PREACHER’S HOUR GLASS.
It is well known that in Protestant churches generally, and in the Church of Scotland particularly, the preaching of the word has always been reckoned the chief part of the service of the sanctuary. The quantity of preaching thatministers had to give and people had to take in olden times was enormous. There were commonly two diets of worship on the Sabbath and very often what was termed a week-day sermon besides. It was customary for ministers to take up a subject or text and on that subject or text to preach for six or eight Sabbaths consecutively. It seems not to have been uncommon for ministers to take an hour to their sermon. And to keep preachers right in this matter, it was customary to set up a sand glass in the church.
HOUR GLASS STAND.
It is doubtful if in olden times there was as much good order observed in church during divine service as there is now. In some of the old ecclesiastical records, we find curious regulationsfor the preservation of order in church. In the Kirk Session records of Perth we find an instruction minuted that the kirk-officer “have his red staff in the Kirk on the Sabbath days wherewith to waken sleepers and remove greeting bairns.” In 1593 complaint was made at Perth of boys in time of preaching running through the church clattering and fighting.
The hours of church service on Sundays were much earlier long ago than they are now. In 1615 the Kirk Session of Lasswade appointed nine o’clock as the hour on which service should begin in the summer months, and half-past nine as the hour of service in winter.
The neglect of public ordinances has at all times been a subject of lamentation. In olden days many devices are said to have been tried to remedy or abate these evils. Those resorted to by the Covenanters in Aberdeen in 1642 were perhaps as ingenious as any that have ever been adopted. “Our minister,” says Spalding, “teaches powerfullie and plainlie the word to thegryte comfort of his auditores. He takes strait count of those who cumis not to the communion, nor keepis not the kirk, callis out the absentis out of pulpit, quhilk drew in sic a fair auditorie that the seatis of the kirk was not abill to hold thame, for remeid quhair of he causit big up ane loft athwart the body of the kirk.”
Mr Cant did not go quite so far, but being annoyed that his afternoon diets were sparsely attended, he naïvely dismissed his forenoon audience without a benediction, and reserved his blessing for those that returned to the second sermon.
By Thomas Frost.
Thoughthe use of instrumental music in the services of the Church fell into disfavour after the Reformation, the existence of a sculptured representation of an organ in Melrose Abbey shows that instrument to have been known as early as the fourteenth century. That “regals,” as they were then called, were placed in some of the principal churches, and used in worship, is also evidenced by documents still in existence. That these, however inferior they may have been to similar instruments of the present day, were carefully constructed, and at considerable cost, appears from the payments made to William Calderwood for “a pair of organs” for the Chapel Royal at Stirling in 1537, and for “a set of organs” for the King’s Chapel at Holyrood in 1542. But the Reformation led to these instruments being everywhere discarded as partaking too much of Romanism to be acceptable to the followers of Knox.
The organs of the royal chapels kept their places for a time, but elsewhere the “kists of whistles,” as they then came to be called, were broken up and the materials sold in aid of the fund for the poor. But no long time elapsed before the Earl of Mar, as captain of Stirling Castle, caused the organ in the Royal Chapel to be removed and broken up; and in 1571 the Scottish Parliament expressed approval of the act. The prevailing feeling against the organ was intensified when, in 1617, orders were given by James VI. that carved figures of the Apostles should be affixed to the seats of the choir in the Chapel at Holyrood, where the organ was then being repaired, after a long period of disuse and neglect. Instrumental music thus became associated in the public mind with what was regarded as idolatry, and so much excitement prevailed that the bishops advised that the restoration of the organ and the choir stalls should be delayed until it subsided.
In 1631 Charles issued an order for the erection of an organ in every cathedral and principal church, and thereby renewed the agitation against the instrument. The order was disregarded, and in 1638, when popular opposition to the introductionof the Anglican prayer-book was being strongly manifested, the General Assembly ruled that the attempt to introduce instrumental music into the services of the Church should be resisted. Spalding, speaking of the agitation of that period, says that “the glorious organs of the Chapel Royal were masterfully broken down, nor no service used there, but the whole chaplains, choristers, and musicians discharged, and the costly organs altogether destroyed and unuseful.” Six years later, the General Assembly recorded in their minutes the gladness with which that body had received the news from their commissioners at Westminster of the taking down of the great organs of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.
Psalmody was little more in favour than the gilded pipes of the organ. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship, adopted by the General Assembly in 1645, recommends that “for the present, where many in the congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by line, before the singing thereof.” Before this time, in 1642, there had been muchcontroversy in the western Lowlands concerning the singing of the doxology at the end of a psalm, a practice which was popularly regarded as a commandment of men, not to be accepted as a divine ordinance. The General Assembly, in 1643, took the matter into consideration, and ordered the dispute to be dropped. In 1649, however, the subject was again before the Assembly, which then resolved that the singing of the doxology should be discontinued.
In 1647, a committee was named by the General Assembly to examine and revise Rous’s paraphrase of the Psalms, and Zachary Boyd was requested to make a metrical version of the other Biblical songs; but nothing was done in the latter direction, probably due to the desire for uniformity with the Presbyterian Church in England, and in 1650 the present metrical version was printed for use in public worship, without the addition of any hymns or paraphrases. Nothing further was done for the improvement of congregational singing for more than half a century.
The question of instrumental music was revived in 1687, by the erection in the Royal Chapel at Holyrood, by order of James II., of alarge and magnificent organ, which was regarded as a step towards the introduction of the Romish service. So convinced were the people of this that the clergy of even the Episcopal churches discontinued the use of the organ in public worship. In the following year, when James had abdicated, and the fear of Popish devices had become allayed, the mob of Edinburgh testified to the national joy, and at the same time indulged their latent propensity to mischief by breaking down the organ and burning the materials.
