Chapter 11

If there is one thing more than another that has brought Dr. Caird a special name and reputation as a thinker, it is the broad and somewhat latitudinarian notions which he holds on religions matters. So far does he carry his toleration and charity that he has, we believe, given serious offence to not a few of his most attached admirers in questions other than religious. Briefly stated, Dr. Caird's belief is that all the theological distinctions that ever distracted Christendom are not worth a single breach of charity. In a sermon which he preached before the Senate, at the opening of the new University Chapel, on the 8th of January last, he set himself to show that the mere holding of the Catholic faith, in the sense and form of the creed, cannot be the essence of religion--first, because the great mass of mankind are incapable of doing justice to the definitions and evidences of the creeds; yet need religion, and are, in point of fact, pious in spite of their want of theological accomplishments; secondly, there is an organ or faculty of the soul deeper than the intellect, by which (apart from accurate doctrinal notions) the force of religious realities may be apprehended and appropriated; and, thirdly, men of the most divergent and even opposite dogmatic convictions may be, and are, religiously one. Accordingly, he maintains that the essence of religion must lie in 'something profounder than ecclesiastical and dogmatic considerations. And could we get at that something--call it spiritual life, godliness, holiness, self-abnegation, surrender of the soul to God; or, better still, love and loyalty to Christ as the one Redeemer and Lord of the spirit--could we pierce deeper than the notions of the understanding to that strange, sweet, all-subduing temper and habit of spirit, that climate and atmosphere of heaven in a human breast, should we not find that there lies the essence of religion?' Religion, in short, is a matter of feeling rather than of knowledge, a hallowed condition of the spiritual sentiments and instincts, rather than an orthodox complexion and arrangement of the spiritual ideas; a thing of the heart rather than of the head. On this view, it has been argued, though Dr. Caird does not expressly draw the inference, orthodoxy is not essential to "salvation," and heathenism is not a barrier to the blessings of heaven.

One distinguishing characteristic of all Dr. Caird's sermons--and, indeed, of everything to which he applies himself--is that they are carefully and conscientiously manipulated. He does not commit himself to a mere superficial treatment of the subject in hand, but, like John Bright--to whom in more than one respect he presents a striking parallel--he takes the utmost pains to provide thoroughly acceptable and nourishing pabulum for his hearers, believing that whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well. No man alive has furnished a more fitting illustration of the lines--

"The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night."

Every sentence which Dr. Caird utters in his discourses is turned and polished with the consummate art of which he is such a master until it is a sparkling gem. Hence his diction bears the most crucial test; like his oratory, his composition is unique.

When the British Association held its meetings in Edinburgh in August, 1871, Dr. John Caird was selected to preach the sermon which it is customary to deliver before the _savants_ at any town at which they may happen to meet. On this sermon a pungent critic in a well-known metropolitan magazine, who rejoices in the _nom de plume_ of Patricius Walker, Esq., has the following remarks:--"Mr. Caird (who spoke somewhat huskily, but with much emphasis) was on the broad Liberal tack. He quoted passages from Herbert, Spencer, Comte, and other modern philosophers; not showing them up as monsters or deluded--O dear no!--or taking refuge behind his Bible or any 'cardinal doctrine' of faith, but professing a profound respect for these writers, and bringing his facts and logic against their facts and logic. It was a clever exercise and a very curious discourse to hear in the High Kirk of Edinburgh, but it was hard to suppose it could do anybody much good.

Says Caird, 'I'll quote and then refute, Each modern philosophic _doot_'-- And so he did; but each quotation Seem'd to outweigh the refutation.

Some of the old-fashioned worshippers must have felt uncomfortable, like the villager who, after a clever sermon on the Evidences of the Existence of the Deity, said he never thought of doubting it before."

Professor Caird is one of her Majesty's chaplains for Scotland.

REV. DR. NORMAN MACLEOD.

Those who believe in the transmission of hereditary qualities and predilections from generation to generation will find a rare practical illustration of their theory in the Rev. Norman Macleod, who is known and recognised as _par excellence_ Her Majesty's Chaplain for Scotland. With as unfailing certainty as if they had been regulated by the laws of primogeniture and entail, this estimable clergyman has inherited the gifts and graces of his esteemed father. Nay more, he has even fallen heir to whatever honours and emoluments of value accrued to the latter during his long and useful career. The two men are in many respects "similar, though not the same." Both have answered to the same name; both have been popular preachers; both have held prominent positions in the Established Church of Scotland; both have prosecuted their ministerial labours in the same city; and both have been honoured with special marks of favour and distinction from their Sovereign. There are other minor points of resemblance upon which we cannot stay to dwell.

