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many Scotch churchyards and fail to trace the faintest indication that any such doctrine had a place in the Christian creed. Is this the practical result of that portentous 'some' in the answer of the Shorter Catechism to the question-Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?' Do loving sorrowing hearts shrink from expressions of rejoicing faith and hope, because such expressions are calculated to raise in their own minds, and in those of others, questions from which they turn with a shudder?

'There no more the powers of hell

Can prevail to mar their peace;
Christ the Lord shall guard them well,
He who died for their release,'

is the triumphant strain of rejoicing faith. Theology, grimly pointing with a pitiless finger at the sins and shortcomings of lives of which not even the nearest and dearest knew all the hidden struggles, trials, and temptations, sternly asks, 'What certainty have you that they were among the number of the elect?' Thus the scalpel of theology dissects the life out of religion, and leaves to the Christian faith neither promise of the life that now is, nor of that which is to come.

In this matter of churchyards and funerals Scotland has allowed England to win a great advantage over her. Some thirty or forty years since, it could be safely asserted in England that, saving the Dead March in Saul, with its subdued but unmistakable strain of triumphant exultation, and the Burial Service, there was nothing connected with the funeral system which was not a disgrace to any nation calling itself Christian. With every possible adjunct that could suggest gloom and despair, the dead were laid in their graves, amidst sculptured emblems of funeral urns and weeping willows, even sometimes of skulls and cross bones, rising out of a rank growth of coarse tangled grass, thickly sown with nettles. But even then, that saving exception-the Burial Service-bore witness to the fact that mere social practice, not theology, was in fault. Every funeral met at the churchyard gate by the sublime

tion and the Life,' was in effect met by the Church's protest against the dismal gloom of the long funeral train, the trailing palls, the nodding plumes, the smothering crape. And what a change has passed over, and is still working upon the English system! In a procession shorn of half its gloom, the mortal remains from which the spirit has fled are borne to their last resting-place beneath the smooth soft turf, the very breezes which play over their dreamless slumber, fragrant with the breath of a thousand brilliant hued flowers blooming brightly around, among simple monuments inscribed with innumerable varied phrases, expressive of Christian faith and hope. Why does Scotland lag behind in the path of progress, and still so often lay her dead, sometimes with hardly even a word of prayer, in a dismal waste of untended desolation? Is her cold. theology in fault? Then by all means let her, in this respect at least, be false to her theology, and become ritualistic, broad church, what she will in practice, so that her churchyards and funerals may be brought into closer harmony with the triumpant strain of the Apostle, 'Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?'

Nor is it only on direct religious practice that the coldness of Scotch theology seems to exercise a prejudicial influence. The Scottish are proverbially staunch friends. No man will stand more loyally by a friend in trouble, or take greater pains to aid him than a Scotchman; yet there seems to be something clannish about the sentiment. Many a Scotchman who will show himself the most loyal, true-hearted friend, will betray great deficiency in the sentiment of universal brotherhood. In visiting among the Scotch peasantry we have chanced many times to come across those who have at different periods of their lives been brought into contact with English people of the higher class living in Scotland. We have never failed to find the opinion held among them that the English are much kinder than the Scotch. The creation of such an impression surely renders it worthy of note that while the Shorter Catechism dismisses the Christian doctrine of love to our neighbour in a short sentence or two, the far briefer English Catechism devotes its longest

manded by that doctrine. A personal religion which fails on this point may be a perfectly sincere one, but it is certainly a cold, defective one, such as may well be the offspring or twin sister of a grim, hard theology.

The bitterness of religious disputes in Scotland is proverbial; and though our memory, going back to a childish remembrance of the state of feeling in Scotland on religious questions within the first ten years after the Disruption, can bear witness to a great improvement in this respect, still the tone of many articles and letters which appear in the public papers, when any disputed religious point is in question, cannot but be painful to all peaceable lovers of their country. 'Peace on earth, goodwill towards men,' was the first message of Christianity. Is the reverse of the picture the special work of theology? Then—

'Oh hush your tumult, men of strife,

And hear the angels sing!'

