ”

“ In the southern kingdom much that as symbolism was valuable, and as art was admirable, was wantonly given over to the hammer or the flames at that time; but one learns to be thankful for the many works of glory and of beauty that were nevertheless left to us, when one turns one’s eyes to the northern realm. Carried away by the violence of the most extreme men, the Reformation there became a veritable revolution, in which everything that spoke of earlier times was condemned, and was treated as if it were a sacrament of Satan ”

“ We are glad to welcome yet another volume from the author of ‘The Cross in Ritual, Architecture, and Art.’ His subject, chosen widely and carried out comprehensively, makes this a valuable book of reference for all classes. It is only the antiquary and the ecclesiologist who can devote time and talents to research of this kind, and Mr. Tyack has done a real and lasting service to the Church of England by collecting so much useful and reliable information upon the dress of the clergy in all ages, and offering it to the public in such a popular form. ”

“ Religious ceremonies at burials have never found favour in the Church of Scotland. They were discouraged both by the First Book of Discipline and the Westminster Directory, the compilers of the former saying, “for avoiding all inconveniences, we judge it best that neither singing nor reading be at the burial,... yea, without all kind of ceremony heretofore used, other than that the dead be committed to the grave with such gravity and sobriety as those that be present may seem to fear the judgment of God, and to hate sin, which is the cause of death.” ”

“ Led by their clergy, and believing fully as they did in the literal interpretation of all Biblical imagery and the personal appearances of the devil, the people of Scotland waged a fierce unresting war against a great number of ill-fated individuals, whose only ground for being attacked was some physical or mental peculiarity, or who suffered simply because of the malice or ignorance of their accusers. ”

“ In the last forty years of the sixteenth century, we have the astounding aggregate of no less than eight thousand persons who suffered, almost invariably by burning, for witchcraft. For about the first decade, not more, perhaps, than forty were so punished in a year, but towards the close of the period alluded to, the annual death-roll probably reached five hundred. ”

“ Nothing illustrates more strongly, and more curiously, the indiscriminate frenzy of destruction which for a time took possession of the people, than the fact that monuments and tombstones were even condemned as superstitious and sinful. Only a comparatively few of all the many memorials of Scottish worthies of earlier centuries escaped demolition, and this not wrought by the mere violence of a turbulent mob, but by formal resolutions of the General Assembly in the seventeenth century. ”

“ In the capital of Scotland are more imposing monuments than the Covenanters’ Memorial in Greyfriars’ Churchyard, but not one more historically interesting. It attracts the attention of visitors from all parts of the world, and to the inhabitants of the city it must be a matter of pride to have this memorial to the memory of the men who fought for religious freedom. ”

“ Not only was the Church more strict in this matter in Scotland than in England, but the nature of the sponsion was different. In Knox’s Liturgy, the sponsors are not regarded as proxies for the child, but are required to make a declaration of their own faith, in which they engage to instruct the child. As the matter is well put by Dr Hill, “the parents do not make any promise for the child, but they promise for themselves that nothing shall be wanting, on their part, to engage the child to undertake, at some future time, that obligation which he cannot then understand.” ”

“ In others of the Hebrides, and along the west coast, there are many wells named after St. Columba. Almost every well in Scotland is, indeed, named after some mediæval saint, many of them of only local fame, and very few having a place in the ecclesiastical kalendar. St. Ronan’s Well, from the association with it of Scott’s novel of that name, is the best known to the general reader. It has been identified with the mineral well at Innerleithen, in the county of Peebles, which long enjoyed good repute as a curative agent in diseases of the eye and the skin, and also in dyspepsia. ”

“ There were some superstitions connected with marriage as to lucky and unlucky days and seasons. Perthshire couples refrained from wedlock in January, and everywhere it was declined in May. In the Lowlands, Friday was considered an unlucky day for weddings, but in the Highlands, it was the day generally chosen for the ceremony. These notions had no weight with the compilers of the First Book of Discipline, who expressed their opinion that Sunday was the day “most expedient.” On the other hand, the Westminster Assembly advised that marriages should not be solemnised on the Lord’s day. ”

“ It was with much satisfaction, therefore, that the news was received in Scotland that the Assembly had affirmed the necessity of public baptism.
The Directory for Public Worship in the Presbyterian Church states, accordingly, that baptism “is not to be administered in private places, or privately, but in the place of public worship, and in the face of the congregation, where the people may most conveniently see and hear; and not in the places where fonts, in the time of Popery, were unfitly and superstitiously placed,” that is, near the church door, and behind the backs of the congregation. ”

“ Presbyterianism has naturally had a great influence on the bells in Scotland. Mr Eeles, who is an authority on the subject, tells us that the passing bell is no longer rung, nor is there any ringing at burials beyond tolling the bell for a few minutes as the procession approaches the churchyard. In some parishes even this is said to be fast dying out. In the Burgh Records of Dundee “it is statute that an ony person cause the gret bells to be rung for either saul, mass or dirige, he sall pay forty pence to the Kirk werk.” ”