Dr. Norman Macleod, the elder, was ordained a minister of the Established Church at Campbeltown in 1807, where his son, the present minister of the Barony, was born. From Campbeltown the father removed to Campsie parish in 1855; and subsequently he was inducted minister of the Glasgow Gaelic Church, afterwards St. Columba's, in 1836. While in Glasgow, he preached once in Gaelic and once in English every Sunday. Like his son, he had broad sympathies, and soared far above the petty barriers of denominational forms and prejudices. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1836, and it was greatly due to his efforts that the Presbyterian Church obtained such a firm hold in the province of Ulster. In the year 1824 he brought the state of education in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland so fully and so eloquently under the notice of the General Assembly that the education scheme of the Established Church was projected to remedy the evils pointed out. Along with Principal Baird, he was appointed on three different occasions to inquire into the existing means of education in the Highlands and Islands, and in many other ways he contributed valuable service in "building up," consolidating, and expanding the distinctive schemes and agencies of the church to which he belonged. His labours were rewarded by the appointment--through the late Sir Robert Peel, with whom he had considerable influence--to the envied position of one of Her Majesty's Chaplains for Scotland, and by his preferment to the Deanery of the Chapel Royal.

But we have only said so much by way of introduction. It is with the son and not with the father that we have to deal. Young Norman, after spending his earlier days amid the rustic environs of his father's manse--the Scotch equivalent for parsonage--at Campsie, entered the University of Glasgow as a divinity student. So far as we have been able to ascertain, he made his first public appearance, while still in his "teens," at a banquet given to Sir Robert Peel on the occasion of the right hon. gentleman's installation as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. This event, memorable in the annals of the city, happened on the 6th Jan. 1837. Considered in relation to all its accessories, the banquet was perhaps the most brilliant affair of its kind that ever took place in Glasgow. On making an analysis of the attendance, we find that there were altogether 3300 gentlemen present, including 12 members of the peerage, eight baronets, ten members of Parliament, a host of military men, and all the gentry for many miles round. The total cost of the feast was L2434 13s 8d, and the toasts were thirty-seven in number.

The fact that Dr. Norman Macleod took a very active part in promoting Sir Robert Peel's candidature for the Lord Rectorship, which led to this brilliant gathering, must be our excuse for dwelling upon it at such length. In recognition of his exertions on Sir Robert's behalf, he was selected to respond to the toast of "The students of the University of Glasgow who have done themselves honour by selecting Sir Robert Peel to fill the office of Lord Rector." There was little in his reply worthy of quotation. It was neat, appropriate, and well put, and concluded by expressing the anxious hope that "by the additional means which had been adopted to promote Conservative principles and to unite Conservative students within the University, and especially by the establishment of our 'Peel Club,' the students may continue to heap additional honours upon themselves by returning Conservative Lord Rectors."

After a very promising career as a divinity student, Dr. Norman Macleod was at an early age ordained a minister of the Church of Scotland. His first parish was Loudoun, in Ayrshire, from whence, in 1843, he was translated to Dalkeith. He laboured with much acceptance in the latter charge for a period of eleven years, and in 1851 he succeeded the late Dr. Black as the minister of the Barony Parish of Glasgow--a position which he still continues to fill. It is related of the doctor that, while at Dalkeith, he happened one day to be strolling in the "kirkyard," and met the sexton, a man of venerable years, who took quite a pleasure in pointing out to the new minister the more notable graves in the little God's acre. "This," he said, "is where Mr. So-and-So (the former clergyman of the parish) is buried, and here--pointing to a still unoccupied lair--is whaur ye'll lie, gin ye be spared!" It is worth while mentioning that whereas the population of the Barony Parish in 1755 was only about 5000, it had increased in 1850 to 130,000, and at the present time it is estimated at 200,000, so that Dr. Macleod's parochial duties and responsibilities have been greatly multiplied since he entered upon his present important charge.

Dr. Macleod has taken the most active interest in everything relating to the welfare of the city, while the affairs of his own parish have afforded him a source of unremitting care and anxiety. With every movement projected for the purposes of Church extension or the development of missions in Glasgow he has been closely identified; and at the present time he is at the front of an association promoted some eighteen months ago, with the view of providing additional churches in certain neglected districts of the city. As the result of this association's efforts, several new churches are now in course of erection, one of them having been undertaken at Dr. Macleod's express request. Closely allied to the means of grace are the facilities for the acquisition of education, and of this important adjunct to the work of the ministry Dr. Macleod has never for a moment lost sight. No less than five large schools have been opened in connection with the Barony Church since he entered upon his parochial duties; and several preaching or mission stations, at each of which divine service is conducted every Sunday, have also been opened up, with the most successful results.