As in England down to a much later period, so also in Scotland, a metrical version of the Psalms was alone in use in worship, though several attempts were made at different times in the last century to introduce hymns of a more distinctively Christian character, as well as more poetical than the old paraphrases of Hebrew psalmody. The matter was before the General Assembly in 1707, and again in 1742, when a committee was appointed to prepare some paraphrases of passages in the Bible, “to be joined with the Psalms of David, so as to enlarge the Psalmody.” Three years afterwards, some examples of religious poetry weresubmitted by the committee for the judgment of the Assembly; but, as before, nothing was done, and the matter remained in abeyance until 1775, when it was suggested by the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr that the Assembly should take such measures as might be judged necessary to introduce the paraphrases of 1751 into the Psalter of the Church. These were, in consequence, again examined and revised by a committee, but it was not until 1781 that the committee made their report and the Assembly ordered copies of the collection (which had been printed in 1751) to be submitted to the Presbyteries. Pending the Presbyterial judgment, the Assembly allowed the collection to be used in public worship “where the minister finds it for edification.”
The permission to use this collection of Biblical paraphrases was never recalled by the Assembly, but it has also never been made a permanent act. It appears to have been given reluctantly, and only as a measure of policy, in concession to popular feeling in favour of the collection; for it appears to have been previously used in several churches. “Use and wont,” says Dr Edgar, in his “Old Church Life in Scotland,” “have now given as valid an authority for thesinging of the paraphrases in church as a special Act of Assembly could do. The paraphrases have, on the strength of their own merits, established a secure place in the psalmody of all the Presbyterian churches in Scotland.”
Instrumental music had, in the meantime, continued to be banished from public worship. The psalm to be sung was announced by the minister, and the precentor, who occupied a smaller pulpit below him, placed in a slit in a lyre-shaped brass frame in front of him a card bearing the name of the tune in large letters, so as to be visible to all the congregation. The minister then repeated the first two lines of the verses to be sung, and the precentor struck his tuning-fork on the desk. It was a custom of long standing, probably dating from a time when few of the congregation could read, for the precentor to read and sing a line alternately, which must, to persons unaccustomed to it, have sounded strange, and certainly have destroyed what little harmony there might have been if the psalm had been sung differently.
It was not until the first decade of the present century that the organ was called to the aid of the volume of praise in the Scottish Church.To Dr Ritchie, minister of St. Andrew’s Church, Glasgow, belongs the honour of this innovation. With the approval of the congregation, he introduced an organ, which was played for the first time on the 23rd of August, 1807, not without producing a sensation and a protest. The Presbytery was convened, and the Lord Provost appeared before that grave body, at the head of a deputation of influential citizens, to protest against the minister’s innovation on long established custom. The Presbytery ruled, “that the use of organs in the public worship of God is contrary to the law of the land, and to the law and constitution of our Established Church.” The organ was summarily silenced, therefore, and the grand tones of that instrument were not again heard in accompaniment of sacred song in the Presbyterian churches of Scotland for more than twenty years.
The ineffective character of unaccompanied congregational singing was very slowly recognised. In 1829, however, the congregation of the Relief Church,[11]at Roxburgh Place,Edinburgh, with the approval of their minister, had an organ erected in their place of worship. The act was clamorously opposed outside his own following, and the Relief Presbytery called upon the minister, John Johnston, to remove the offending instrument, under pain of deprivation. The response of minister and congregation to this command was the severance of their connection with the Synod. In 1845, a Congregational Church in Edinburgh set up an organ in their place of worship, and as each congregation in that denomination is an independent body, no outside opposition or interference was in that case possible.
The progress of the movement continued, however, to be very slow. A large proportion of the older men in the ministry still regarded instrumental music in churches as associated with Romanism, and when Dr Lee, the minister of the Old Greyfriars’ Church, in Edinburgh, ventured, in 1863, to introduce a harmonium there, it was rumoured that he was a disguised Jesuit, seeking to Romanise the Reformed Church. He was well able to defend himself, however, and he did so with such ability and power that, in the following year, the GeneralAssembly ruled that “such innovations should be put down only when they interfered with the peace of the Church and the harmony of congregations.” The cause was won. The Old Greyfriars’ congregation subscribed four hundred and fifty pounds for an organ, which replaced the harmonium in 1865.
The Free Church lingered long in the rear of the movement, mainly owing to the opposition of Dr Begg, but in 1883 the General Assembly recorded a resolution similar to that adopted by the Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland in 1864, and opposition to instrumental music is now practically at an end. The prejudice against it still lingers, however, in some districts remote from the life and light of the larger towns. A story is told of a lady of the old school of religious thought, that, having been induced by some friends to attend an Episcopalian service, and being asked on her return how she liked the music, she replied, “It was verra fine, but waes me! yon’s an awfu’ way of spending the Sawbath.”
By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A.
Inno country and at no time has a more searching system of ecclesiastical discipline been attempted than in Scotland in the first century after the Reformation. Not only was the teaching or the practice of the unreformed faith punished with the severest penalties, not only was attendance at church and the learning of religion, as the reformers understood it, rigidly enforced; but even the private life of the people was watched and scrutinized. The behaviour of the congregation on the way home from divine service, the amusements which formed the relaxation of the people, the dress of the women in the street as well as at kirk, the snuff-taking of the men, domestic broils and filial misbehaviour in the various households,—these and other such matters were discussed by ecclesiastical tribunals and visited with pains and penalties, as much as offences against human or divine laws. The country was overspread witha network of church authorities claiming disciplinary powers, there was quite an arsenal of punitive machines in every district, and the whole system was kept in motion by the free use of espionage. Verily, in Scotland “new presbyter was,” as Milton said, “but old priest writ large,” larger in fact than the original by far. Even the soldiery of the Commonwealth, sufficiently used to the methods of Puritanism in England, were astonished and disgusted with the ways and means of Scottish discipline; so much so that during their stay in the country in 1650 they destroyed many of the weapons of this intolerable tyranny; and it is indeed surprising that the people themselves accepted it so long with submission. That the Church has authority to use discipline over its members is admitted; and that at the present time this authority is too little recognised is, in the opinion of very many, equally true; but in the day of its supremest power the Scottish Kirk Sessions seem to have usurped a universal authority. The punitive rights of the State, the proper control which a man has within his own house, even that discipline which every one should learn to exercise over himself, all these,as well as that influence which more strictly is the province of the Church, the Kirk endeavoured to control and enforce by means of its own ecclesiastical courts.
