to the Free Church. Probably no names that flowered into the delicate humor and of clergymen of the present-day Church pathos of the author of "Rab and his of Scotland are better known on this side Friends” and “Marjorie Fleming." Even of the Tweed than those of the late Dr. the Scotch Episcopal Church has had its Norman Macleod, Principal Tulloch, and Forbeses; John Skinner, besides giving Dr. Herbert Story, the biographer of his country "Tullochgorum," gave his "Cardinal" Carstares; all three are sons Church two bishops of note. Among of the manse. Broad-Churchism in the Scotch clerical families, that of the Erssecond of the Dissenting bodies of Scot- kines held a remarkable place. Different land, the United Presbyterian Church, branches of it figured both in the Church suggests the names of two clergymen, and in the Dissenting bodies, agreeing, also clergymen's sons, Mr. George Gilfil- however, in holding fast by Evangelical lan and Mr. David Macrae. Nor is it in theology; and they were connected by the Church alone that the son of the blood with the legal and aristocratic brothmanse attains a position of eminence or ers, Thomas and Henry Erskine, who leadership. The present lord-advocate were not only the leaders of the English and solicitor-general, at once the chief and Scotch bars in their time, but libScotch officers of the crown and the lead-erals and reformers before their time. ers of the Scotch Commons in Parliament, Finally, the Erskines found their way are sons of ministers of the Church of into literature; the subtle spirituality of Scotland. So is the lord president of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen is quite as the Court of Session, the first judge in Scotland. So are some of his colleagues: of the second judge, the lord justice-clerk, it is enough to say that he is the brother of Sir Henry Moncreiff. So is the repre sentative of Scotland in the Court of Appeal, who also held the office of the lordadvocate before his appointment. The legal power in Scotland, which at one time was firmly lodged in such old families as the Hopes, the Boyles, and the Dundases, would almost seem to have passed into the hands of the sons of the

manse.

remarkable a product of Scotch Evangelicalism as the humor and the pathos of John Brown. The sons of the manse of fifty or a hundred years ago did not, perhaps, so distinguish themselves at the bar as they do now, although, to mention one remarkable case of such success, the son of Blair of The Grave" became lord president of the Court of Session. But they played a prominent part in literature, philosophy, science, in whatever, indeed, gave Scotland a special reputation in their day and generation. Thomas Reid, the true representative, in spite of Hamilton, The influence of the clerical caste in of the Scottish school of philosophy, was Scotland is not an affair of to-day, though, a son of the manse. So was Thomas perhaps, it never was so marked or so Brown, the pioneer of Dr. Bain and the widely extended as it is to-day. The cerebro-psychologists of our day. Dugald Cooks and Hills of a generation or two Stewart, the friend of Burns and pregenerations ago were as influential as the ceptor of Russell and Palmerston, was a Macleods and Tullochs are now; by sheer grandson of the manse. Robertson, the intellectual force they stormed the best-historian, and leader of the moderate endowed pulpits, secured the best chairs, party in the Church of Scotland, was the and, obtaining the clerkships of the Gen- son of a clergyman. Through his niece eral Assembly, acquired a preponderating he gave a little, though all too little, of share in the government of their Church. the tradition and tone of the manse to There was a grim truth as well as a sly Henry Brougham. Sir David Brewster humor in the pun attributed by tradition was of good clerical blood, and was edu to the poor licentiate who, finding that his cated with a view to the Scotch ministry. professional fate virtually depended on a If the word "adventurer" could by any member of the ruling clerical family of possibility be used in the proper and the time, before whom he had to preach, honorable and not in the popular and "gave out" as the first psalm of his ser- odious sense, we should say that as advice, that beginning, "I to the hills will venturers the Scotch sons of the manse lift mine eyes, from whence doth come occupy, and long have occupied, a posimine aid." The Free Church is too tion of "undoubted paramountcy" among young a body to have its clerical families; a community which history, and social the Moncreiffs belong to the ante-disrup- and even physical conditions have made, tion period. But Presbyterian secession to the extent of four-fifths, a nation of boasts, and justly boasts, of its genera- adventurers.

tions of erudite and Evangelical Browns, The success of the son of the manse is

easily explained. His father is, as a rule, | He has to pinch himself to educate his

a man of humble origin, who by natural
force has made his merits known and re
warded. His grandfather the peasant
of whom the father of the late Dr. Duff
may be considered a type has saved
and pinched to make his son a minister,
not only that he may help to advance the
religion which has proved his own sup-
port and solace, but that he may give his
successors a position in his country which
he has found unattainable by himself.
Every Presbyterian minister is, or may
be, as Chalmers puts it, "a tribune of the
people;" and it costs less to make a son
a tribune of the people in Scotland than
to make him a barrister or a doctor.
"Why did you send me into the Church?"
rather querulously asks the Scotch minis
ter of his plebeian father, in the novel,
when he finds himself afflicted with theo
logical "doubt." "I saw no other way of
making you a gentleman," retorts the
peasant, who snorts contemptuously at
“doubt,” because, like Dryden's "unlet
tered Christian," he

sons, while keeping up appearances quite as much as his father before him, although on a less humble scale. Like Wallace at Falkirk, he can bring his young men to the ring of the professions; they must do the dancing themselves. But one thing he can do for them; he can see to it that they get the best possible educution attainable in their position. To this, therefore, he devotes himself, and as a rule successfully; Scotch ministers may be sometimes bad fathers, but they are almost invariably good "coaches." The sons of the manse, being put on their mettle, being as inevitably adventurers as their fathers, are as industrious as their plebeian rivals, and much more industrious than scions of the well-to-do middleclass; while they have a refinement and a social status that the representatives of their fathers' original class are without, and which always tell in the long run, if other things are equal. The continued ascendancy of a clerical family in Scot land is explained by the fact that while sire may bequeath to son education, natural ability, even standing of a special kind, he cannot, in virtue of his position, The peasant's son, having become "a bequeath him wealth or power. The one gentleman," in virtue of a professional is unattainable in a poor Church; the position attained by ability, generally other is attainable by natural capacity marries into a middle-class family; not alone in a democratic Church. There is unfrequently, indeed, he marries the no evidence, on the surface of things, that daughter of another clergyman. His wife the clerical caste is on the decline in brings middle-class notions into his house- Scotland. If such evidence could be furhold, and instils middle-class ambitions nished, it would prove either that the into her children. But as a rule, there is position of a Presbyterian clergyman in not much luxury in the manse, while there the north is no longer what it was, or is oftener than not a large family. Its that the peasant's ideal of power, from head may be able to command "gentility "being a moral, has become a material one. when he marries, but seldom a fortune.

Believes in gross,

Plods on to Heaven, and ne'er is at a loss.

A NUMBER of amateurs at New York, who style themselves "The Book-Fellows' Club," have had printed, by Mr. De Vinne, as their first volume, a dainty edition of Mr. Frederick Locker's "London Lyrics," with an etching of the author, and woodcuts by Mr. Randolph Caldecott and Miss Kate Greenaway. A copy on vellum has been sent to Mr. Locker, who wrote the following lines as an introduction to the volume:

"Oh! for the poet voice that swells
To lofty truths or noble curses →

I only wear the cap and bells,

And yet some tears are in my verses.
Softly I trill my sparrow reed,

Pleased if but one should like the twitter,
Humbly I lay it down to heed

A music or a minstrel fitter."

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