Are we, then, justified in holding these general features of religion in Scotland to be due to the tone of Scotch theology? If so, the sooner Scotland and her theology part company the better. The religious health of the nation would not, we think, suffer severely from a good deal of heretical doctrinal belief if in its train came such a spirit as that which pervades, for instance, the introduction to Professor W. Robertson Smith's lectures on "The Old Testament in the Jewish Church.' Let anyone whose mind is exercised on these points contrast that spirit with the spirit which pervades the utterances of ardent advocates of Disestablishment, or violent opposers of the introduction into Scotch Churches of organs and hymns, and then decide for himself whether he would rather be wrong with the heretics, or right with the orthodox?

ART. VIII.-MRS. CARLYLE'S LETTERS.

Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. Prepared for

Publication by THOMAS CARLYLE.

FROUDE. 3 Vols. London, 1883.

Edited by J. A.

THE

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HE three hundred and thirty odd letters which these volumes contain, were prepared for publication by Mr. Carlyle, and though their publication was not expressly ordered' by him, as we are assured by Mr. Froude in the preface, he anxiously desired it.' We may suppose, therefore, and the inference we think is justified, that we have here the evidence by which Carlyle desired his wife's character, and the relations existing between him and her during the greater and later part of their married life, to be judged. Had these letters stood alone, Mrs. Carlyle would have gone down to posterity as a high-spirited, indefatigable woman, a little vain and impetuous, extremely sensitive, thoroughly devoted to her husband and zealous for his welfare, somewhat given to tears and querulousness, but patient under great suffering, and not without strong claims to have her own playful words—'Perhaps I am a genius too, as well as my husband,' frankly and sincerely endorsed.

Unfortunately, however, these letters do not stand alone. Mr. Froude, in the exercise of his discretion as an editor and literary executor, has seen fit to add to them a number of extracts from her Diary. Some of these extracts, it would seem, were prepared for publication by Carlyle; Mr. Froude has considered it his duty to add a number more, which or how many, however, we are not permitted to know. The publication of these extracts seems to us to have been uncalled for and unnecessary. They explain no mystery about Carlyle, and throw no light on his real conduct or bearing towards his wife. On the other hand, the light which they throw on Mrs. Carlyle is fierce and unpleasant. They reveal elements of weakness in her character which we have all along suspected to exist, but which we did her the credit of believing she bravely suppressed

126

Some Results of Scotch Theology.

manded by that doctrine. A personal religion which fails on this point may be a perfectly sincere one, but it is certainly a cold, defective one, such as may well be the offspring or twin sister of a grim, hard theology.

The bitterness of religious disputes in Scotland is proverbial; and though our memory, going back to a childish remembrance of the state of feeling in Scotland on religious questions within the first ten years after the Disruption, can bear witness to a great improvement in this respect, still the tone of many articles and letters which appear in the public papers, when any disputed religious point is in question, cannot but be painful to all peace'Peace on earth, goodwill towards able lovers of their country. men,' was the first message of Christianity. Is the reverse of the picture the special work of theology? Then

'Oh hush your tumult, men of strife,

And hear the angels sing!'

Are we, then, justified in holding these general features of re-
ligion in Scotland to be due to the tone of Scotch theology? If
so, the sooner Scotland and her theology part company the better.
The religious health of the nation would not, we think, suffer
severely from a good deal of heretical doctrinal belief if in its
train came such a spirit as that which pervades, for instance, the
introduction to Professor W. Robertson Smith's lectures on
'The Old Testament in the Jewish Church.' Let anyone whose
mind is exercised on these points contrast that spirit with the
spirit which pervades the utterances of ardent advocates of Dis-
establishment, or violent opposers of the introduction into Scotch
Churches of organs and hymns, and then decide for himself
whether he would rather be wrong with the heretics, or right with
the orthodox?

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