Of these courts the first was the “Exercise,” as it was at first quaintly called, from the custom of “making exercise,” or critically examining a given passage of Scripture; more properly described as the Presbytery. Next to this came the authority of the Synod, or district court, and the final appeal lay to the General Assembly. Of these the higher courts not infrequently did much more than exercise appellant jurisdiction, issuing orders to spur on the zeal of the inferior ones.
The methods of punishment employed by the Kirk were various. Excommunications were freely launched against offenders, especially against those who did not accept in their fulness the teaching and practices of the reformers. Public penance was also resorted to, often in addition to some other form of punishment; the penance usually involving the use of the “repentance-stool,” or the jaggs, or jougs. The former of these was a wooden structure formed in two tiers or steps, the lower of which, usedfor less heinous offences, was named the “cock-stool.” An offender, judged to perform a public penance on this stool, was first clothed in an appropriate habit, the Scottish representative of the traditional white sheet, which consisted of a cloak of coarse linen, known as the “harden goun,” the “harn goun,” or the “sack goun.” Thus arrayed, he (or she) stood at the kirk door while the congregation assembled and during the opening prayer of the service; just before the sermon the penitent was led in by the sexton and placed, according to the terms of the sentence, either upon “the highest degree of the penitent stuill” or upon, “the cock-stool”;where he stood barefoot and bare-headed during the discourse, in which his sins and offences were not forgotten. The congregation generally wore their hats during the sermon.
REPENTANCE STOOL, FROM OLD GREYFRIARS, EDINBURGH.
The minutes and accounts of the Presbyteries have frequent allusions to this stool and its accompanying “goun.” Thus at Perth mention is made of the provision of both cock-stool and repentance-stool, and in 1617 the Kirk Session of the same place ordered a stool of stone to be built. The Synods specially enjoined on all parishes the procuring of a repentance-gown; in 1655 as much as £4, 4s. 6d. was spent in one for Lesmahago, and in 1693 Kirkmichael, Ayrshire, ordered one of a special fashion, “like unto that which they have in Straitoun,” to be made. The repentance-stool has maintained its place in scattered instances down to modern times, one of the latest instances of its use being in 1884, when a man stood on the stool to be publicly rebuked in the Free Kirk at Lochcarron. The Museum of the Society of Antiquaries at Edinburgh contains the old repentance-stool, formerly used in the Old Greyfriars’ Church of that city; the repentance-gown of Kinross parish is also preserved in the samemuseum. It does not always follow that penance implies repentance, and the strong arm of the Scottish Kirk sometimes compelled a man to submit to the former without his experiencing the latter; such was evidently the case with three reprobates who were excommunicated in 1675 by the Kirk Session of Mauchline, Ayrshire, because of “their breaking the stool of repentance on which they had been sentenced to stand in presence of the congregation.”
JOUGS FROM THE OLD CHURCH OF CLOVA, FORFARSHIRE.
THE JOUGS AT DUDDINGSTON.
The jagg or jougs consisted of an iron collar fastened by a padlock, which hung from a chain secured in the church wall near the principal entrance. An offender sentenced to the jaggwas compelled to stand locked within this collar for an hour or more before the morning service on one or more Sundays. About the time of the Revolution this dropt out of use, chiefly from the fact that the State no longer suffered the powers of the Kirk to be carried with so high a hand; several of the old jaggs, however, yet remain. At Merton, Berwickshire, at Clova, in Forfarshire, and at Duddingston, Midlothian, the instrument may still be seen attached to the kirk wall; the jaggs of Stirling and of Galashiels have also beenpreserved, though removed from their original places.[12]
Besides the repentance-stool and the jagg, which were specially the weapons of the kirk, there were other instruments of punishment employed by the State, to which the Kirk also did not hesitate at times to have recourse. Just as the Spanish Inquisition handed over those whom it condemned to the “secular arm” for punishment, so the Scottish Kirk passed resolutions desiring the bailies to put this or that offender in gyves; magistrates were requested to imprison others, “their fude to be bread and watter;” employers were instructed to fine or chastise servants who used profane language; and town authorities were solicited to procure appliances for “ducking” certain classes of sinners. The brank or scold’s bridle, the stocks, and the pillory, were used by the ecclesiastical, no less than by the civil, authorities; the Kirk also imposed fines, decreed banishment, used the steeples as prisons, and inflicted mutilation, and even death, upon offenders; its powerto enforce these sentences being largely due to the fact that civil disabilities followed the pronouncement of excommunication. The excommunicated person was an outlaw; he could hold no land, might be imprisoned by any magistrate to whom he was denounced, and was to be “boycotted” by friends, followers, and tradesmen; any one showing him the smallest consideration, or affording him the least assistance, was liable to a similar punishment. These large powers were only abrogated in 1690.
Among the offences dealt with by the Kirk, a prominent place was given to adherence to the unreformed faith, and to any apparent lack of zeal for presbyterianism. Saying mass according to the ancient rite, or even hearing it, or giving any countenance to such as did so, was severely dealt with. Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was summoned, with nearly fifty others, before the High Court in 1563, charged with saying mass; and although he was liberated at that time, he was subsequently hanged. For a similar “crime,” John Carvet was put in the pillory at Edinburgh, in 1565; other priests were banished in 1613; and another (John Ogilvie) was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quarteredin 1615. For hearing mass, John Logane was fined a thousand pounds in 1613, and many persons were from time to time imprisoned, or otherwise punished. The Church festivals were also put under a ban. The General Assembly in 1645 prohibited schoolmasters from granting a holiday at Christmas; the Kirk Session of St. Andrews punished several persons for keeping that festival in 1573; and in 1605 the same authority at Dundonald summoned a man for not ploughing on “Zuile day” (Yule). To harbour a priest, to possess books of Catholic devotion, to paint a crucifix, all these were recognised offences, which were visited with fines and imprisonment. In 1631 Sir John Ogilvy of Craig was committed to jail for “daily conversing” with supporters of the old faith.
The means adopted to promote reformed opinions among the people were equally drastic.
