FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152  
153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   >>   >|  
with social life is, that it has become more diffused through all ranks and all characters. Before that period many good sort of people were afraid of making their religious views very prominent, and were always separated from those who did. Persons who made a profession at all beyond the low standard generally adopted in society were marked out as objects of fear or of distrust. The anecdote at page 65 regarding the practice of family prayer fully proves this. Now religious people and religion itself are not kept aloof from the ordinary current of men's thoughts and actions. There is no such marked line as used to be drawn round persons who make a decided profession of religion. Christian men and women have stepped over the line, and, without compromising their Christian principle, are not necessarily either morose, uncharitable, or exclusive. The effects of the old separation were injurious to men's minds. Religion was with many associated with puritanism, with cant, and unfitness for the world. The difference is marked also in the style of sermons prevalent at the two periods. There were sermons of two descriptions--viz., sermons by "_moderate_" clergy, of a purely moral or practical character; and sermons purely doctrinal, from those who were known as "evangelical" ministers. Hence arose an impression, and not unnaturally, on many minds, that an almost exclusive reference to doctrinal subjects, and a dread of upholding the law, and of enforcing its more minute details, were not favourable to the cause of moral rectitude and practical holiness of life. This was hinted in a sly way by a young member of the kirk to his father, a minister of the severe and high Calvinistic school. Old Dr. Lockhart of Glasgow was lamenting one day, in the presence of his son John, the fate of a man who had been found guilty of immoral practices, and the more so that he was one of his own elders. "Well, father," remarked his son, "you see what you've driven him to." In our best Scottish preaching at the present day no such distinction is visible. The same feeling came forth with much point and humour on an occasion referred to in "Carlyle's Memoirs." In a company where John Home and David Hume were present, much wonder was expressed what _could_ have induced a clerk belonging to Sir William Forbes' bank to abscond, and embezzle L900. "I know what it was," said Home to the historian; "for when he was taken there was found in his pocket a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152  
153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

sermons

 

marked

 
present
 

Christian

 

exclusive

 

religion

 

religious

 

practical

 

purely

 
people

doctrinal
 

profession

 

father

 
details
 
minute
 

rectitude

 

severe

 
favourable
 

enforcing

 
guilty

immoral

 
holiness
 
hinted
 

lamenting

 

school

 

member

 
Glasgow
 

Lockhart

 

presence

 
minister

Calvinistic
 

induced

 

belonging

 

William

 

expressed

 

Forbes

 

historian

 

pocket

 

abscond

 
embezzle

company
 
Memoirs
 

driven

 

remarked

 

elders

 
Scottish
 

preaching

 

humour

 

occasion

 

referred