The Church of Scotland has not always enjoyed its present exceptional prestige. The time was when Presbyterianism had anything but a sweet smelling savour out of Scotland. It is largely due to the efforts of Dr. Macleod that the merits of Presbyterianism have come to be acknowledged and its principles understood by other denominations. No man has done more than Dr. Macleod to make the Church of Scotland famous and to give her a position in Christendom. His influence both at home and abroad, his abilities as a preacher, and his graces as a writer, have helped to bring the Presbyterian Church before the country, and to induce the respect alike of her friends and rivals.

It is in connection with her missions, more than any other agency of the Church of Scotland, that Dr. Macleod has made himself conspicuous. In these he has, from an early period of his ministerial career, taken a deep and active interest. So far back as the year 1844-45 he was sent out to Canada, along with his uncle and the late Dr. Simpson of Kirknewton, as a deputation from the Church of Scotland to inquire into the progress of the Church in the British Provinces. About four years ago, he was sent to India in company with Dr. Watson, to visit the missions of the Church in that country, and on their return to Scotland, Dr. Macleod published a series of articles, giving the results of his observations, which excited a considerable amount of public attention, and elicited among educationists and others a warm discussion. For some of his statements the rev. gentleman was taken severely to task, it being argued that he could not, during his limited sojourn in India, have acquired a sufficient knowledge of the country and its institutions to enable him to speak with anything like authority on all the subjects to which he referred.

We believe that Dr. Macleod commenced his career as an author by the publication, during the fierce heat of the controversy which eventuated in the Disruption, of three separate pamphlets, each bearing the title, "Cracks about the Kirk, for Country Folks." Two of these pamphlets, written in "broad Scotch," were remarkable for their pungency and effective banter. Although published anonymously, it was generally known that these pamphlets owed their existence to "young Norman," and they contributed very materially to establish his growing fame as a writer and preacher. During the memorable year of the Disruption he was a member of the General Assembly, and took part in all the controversies of the day. His efforts to keep up the drooping spirits of the Establishment are worthy of honourable mention. His boundless good humour, and cheerful, happy disposition kept alive the enthusiasm of those who preferred to stick by the Kirk in the greatest crisis she has ever known, and he was, above all, instrumental in preventing the missionary operations of the Church from becoming

"To hastening ills a prey."

From that time until now he has never ceased to manifest the warmest interest in the missions of the Church, watching over them with an almost paternal zeal and solicitude; and no man in the Establishment is so well qualified as himself to preside at the Indian Mission Board--an office which he has occupied with equal credit to himself and advantage to the church for a number of years.

Many who are quite unacquainted with Dr. Macleod's antecedents, will have heard of him as the editor of _Good Words_. It is not too much to assume that even the contributor to a New York journal, who lately described him as "Dr. Macleod, one of the Court physicians," will know him in this capacity. Commencing his editorial career on the _Edinburgh Christian Magazine_, which he conducted from April, 1849, till April, 1869, Dr. Macleod, in the course of the latter year, became connected with Mr. Strahan; and the _Christian Guest_, which was started in the beginning of that year, appeared with Dr. Macleod's name as reviser. The latter magazine, which was published by Messrs. A. Strahan & Co., Edinburgh, came to a conclusion at the end of the year which witnessed its birth, and it was succeeded in January, 1860, by _Good Words_, published by Messrs. A. Strahan & Co., London, and in which Dr. Macleod's name appeared as editor. We need hardly criticise the merits of the latter periodical, which, as we have indicated, owes its origin to the joint labours of Mr. Strahan and its able editor. From the first it was conducted on what might be called popular principles--being something more than a religious magazine pure and simple. The result was that it grew rapidly in public favour, and commanded the support and approbation of the highest literary circles. Indeed, it may safely be said that there is not a moral, religious, or scientific writer of any note that has not in one form or another contributed something to its contents. Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Vaughan, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, Dean Alford, and Mrs. Oliphant are but a few of the many names that have adorned its pages, and its popularity and merits are still maintained with undiminished vigour. Mr. Strahan's boundless energy and excellent discrimination have contributed more to this result than any other cause; but Dr. Macleod's editorship has at the same time been singularly able and judicious. Although Dr. Macleod never aspired to rank as a theological writer, he has in his way been a prolific and successful author. His works may be said to have merits peculiarly their own. His graceful, easy, fluent style; his admirable capacity for illustration; his graphic delineations of scenery and character; and, above all, his unfailing use of simple, terse, homely Saxon, have combined to place him in the front rank of living writers. Among his more notable publications we may mention "The Home School" (Edinburgh, 1856, 12mo), a reprint and extension of lectures for working men; "Deborah" (Edinburgh, 1857, cr. 8vo), a treatise on the duties of masters and servants; "The Earnest Student--being memorials of John Mackintosh" (1854, cr. 8vo); "Parish Papers" (Edinburgh, 1862, 12mo); "Reminiscences of a Highland Parish;" "The Old Lieutenant;" "The Starling;" and "Wee Davie." He also published numerous sketches of his travels in the Holy Land, in India, and in the British provinces. His "Eastward," a diary of travels in Palestine, is one of the most interesting and instructive works of its kind in our literature; while his "Far East," in which his Indian experiences are detailed, is not less full of useful matter. This leads us to mention the fact that his travels in Palestine were undertaken on his own account, and solely for the purpose of receiving correct impressions of the Holy Land, with its hallowed traditions and deeply-interesting associations. With the same object he has travelled in other lands, and scarcely a year passes without his visiting some new clime or country, and thus enriching his great stores of knowledge and observation.