The most rigid observance of Sunday as a Sabbath was enforced. In 1627 nine millers at Stow, in Midlothian, had to do public penance and pay forty shillings for that “their milnes did gang on the Sabbath;” and in 1644 another miller, in Fifeshire, was sentenced to a fine ofthirty shillings, with the same addition, for a similar offence. The uncertainty of the weather was not admitted as any excuse for Sunday harvesting, as is shown by a fine inflicted (together with the usual penance) upon one Alexander Russell and his servant for “leading corn on the Sabbath evening,” at Wester Balrymont. There are records of the stool of repentance being called into use for the correction of fishermen who mended their nets, of sundry people who gathered nuts, of a woman who “watered her kaill,” and of another who “seethed bark,” on a Sunday. The last named had to stand in the jagg for three Sundays as well. Lads who were found playing on Sunday were sometimes whipt, as in a case dealt with by the Kirk Session of St. Andrews in 1649, and others at Dunfermline in 1685. In 1664 it was enacted at Dumfries that “persons walking idly from house to house and gossipping on Sabbath” should be fined thirty shillings for their evil conduct; and in 1652 the Kirk Session of Stow actually compelled one William Howatson to do public penance for having, on a Sunday, “walked a short distance to see his seik mother.”
But mere abstinence from work and play wasnot sufficient; attendance at the kirk was compulsory. The amount of the fine exacted in different districts varied, but everywhere even a single absence was noted, and had to be paid for. At Aberdeen, in 1568, the penalty was 6d. for every service missed; at Lasswade, in 1615, it was 6s. 8d. from a gentleman, and 3s. 4d. from a servant; at Dunino, in 1643, sum was 2s. for a first offence, 4s. for the second, and a like proportion for others. Paupers who failed in this duty were to be deprived of all relief, by order of the Kirk Session of St. Andrews in 1570.
The almost omniscient eyes of the Kirk Sessions kept watch, moreover, on the behaviour of the congregation while at the services. The Kirk Session of Ayr summoned Andrew Garvine before it and reproved him in 1606, because he was late at kirk; and at Saltoun, in 1641, a fine of 6s. 8d. was decreed against everyone who ventured to “take snuff in tyme of divine service”; at Perth the Session’s officer was instructed “to have his red staff in the kirk on Sabbath days, therewith to wauken sleepers, and to remove greeting bairns forth of the kirk.” The congregation was divided according to the sexes,the men (most ungallantly) being allowed to occupy forms, while the women sat upon the floor; and any departure from this arrangement was gravely censured. The dress of the women also occupied the attention of the Sessions, their habit of wearing their plaids about their heads being especially condemned. At St. Andrews, the beadle was commanded to go about the kirk during the service “with ane long rod to tak down their plaidis” from the women’s heads; while the authorities at Monifieth took very extreme measures, ordering the expenditure of five shillings in tar “to put upon the women that held plaids about their heads.” Women condemned to do public penance upon the penitence-stool were deprived of their plaids before ascending that ecclesiastical pillory.
The instruction which the people were to receive was also regulated by the Kirk Sessions. Before the morning service, and between that and the afternoon service, the children were publicly to recite their catechism, both for their own edification and that of the people present. So it was ordained at Stow in 1656, and at Dunfermline in 1652, on the ground that it was “usit in uthyre kirks.” But the passages ofScripture to be treated by the preachers were also settled by the same authorities; the custom being, apparently, for the minister to go systematically through some complete book of the Bible. The Kirk Session of the “Kirk of the Canongait,” Edinburgh, desired the minister, who had just entered upon the Book of Isaiah, “to begyne the Actes of the Apostles,” after completing the first chapter of the prophet; and Mr George Gladstanes, at St. Andrews, was requested to take up the Second Book of Samuel. The length of the sermon was fixed also by the Session, as is illustrated by a resolution passed at Elgin, to the effect that Mr David Philips do “turn his glass when he preaches, and that the whole be finished within an hour.”
All these regulations, moreover, did not apply exclusively to Sunday; for although the Kirk forbade the observance of old Church festivals, it rigidly enforced its own fasts and days of thanksgiving. There was public service in the towns usually every Wednesday and Friday, and work was as absolutely forbidden during service time on those days, and attendance at kirk as strictly enjoined, as on Sundays.Moreover, the non-observance of an appointed fast was visited with a heavy fine.
For the further protection of the people from any teaching contrary to the received standard, the Press was carefully guarded, and the publication of any work bearing on religion forbidden, unless it had first received theimprimaturof the Kirk’s official “superintendent”; and publishers who issued books which proved to be obnoxious to the ecclesiastical authorities were compelled to withdraw them. The purchase of Bibles, moreover, was not left to the zeal or discretion of the people; but by an act of 1576, every householder worth 300 marks annual rent, and every yeoman or burgess having stock valued at £500, was compelled to procure a Bible and a Psalm-book, under a penalty of £10 (Scots).
Next to importance in the guidance of religious teaching and worship, and indeed closely connected with it, in the estimation of the Scottish ecclesiastical courts, came the question of witchcraft and sorcery. The annals of the country throughout the seventeenth century, together with the closing years of the preceding one, are full of stories of the trial, torture, and punishmentof alleged witches; and even in the early years of the eighteenth century there are occasional instances of persons proceeded against in the Kirk Sessions for using charms, and similar superstitious practices. The unfortunate women charged with selling their souls to Satan in exchange for occult powers seldom succeeded in establishing their innocence, and juries which ventured to acquit them were themselves occasionally charged with “wilful error” for so doing. Under these circumstances it would seem that the accused, abandoning all hope of escape, frequently took pleasure in exciting the wonder and the horror of the court by the weird and marvellous tales which they invented of their evil deeds; and no tale could be too marvellous for belief. It made no difference in the enormity of the crime whether the supernatural powers ascribed to the prisoner were used for good objects or for evil; Isabel Haldane, who “cured Andrew Duncan’s bairn, by bringing water from the burn at Turret Port,” Margaret Hornscleugh, who restored Alexander Mason’s wife to health and renewed the milking powers of Robert Christie’s cow, were burnt equally with Agnes Simpson, who had raised a storm to drown KingJames, and Catherine Campbell, who had struck her young mistress with convulsions. Foremost in hunting down these poor deluded, or maligned creatures, were the ministers of the Kirk; and practically the only lawful excuse for absence from a public service on Sunday, or even for the omission of the service altogether, was attendance at a witch-burning.
