Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 404, June, 1849

NORTH

All at once dominion is given you over the Whole. You gradually see Order in what seemed a Chaos – you understand the character of the Region – its Formation – for you are a Geologist, else you have no business – no right there; and you know where the valleys are singing for joy, though you hear them not – where there is provision for the cattle on a hundred hills – where are the cottages of Christian men on the green braes sheltered by the mountains – and where may stand, beneath the granite rocks out of which it was built, the not unfrequent House of God.

BULLER

To-morrow we shall attend Divine Service —

NORTH

At Dalmally.

BULLER

I long ago learned to like the ritual of the Kirk. I should like to believe in a high-minded purified Calvinist, who could embrace, in his brotherly heart, a high-minded purified English Bishop, with all his Episcopacy.

NORTH

And why should he not, if he can recognise the Divine Spirit flowing through the two sets of sensible demonstrations? He can; unless the constitution of the Anglican Christian Religion wars, either by its dogmas or by its ecclesiastical ordinances, against his essential intelligence of Christianity.

BULLER

And who shall say it does?

NORTH

Many say it – not I.

BULLER

And you are wise and good.

NORTH

Many thousands – and hundreds of thousands, wiser and better. I can easily suppose a Mind – strong in thought, warm in feeling, of an imagination susceptible and creative – by magnanimity, study, and experience of the world, disengaged from all sectarian tenets – yet holding the absolute conviction of religion – and contemplating, with reverence and tenderness, many different ways of expression which this inmost spiritual disposition has produced or put on – having a firmest holding on to Christianity as pure, holy, august, divine, true, beyond all other modes of religion upon the Earth – partly from intuition of its essential fitness to our nature – partly from intense gratitude – partly, perhaps, from the original entwining of it with his own faculties, thoughts, feelings, history, being. Well, he looks with affectionate admiration upon the Scottish, with affectionate admiration on the English Church – old affection agreeing with new affection – and I can imagine in him as much generosity required to love his own Church – the Presbyterian – as yours the Episcopalian – and that, Latitudinarian as he may be called, he loves them both. For myself, you know how I love England – all that belongs to her – all that makes her what she is – scarcely more – surely not less – Scotland. The ground of the Scottish Form is the overbearing consciousness, that religion is immediately between man and his Maker. All hallowing of things outward is to that consciousness a placing of such earthly things as interpositions and separating intermediates in that interval unavoidable between the Finite and the Infinite, but which should remain blank and clear for the immediate communications of the Worshipper and the Worshipped.

BULLER

I believe, sir, you are a Presbyterian?

NORTH

He that worships in spirit and in truth cannot endure – cannot imagine, that anything but his own sin shall stand betwixt him and God.

BULLER

That, until it be in some way or another extinguished, shall and must.

NORTH

True as Holy Writ. But intervening saints, images, and elaborate rituals – the contrivance of human wit – all these the fire of the Spirit has consumed, and consumes.

BULLER

The fire of the Presbyterian spirit?

NORTH

Add history. War and persecution have afforded an element of human hate for strengthening the sternness —

BULLER

Of Presbyterian Scotland.

NORTH

Drop that word – for I more than doubt if you understand it.

BULLER

I beg pardon, sir.

NORTH

The Scottish service, Mr Buller, comprehends Prayer, Praise, Doctrine – all three necessary verbal acts amongst Christians met, but each in utmost simplicity.

BULLER

Episcopalian as I am, that simplicity I have felt to be most affecting.

NORTH

The Praise, which unites the voices of the congregation, must be written. The Prayer, which is the burning towards God of the soul of the Shepherd upon the behalf of the Flock, and upon his own, must be unwritten – unpremeditated – else it is not Prayer. Can the heart ever want fitting words? The Teaching must be to the utmost, forethought, at some time or at another, as to the Matter. The Teacher must have secured his intelligence of the Matter ere he opens his mouth. But the Form, which is of expediency only, he may very loosely have considered. That is the Theory.

BULLER

Often liable in practice, I should fear, to sad abuse.

NORTH

May be so. But it presumes that capable men, full of zeal, and sincerity, and love – fervent servants and careful shepherds – have been chosen, under higher guidance. It supposes the holy fire of the new-born Reformation – of the newly-regenerated Church —

BULLER

Kirk.

NORTH

Of the newly-regenerated Church, to continue undamped, inextinguishable.