As a preacher Dr. Macleod is great, although lacking some of those qualities which are essential to a popular and effective pulpit speaker. Many of his best pulpit efforts, and notably his sermons preached before the Queen at Crathie, are among the most excellent of their class, and may be read with as much profit and interest as the discourses of Wesley and Whitfield. Yet to those who have heard only of his great fame, apart from the pulpit, and who are naturally led to associate that fame to some considerable extent with his pulpit utterances, there must, in some respects, be disappointment in store. His voice is far from musical, being too much pitched on one key, and that not the most melodious on the gamut. His discourses lack the fire and finish of Caird or Guthrie; while his composition and style are neither so graceful nor so polished as those of Spurgeon or Newman Hall. He makes no attempt at nicely rounded periods, or subtle verbal distinctions. But he has other qualities entirely his own. His speech is homely, familiar, almost conversational. There is no "darkening of counsel with vain words." He is not only easily understood, but it is difficult, even on the most recondite points, to misunderstand him. What he states in the plainest possible phraseology, he renders still more intelligible by some apt illustration. Herein lies one of the great secrets of his success in the pulpit. Possessed of a very acute mental faculty and a warm heart, his sermons are always eminently practical, full of conclusive argument, appealing directly to the consciences of his hearers, and permeated above all by strong common sense, called so as _locus a non lucendo_, because so uncommon even in the pulpit. His thoughts, often strikingly original, are always expressed in a vigorous, manly style. He does not hesitate to call a spade by its proper name. Hence he has often been taken to task for what, gauged by the rule of the Confession of Faith, would be called loose, if not absolutely heterodox notions on sacred things. His memorable speech on the Decalogue is a case in point. The Presbytery of Glasgow woke up one fine morning to find that the minister of the Barony recommended in almost so many words that the Decalogue, inasmuch as it was a Judaical institution, was not for modern Christians. Of course the rev. gentleman brought a hornet's nest about his ears; and he had to explain away, as best he could, the "damnable and pernicious doctrine." There are more learned men in the Church of Scotland, but none have a greater share of sagacity, penetration, and strong, pungent, mother wit. Another distinguishing trait in the doctor's character is his charitable and tolerant disposition in reference to religious things. He does not believe that anything is gained by denominational differences, and would put an end to the intestinal strife that separates the various branches of the Church of Christ. To all who would say, "I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas!" he has but one reply. Dogmatism is to his broad and liberal mind a foolish and unnecessary thing in theology, and hence he is to be found in the van of all progressive and tolerant measures as opposed to the _odium theologicum_, although in political matters he maintains a mildly Conservative tone. It is a curious fact that, despite his anxiety to keep pace with the times, Dr. Macleod has never yet been able to procure the introduction of an organ to the Barony Church, and it is not less remarkable that, notwithstanding his popularity both as a preacher, as a writer, and as a public man, his church, which might reasonably be expected to be one of the handsomest and largest in the city, is little better than a village school. Strangers visiting Glasgow are almost bound to "do" the Barony Church. Dr. Macleod is one of the "lions" of the city, and people from all quarters flock to see and hear him. Yet the building in which he preaches is, without exception, the ugliest in Glasgow, both externally and internally. It is situated in one of the most ill-favoured localities in the city, although in the immediate vicinity of the Cathedral and the classic Molendinar, with the statue of sturdy John Knox looking down upon it from the Pisgah of the Necropolis--that God's acre of Glasgow worthies through many generations. Chagrin and dismay will, we fancy, have been the feelings predominant in the breasts of many who entered the Barony for the first time. Between the preacher and the pews there is certainly neither affinity nor _vraisemblance_. Worship is also conducted in the most primitive fashion. Most of the Established Churches in Glasgow have now got educated up to the introduction of organs, as accessories of public worship, but here there is only an indifferently competent choir to lead the service of praise. Of course the emoluments of the living or parish are not regulated by "outward and visible signs," or the Barony minister would only draw a sorry stipend.