Much time of various Kirk Sessions was also occupied, now and again, in considering cases of pilgrimage to holy wells, “turning the riddle” to discover the name of a thief, and similar matters, and in reprimanding the offenders. So late as 1709, the Kirk Session of Kilmorie summoned before it a woman accused of “the horrid sin of the hellish art of riddle-turning,” and sentenced her to public penance on three several Sundays.
More useful were the efforts, directed by the disciplinary authorities of the Kirk, to prevent such sins as drunkenness, profanity, slander, and sexual immorality. At Stirling, in 1612, a man was fined 20s. for being intoxicated; and Dunino had, in 1645, a regular scale of fines for such cases, 6s. for the first offence, 12s. for the second, and so forth. Cursing and swearing were openly punished at the market crosses, by the shame ofthe pillory, and by fines. Slander was met with the use of the brank, the pillory, compulsory shaving of the head, or, in extreme cases, with banishment from the district. In all these cases, a public reprimand on Sunday at the stool of repentance was usually inflicted, in addition to whatever other penalty there was imposed.
The violation of the marriage vow was made a capital crime in Scotland in 1563; but the death sentence was not actually carried out very frequently. At Glasgow, in 1586, it was considered sufficient to send the offenders to the pillory, barefoot and in sackcloth, and then to cart them through the town; but in 1643, the punishment was made more severe—the jagg, a public whipping, committal to the common jail, and, finally, expulsion from the town, being the satisfaction demanded by local justice. In the case of a minister who had admitted that he was guilty of adultery, the utmost humiliation was demanded. He had first to prostrate himself before the General Assembly, and implore their pardon in the most abject manner; he was then required to do public penance in sackcloth at the kirk door, and on the repentance-stool for two Sundays each, in three several towns, whichwere chosen so as to complete his degradation. Edinburgh, the capital, Dundee, his native town, and Jedburgh, the place of his ministry, were all to witness his shame. For other sins of impurity, fines, imprisonment in the kirk steeple, standing in irons at the market cross, and having the head shaved, were, one or more of them, adjudged.
Some of the cases in which the Kirk exercised its discipline were such as, it would appear to us, might have been dealt with more effectually in less formal or more private ways. When a lad failed in proper respect to his father, like the Glasgow youth who did not “lift his bonnet” on meeting him, or even like him of St. Andrews, who struck his parent, it would hardly seem to have been needful to report the matter to the Kirk, for it to deal with it; yet the Sessions at those places solemnly considered these misdemeanours, in 1598 and in 1574 respectively. Again, few husbands, now, would probably care so far to confess themselves unable to control their wives as to call in the authority of the Kirk to prevent the “weaker vessels” from abusing their lords; yet such cases frequently occupied the attention of Kirk Sessions. The brank, orimprisonment, or the pillory, was the sentence usually pronounced on these rebellious wives.
The interference of the Kirk Sessions in some matters, which they once claimed as within their sphere, would now certainly be resented. Thus, the presbytery of Glasgow forbade a marriage between James Armour and Helen Bar, in 1594, on the ground that the prospective bridegroom was “in greit debt”; and at St. Andrews, in 1579, all persons who could not recite the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Commandments were debarred from matrimony. Moreover, the Kirk undertook the regulation of the wedding festivities. At Stirling, in 1599, the Kirk Session decreed that no marriage dinner or supper should cost above 5s.; and this was an advance upon the rule passed at Glasgow, in 1583, which limited the cost to “eighteen pennies Scots.” At Cambusnethan, in 1649, the presence of a piper at a wedding was forbidden; and at Dumfries, in 1657, the number of guests was limited to twenty-four.
In too many instances the Kirk procured the information on which it acted in enforcing these decrees through spies of one kind or another. The informants, through whom cases were got upagainst the adherents of the unreformed rites, were often men of the worst characters, such as Robert Drummond, a twice-convicted adulterer, who finally died by his own hand. The wretches who hunted down and tested those accused of witchcraft were scarcely more respectable agents. Officers both of the kirks and of the municipalities were required to watch for and report those who did not attend divine service regularly; an espionage of the most dangerous and objectionable kind being introduced when, as at Glasgow in 1600, it was decreed that, on the “deacons” of craft-gilds informing of any remissness in kirk-attendance of their members, half the fine imposed should be given to the gild. Bailies were desired to traverse the houses on “preaching dayes” to see that the people did not stay at home; beadles were “to tak notice of those who tak ye sneising tobacco in tyme of divine service, and to inform concerning them;” others were appointed to take the names of such as were in the alehouses after eight o’clock at night; midwives and doctors were threatened with discipline if they failed to report any illegitimate birth which they attended; “searchers” were appointed to find out those who did not buyBibles and Psalm-books; in a word the lives of the people were constantly under observation. It is perhaps the strongest proof of the strength of the Scotsman’s character that, after a century or more of such interference with his responsibility, his sturdy independence survived. Much of this disciplinary system died away when, in 1690, it ceased to have behind it the civil disabilities attendant on excommunication.
By the Rev. R. Wilkins Rees.
“Theplate for collections is inside the church, so that the whole congregation can give a guess at what you give. If it is something very stingy or very liberal, all Thrums knows of it within a few hours; indeed, this holds good of all the churches, especially, perhaps, of the Free one, which has been called the bawbee kirk, because so many half-pennies find their way into the plate. On Saturday nights the Thrums shops are besieged for coppers by housewives of all denominations, who would as soon think of dropping a threepenny bit into the plate as of giving nothing. Tammy Todd had a curious way of tipping his penny into the Auld Licht plate while still keeping his hand to his side. He did it much as a boy fires a marble, and there was quite a talk in the congregation the first time he missed. A devout plan was to carry your penny in your hand all the way to church, but to appear to take itout of your pocket on entering, and some plumped it down noisily like men paying their way. I believe old Snecky Hobart, who was a canty stock but obstinate, once dropped a penny into the plate and took out a half-penny as change; but the only untoward thing that happened to the plate was once when the lassie from the farm of Curly Bog capsized it in passing. Mr Dishart, who was always a ready man, introduced something into his sermon that day about women’s dress, which everyone hoped Christy Lundy, the lassie in question, would remember.”
