been, had those places, and what they
represented, never been in existence at all, it is impossible to conceive.
It was a true instinct which led the people to regard the Abbey of
Haddington as the "Lamp of the Lothians." And the same designation might
have been applied with equal appropriateness to every Abbey in the
country. Those places for many generations represented all that was
highest and best in the thought and life of Mediaevalism. Here law and
order were supreme. Round those religious houses industrial, orderly
communities sprang up, whose influence was felt throughout the length and
breadth of the land. The Monasteries may deserve all that was said of
them in later times, but, throughout a considerable period of their
history, their influence was almost wholly beneficial. Scotland owes much
to them, and there is no reason why the fact should not be generously
recognised. It is no doubt true that, for some considerable time before
the Reformation, those great institutions had sadly degenerated. "Jeshurun
waxed fat and kicked." The time came when they had, perforce, to yield to
those disintegrating processes which usually herald the advent of reform.
The old order changeth. The new wine of a democratic Protestantism, in
which the claims of the individual, his right to think for himself, and
form his own judgments, are prominent ingredients, agreed but
indifferently with the old bottles of an earlier Faith and Polity. And so
the Monasteries disappeared.

But it was long ere the new light of the Reformation made itself
practically felt on the Borders. When the influences which had hitherto
been so potent ceased to operate, a condition of religious and moral chaos
supervened. Hundreds of churches were left without ministers. Whole
districts practically lapsed into barbarism. For at least fifty years
after the Reformation, the Scottish Borders were to all intents and
purposes out-with the influence of the Church. Even as late as the
Covenanting period their condition had not greatly improved. "We learn,"
says Sir Walter Scott, "from a curious passage in the life of Richard
Cameron, a fanatical preacher during what is called the time of
'persecution,' that some of the Borderers retained till a late period
their indifference about religious matters. After having been licensed at
Haughead, in Teviotdale, he was, according to his biographer, sent first
to preach in Annandale. 'He said, How can I go there? I know what s