“ Among the many pagan beliefs and observances which were adhered to during many centuries of Christian creed and worship, and some of which have survived among the less enlightened even to the present day, a large place is held by those connected with death and burial. In Scotland, many trivial things were regarded as omens of death. In the northern Highlands, an itching of the nose was believed to prognosticate the death of a neighbour. ”

“ In no part of Christendom have the ecclesiastical laws relating to the relations of the sexes been more strict, or more strictly enforced, than in Scotland, and in no other have there been more irregularities. It was not until more than twenty years after the Reformation that the custom of “handfasting,” which had come down from old Celtic times, fell into disrepute and consequent disuse. By this term was understood cohabitation for a year, the couple being then free to separate, unless they agreed to make the union permanent. ”

“ There was some difference of opinion in the early days of the Reformed Church as to whether a pre-contract should be an impediment to marriage with another person. The minutes of the Westminster Assembly show that some of the divines maintained that a promise of marriage was a “covenant of God,” and could not be broken, even by mutual consent. The Church of Scotland did not adopt this view. In 1570, the General Assembly directed that persons desiring to withdraw from a contract of [Pg 220] marriage should, if nothing had followed, be allowed to do so. ”

“ But while the Church authorities were so zealous for the morals of the nation and the prevention of scandal, they appear to have sometimes thrown impediments in the way of lawful marriage. In the early years following the Reformation, it was a very frequent ordinance of Kirk Sessions that no persons should be allowed to marry until they were able to repeat to the minister or reader the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments. ”

“ The history of the See of Glasgow for five [Pg 73] centuries after the death of St. Kentigern is almost a total blank; save for some dubious references to certain ecclesiastics supposed to have been the successors of the Saint, there is nothing to show the progress of the church in those days. The reforming zeal of Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret led to a revival of religion, as remarkable in its own way as the Protestant Reformation. The Culdees were supplanted by the Romanists, and the foundations were laid of a hierarchy that attained to vast power in Scotland. ”

“ Edinburgh, for instance, grew up around the ancient Castle—Eadwin’s burh—while the Cathedral of St. Giles and all the subordinate churches were adjuncts of the secular centre. The true ecclesiastical point of origin in Edinburgh was St. Margaret’s Chapel, and it still stands within the Castle walls. Glasgow, on the other hand, took its origin from the Cathedral. That building formed the nucleus of the original city, and the first houses in Glasgow were the Bishop’s Castle beside the Cathedral, and the dwellings and manses of the ecclesiastics in its immediate vicinity. ”

“ When poor law and poor rate alike were unknown in Scotland [Pg 149] the Church took care of the poor, and that, oftentimes, in most thorough and effective fashion. Even when other urgent claims asserted themselves the poor were by no means neglected. A proclamation of the Privy Council, August 29, 1693, decreed that one-half the sums collected at the church door was to be given to the poor as before, while the other half might be retained for the relief of other distress, or for any matters that might come under the consideration of each individual Kirk Session throughout the country. ”

“ On May 8th, 1568, Grindal, then bishop of London, writes to Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh: “Evans, who is thought a man of more simplicity than the rest, hath reported (as I am credibly informed) that at Dunbar, on Good Friday, they saw certain persons go bare-foot and bare-legged to the church, to creep to the cross; if it be so the Church of Scotland will not be pure enough for our men.” ”

“ Mary, one of the largest parish churches in Scotland in the fifteenth century. It is clear, therefore, that life in the pre-Reformation Cathedrals and ecclesiastical buildings had an important influence in forming and fashioning the history of the people. This fact is too frequently overlooked by modern historians.
Only two of the pre-Reformation Cathedrals in Scotland have survived unimpaired the iconoclastic zeal of the Reformers. St. Andrews Cathedral, the seat of the Primate of Scotland, was partially devastated by the Protestant mob, and weather and storm completed the ruin thus begun. ”

“ As it has been here and everywhere preached, it is nothing but an abuse of preaching, to serve the humours only of rich people for a reward. Our Church has expressly discharged them, on many good reasons; it’s here a good part of the minister’s livelihood, therefore they will not quit it. After three days’ debate, we cannot yet find a way of agreeance.”
It was in consequence of this inability to agree on the subject that the Scottish commissioners at Westminster declined to hear the sermon preached on the occasion of the funeral of Pym. ”

“ John Bell, Minister of the Gospel at Gladsmuir, in his MS., “Discourse of Witchcraft,” 1705, “there has been much harm done to worthy and innocent persons in the common way of finding out witches, and in the means made use of for promoting the discovery of such wretches, and bringing them to justice; that oftentimes old age, poverty, features, and ill fame, with such like grounds, not worthy [Pg 168] to be represented to a magistrate, have yet moved many to suspect and defame their neighbours, to the unspeakable prejudice of Christian charity ”

“ Here and there throughout Scotland crosses of various kinds have no doubt escaped destruction, when they happen to be in obscure places, or small and scarcely noticeable in form or situation; thus the old Cathedral of Brechin still preserves one of the consecration Crosses, cut in its walls as part of the ceremony of its original dedication. But almost the only examples of [Pg 18] importance left to us, besides those town crosses which we have considered, are several exceedingly interesting ancient memorial or sepulchral crosses, of which those at Iona are by far the best known. ”