This, from Mr J. M. Barrie’s “Auld Licht Idylls,” will ever be a classic passage on Scottish church finance, so far as it is represented by the collection. It is not, however, in such pages that the material for such an article as this must be sought, but rather in such fruitful fields as those afforded by, chiefly, the Kirk Session Records preserved in various parts of the country.
It has been pointed out, I think by Buckle in his “History of Civilisation in England,” in comparing Spain and Scotland in point of superstition and religious intolerance, that thelatter country has denied to political what it has conceded to priestly government, and hence its superior material progress and prosperity. The general influence of the Kirk Session, especially as exemplified in its disciplinary powers, was unquestionably large and far-reaching, surpassing even that of magisterial authority. Hence we may find records of fines levied by and paid to the Kirk Session which we should have thought would have been solely within civil jurisdiction. The church revenue derived from fines must have been in some instances quite considerable, and as indicating their nature many entries derived from old church records are of peculiar interest and value. What the Church forbadwasforbidden, and when her laws were broken or her wishes not complied with, the culprit had to pay the penalty. When the minister and the session anathematized it was generally discovered that it was not as with the Highland laird, who “did not swear at anybody in particular: he jist stood in tae middle o’ tae road and swore at lairge.” The anathemas were directed at a definite object, and of the luckless individual thus aimed at it could not be said, as in the“Ingoldsby Legends,” “Nobody seemed one penny the worse.”
The manner in which these fines were determined is sufficiently indicated by an extract from the Records of Session of Tyninghame, under date May 12, 1616:—“Maister Johne (the minister, by name John Lauder) heavilie compleinit yt ye last Lord’s Day the Sabbothe was prophanit be sundrie pepill, as he was informit, by yoking thair cairts about 10 or 11 houris at evene, and led wair fra the see, to ye dishonour of God and evill example of utheris. For redress heirof in tyme coming, it is ordainit be the said Maister Johne and elderis present, that quhaevir sall yok to leid wair on ye Sabbothe, befor ane hour efter midnight, or until 12 houris at even be past, sall make publik satisfaction in the kirk, and pay 20s.toties quoties; and also ordains publik intimation heirof to be maid.”
The following may be taken as supplying a commentary on this. It will, of course, be remembered that in the days here referred to Scots money was only one-twelfth part the value of what it is now:—“August 12 (1621).—The minister shew to the elderis that he hadcausit wairn Robert Skugall, servitor to James Neilsone, befor the session. Callit on, compeirit, and accusit of carying netis to the sea in ane cairt, be yoking hors efter the efternoone sermon, confessit the samin, bot did it, as he alledgit, with his maister his directions. James Neilsone, present, answerit yt he bade him not yoke ane cairt, bot cary the netis on ane horseback. Ordainis the said Robert to satisfie publicklie the nixt Lordis Day. Item: Thomas Airthe compleinit on ane man quha brocht salt from the Panis to this towne this day, befor sermon, to sell to qm presentlie the minister past; and George Shortus, the officer, with him, arrestit the salt, and put it in Rot. Quhyte his barn, that nain of it micht be sold that day. Takin fra him 12s. to the pure.” “August 26.—James Neilsone, accusit for comanding his man to pass to the sea with netis in ane cairt, the said James denyit he comandit him except only to carie them on horseback; to qm the minister answerit that the last day he confessit he bade him yok the cairt, qlk some of the elderis testifeit; the brethren present ordainit the said James to remove, to be censured, and ordainis him to sit down on his kneis befor theelderis and ask God forgiveness, and to pay twentie s. to the box, qlk bothe he did, and the session was qtentit.”
Other extracts from the same records are worthy of note in this connection. On September 25, 1631, Alex. Jackson was ordered to give to the box what he received for the herrings which he brought in on the Sabbath day. He affirmed that he got but thirty shillings, which was produced before the session and put into the box. On April 3, 1642, John Nicolson was accused for hauling some lines in the water one Sabbath day, but the minister and elders, seeing him penitent, and submitting himself humbly, alleging that he did not get four shillings’ worth of fish, ordered him to pay penalty, four shillings, and to make satisfaction on his knees before the session. The fishermen were, however, allowed to set their nets on Sunday, though not to haul them, as Dunbar records testify:—“8 September 1639, Sunday.—Gude order keipit be the seamen at the draife; no herring brocht in, nor nets hauled, but only nets set at efternoon.” “30 August 1635.—The session appoints some of the elders to go to the seaside at efternoon, to see that there be no mercat in herring; and theminister to be with them efter the efternoon, to see guid order keepit.”
Sabbath-breaking was, unquestionably, a fruitful source of church income. On December 26, 1619, it was shown to the minister that Robert Barrie, hind to the Lady Bass, had thus offended by carrying peat; and on February 4, 1621, the said Lady Bass had to pay 18s. for a servant who again broke the Sabbath. “Profanation of the Sabbath,” with its attendant fine, was again and again reported. Sometimes it was football on the links after the afternoon sermon, and drinking after the pastime, which had to be atoned for by a money payment, or again, it might be that “for not being in the kirk in time in the afternoon” the offender had to pay ten shillings, even though he might have “come to the kirk shortly after the third bell.” Occasionally, it would seem, the fines were imposed with drastic severity:—January 21 (1644).—“James Kirkwood gave to the session, to be put in the box, in name and behalf of George Hay, in Scougall, tasker to said James, 7s., because he came not with his companie tymeouslie to the kirk that Lord’s Day his wyffe was buryed, as he aucht to have done.... He said that the days were short,and they had few to carry hir corpes, and the pepill did not conveine so tymeouslie as he expectit, and this was the caus.”
Absence from worship caused many a shilling to fall into the coffers of the kirk. “Advertise them that they come to the kirk every Sabbath and that they that were convicted of absence, without lawful excuse, should pay six shillings every person, seeing they might now, the farthest of them, the days being long and the weather fair, come every day.” This was in 1619. What a significant entry is the following:—“October 14, 1621.—The minister exhortit the peple to repentance. George Shortus searchit the towne.” Or this:—“This day Alexander Davidson seairchit ye towne, and delatit some persons absent fra ye kirk in tyme of preiching.” Absentees were followed and fined with an almost relentless pertinacity. Elders were ordered by the minister to search the town and “to delate the absentees.” As soon as public worship began, the elder started on his quest, and the luckless delinquents were hunted in home and alehouse. A few days after, their names, with penalties attached, appeared in the session books. Sometimes no excuse was taken. Anelder, even though he pleaded headache as reason for his absence, had to pay a fine; so had a deacon with like adequate excuse; each exaction tending to increase the income of the kirk.
But not only had Sabbath-day offences thus to be acknowledged. On January 2, 1625, Alex. Johnson, Patrick Wood, George Foster and Patrick Bassenden were called on and accused before the session “for troubling James Neilsone’s house, singing at the door, being drunk.” The two former had to pay, “ilk ane of them, 3 lib. for thair dronkenness, if they be able, and to seik the concurrence of the civile magistrat for payment thairof; and if they suld refuse, being unable, to speik the civile magistrat that they micht be utherwayis punishit.” And in the same year it was found necessary to intimate “out of the pulpitt, to absteine from drunkenes, utherwayis if any suld be fund giltie thairof suld be ordainit to pay thre punds.” On October 28, 1630, appeared an item of forty shillings, Alex. Jackson’s penalty for fighting, “sent down by my Lord of Haddington to the box, to be employedad pios usus.” In 1659 the Kirk Session of Dunbar rebuked and fined in £20 Scots a woman who had sinned whenCromwell’s army was in the neighbourhood eight years before! Such a sin-penalty was, as far as possible, applied to a secular purpose, and thegodlypoor were not supposed to benefit therefrom. In 1620 James Neilson complained of his wife’s misbehaviour, and she was warned that should she disagree again she would be “inactit to pay 10 lib.,toties quoties, and suld pay for this tyme also if she did disagree againe.” And in 1642 “John Bryson’s wife, in Scougall, is to be warned next day to the session for flyting with her husband, and abusing him by her unreverent speeches.” The penalty for such speeches was “20s.toties quoties.” Whether these ladies had private means, or the husbands had to endure the further hardship of providing the fine, history does not record. It should, however, be mentioned that cases sometimes occurred in which the fair sex were not to blame, as when a man was brought before the session for having assaulted his wife with a spade, and was fined a dollar, beside having to express his regret and to satisfy the session of his sincerity!
A few other curious sources of income may be mentioned. On May 29, 1625, it is reported in the Records of Session of Tyninghame that“John Jakson was not to proceid in mariadge wt Helen Bassenden, bot that the mariadge was given over, and thairfor qfiscats to the use of the pure, and uther pious uses, the 40s. qsigned be him, according to the order maid thairanent.” In the old Records of Innerwick, during 1608, it is stated that the minister having reported that the greatest part of the people were ignorant of the “Comands and very many of the Beliefs,” the session ordained that if such knowledge were not acquired within a given time, a penalty should be paid; also that no marriage shall be “maid or parteis proclaimit until baith the parteis also recite ye Lord’s Prayer, ye Belief, and ye Comands, or ells pay five libs. that they sall have them before the accomplishment of the mariage, qlk, if it be not done they sall forfeit.” And in 1620, when a man excused himself for not having come to the examination, because he was ignorant, he was “ordained to heir the Word diligentlie and attentivelie, and to keip the examination; and in caise of absence againe, he suld mak publik satisfaction, and pay one merk.”
The introduction of pews at the commencement of the eighteenth century was a meansof obtaining additional revenue. As a return for the privilege of placing these seats in the previously open area of the kirk, “half-a-crown for the use of the poor,” was demanded as a rent, and it was further required “that the same be payd before the seats be set up.” The pew was also a source of indirect income, as when, in 1735, one John Porter was rebuked before the pulpit and heavily fined for pushing James Cobbam out of a seat in church, wringing his nose, and thumping him on the back. Bitter jealousy and anger were often occasioned by the pew, and hence free fights with accompanying fines not seldom occurred.
But the humours of the collection must not be altogether omitted. Burns, in giving his experience in “The Holy Fair,” has immortalised the elder (Black Bonnet—so called from a peculiarly shaped black hat worn by him) who stood by the plate as the people passed into the kirk—
“When by the plate we set our nose,Weel heapit up wi’ ha’pence,A greedy glower Black Bonnet throws,And we maun draw our tippence.”
And R. L. Stevenson refers to these elders, “sentinels over the brazen heap,” when he saysof a countryman whom he met out West—“He had a pursing of the mouth that might have been envied by our elders of the Kirk. He had just such a face as I have seen a dozen times behind the plate.” The elder, at any rate, magnified his office and closely watched each gift and giver. When a certain titled lady once made a profound and formal bow only, in passing, the elder followed her as she marched in state towards her seat, and in tones distinct enough to reach the whole congregation, said, “Gie us less o’ yer manners, my lady, and mair o’ yer siller.” When in later days one of the elders passed from pew to pew with outstretched ladle, he touched the people with it, and with unmistakable directness would say, “Wife, sittin’ next the wee lassie there, mind the puir,” or “Lass, wi’ the braw plaid, mind the puir.”
The obligations of the congregation in regard to the collection were also frequently enforced from the pulpit. Of “Wee Scotty o’ the Coogate Kirk” the following is related: “One Sunday, when there was a great noise o’ folk gaun into their seats, Scotty got up in the pu’pit and cried out, ‘Oh that I could hearthe pennies birlin’ in the plate at the door wi’ half the noise ye mak’ wi’ yer cheepin’ shoon! Oh that Paul had been here wi’ a lang wooden ladle, for yer coppers are strangers in a far country, an’ as for yer silver an’ yer goold—let us pray!’” And of Dr Dabster, “an unco bitter body when there was a sma’ collection,” to whom, before the sermon began, the beadle used to hand a slip of paper with the amount collected, we are told that one day when the whole collection only reached two shillings and ninepence, he stopped suddenly in his discourse and said, with biting sarcasm, “It’s the land o’ Canawn ye’re thrang strivin’ after; the land o’ Canawn, eh? Twa an’ ninepence! Yes, ye’re sure to gang there! I think I see ye! Nae doot ye think yersel’s on the richt road for’t. Ask yer consciences an’ see whatthey’llsay. Ask them an’ see what theywullsay. I’ll tell ye. Twa miserable shillin’s an’ ninepence is puir passage money for sic a lang journey. What! Twa an’ ninepence! As well micht a coo gang up a tree tail foremost, an’ whustle like a superannuated mavis as get to Canawn forthat!” After this we cannot wonder at the old farmer’s advice to the young minister,“When ye get a kirk o’ yer ain, dinna expeck big collections. Ye see, I was for twal’ year an elder, and had to stand at the plate. I mind fine the first Sabbath after the Disruption, though our twa worthy ministers didna gang out, and the strange feelin’ about me as I took my place at the plate for the first time. It was at ane o’ the doors o’ St Andrew’s Parish Kirk, in Edinburgh. Noo, hoo muckle d’ye think I got that day?” “Oh, well, I know the church nicely,” was the answer—“seated for at least two thousand—you might get two pounds.” “Wad ye believ’t?” responded the elder, “I only got five bawbees, stannin’ i’ the dracht for twenty minutes, too! If I had only kent, I wad rather hae pit in the collection mysel’ an’ covered up the plate. Mind, dinna expeck big collections.”
The coins of other countries were strongly objected to. As far back as 1640, “The minister dischairget the people to give ill curreners,” or the treasurer writes, “Collect 8s. 4d., whereof much ill cureners.” And in the Records of Whitekirk, August 18, 1730, we find that “The minister and elders did receive from John Lermond, son to the deceased William Lermond,who was kirk-treasurer, the poor’s box; and the poor’s money therein was compted, and there was in the box of good current money, at the present rates, ane hundred and ten pounds of whit-money. In turners there was of current coin 15lb., 10s. 10d.; in Scots half merks, 12lb.; in doyts and ill copper money, 2lb., 4s. 2d.” This doyt (“not worth a doyt”) was “a Dutch coin of debased metal, and equivalent in value to the twelfth part of a penny only.” Its use in Scotland seems to have been confined solely to collection purposes. In Paul’s “Past and Present in Aberdeenshire” is mentioned a rebuke once given by a Mr Wilkie, a minister of the parish of Fetteresso, whose income was chiefly obtained from the kirk door collections. One Sunday morning he thus delivered himself: “When ye gang to Aberdeen to sell your butter, and your eggs, and your cheese, and get a bawbee that ye’re dootfu’ about, I’m tell’t that ye’ll gie’t a toss up atween ye’r finger an’ ye’r thoom, an’ say, ‘It’s nae muckle worth, but it’ll dae well eneuch for Wilkie.’” In the “Statistical Account of Scotland” the minister of Nairn expressively states that “the weekly collection at the church on Sundays amounted to about three shillings ingoodcopper.”
This spurious money often accumulated. Sometimes a box of such coins was given to the minister “to see what he could mak’ of them” when in Edinburgh. “Sometimes,” we are told, “a man would turn up in a district with a horse and cart, making offers for the bad copper or pewter that had been laid aside. At other times it would be sent to an open market, and there sold to the highest bidder. In 1774 there were over seven stones’ weight of this truly ‘filthy lucre’ sold in the market-place of Keith, and its price was £2, 18s. 6d., less 4s. for carriage from Banff.... In order to counteract as far as possible the practice of putting spurious money into the plate, the various presbyteries under one synod used occasionally to combine and send as much as £100 sterling to the mint in London, and ask that the amount be exchanged for farthings, and returned with ‘the first sure messenger.’”
But the use of the farthing has not been confined to the collections of bygone days. The Rev. John Russell, in his comparatively recent book, “Three Years in Shetland,” thus writes of the collections in the parish of Whalsay: “The coin usually put into the ladle was afarthing. As the collections were exchanged at the shop for silver, and as it was at the shop where my hearers provided themselves with those farthings, I thought that if the Session hoarded up the farthings and so stopped the supply of them, we might get halfpence put into the ladle instead.” This ingenious plan was not, however, put into practice, for the minister was assured that for the popular farthing would be substituted no gift at all. As to that perennial favourite, the bawbee or halfpenny, nothing need be said.
A few words must be given to the box that held the money—an important piece of Scottish ecclesiastical furniture that was jealously guarded. “Given to George Cuming, smith in Peffersyd, 32 pence for mending the lock of the box, and causing it to open and steek,” is an entry under date, June 30, 1639. Innerwick looked well after the box:—“23 April 1609.—The quilk day ye sessioune ordains George Wallace to keip the key of the box.” But there are not a few entries in the Records of Dunbar which show that the box had been tampered with by the elder in charge; and for a considerable period one of the civil magistrates there tookhis place by the side of the elder at the plate on Sunday. The beadle also fell occasionally under suspicion, well merited at times, it is feared. In a certain Highland parish the money, after being counted, was placed in a box which was consigned to the care of the minister, who secreted it, with the key, in a part of the session-house press known only to himself and the beadle. Small sums were regularly extracted, and one Sunday when the minister discovered that the usual small amount had disappeared, he summoned the beadle. “David,” said he, “there’s something wrong here. Some one has been abstracting the church money from the box; and you know there is no one has access to it but you and myself.” Thinking he had the beadle thoroughly cornered, the minister fixed him with his eye and paused for an answer. But David dumfounded the minister by this cool proposal: “Weel, minister, if there’s a defeeshency, it’s for you and me to make it up atween us, an’ say naething about it!”
But if on the side of revenue we find much curious reading we find it none the less surely on the side of disbursements. When poor law and poor rate alike were unknown in Scotlandthe 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. In the Kirk Session Records of Falkirk, under date July 1696, it is stated that “the number of the poor within the parish church does daily abound,” and the session recommends to the minister “to intimate to the congregation the next Lord’s Day that they would be pleased to consider ye present strait and be more charitable.” The response to such appeals may not always have been adequate, and in some records we find it stated again and again that “the raininess of the day” caused the collection to be so small that the treasurer, instead of transferring it to the box, handed it to the beadle.
The manner in which the poor were relieved issufficiently indicated by the following selected passages from the Kirk Session Records of Tyninghame, which, for our purpose, may here be considered typical:—