expedients, but as eternal pillars of the Divine Temple, without which no real Christianity could exist and which must be imposed on all even contrary to their wishes. Clad in this armour, the Church of 1638 did its work, and its subsequent intolerance is to be explained by the fierce Calvinism which pervaded it. It was at the close of this struggle, and during the period when victorious Presbytery wielded its influence on Church and State both, that Robert Leighton was minister of Newbattle. How he regarded its subsequent development we shall see in the following pages. Who with mild heat of holy oratory Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man."-TENNYSON. "The Tale of the Divine pity was never yet believed from lips that were not felt to be moved by human pity."-GEORGE ELIOT. "The Divine nature of Christ is a magnet that draws unto itself all spirits and hearts that bear its likeness, and daily unites them to itselt through love." "A pure heart is one which finds its whole and only satisfaction in God, which relishes and desires nothing but God, whose thoughts and intents are ever occupied with God, to which all that is not of God is strange and jarring, which keeps itself as far as possible apart from all unworthy images, and ioys, and griefs, and all outward cares and anxieties, and makes all these work together for good; for to the pure all things are pure, and to the gentle is nothing bitter." "Now, as the loadstone draws the iron after itselt, so doth Christ draw all hearts after Himself which have once been touched by Him; and as when the iron is impregnated with the energy of the loadstone that has touched it, it follows the stone uphill although that is contrary to its nature, and cannot rest in its own proper place, but strives to rise above itself on high; so all the souls which have been touched by this loadstone, Christ, can neither be chained down by joy nor grief, but are ever rising up to God out of themselves. They forget their own nature, and follow after the touch of God, and follow it the more easily and directly, the more noble is their nature than that of other men, and the more they are touched by God's finger."-From Sermons of Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg (1291-1361). D OCTOR ALEXANDER LEIGHTON was released in 1640 from his imprisonment, and Robert Leighton seems to have settled in Scotland about the same year. He was presented to Newbattle by the Earl of Lothian, and ordained by the Presbytery of Dalkeith, on December 16, 1641. On July 15, 1641, he had been ordered by his Presbytery "to bring a testimonial from Edinburgh the next day." Among those present on his ordination day was Robert Douglas, then minister at Edinburgh, and with him Leighton seems to have maintained a long and intimate friendship. Douglas was a man after Leighton's own heart, was at this time a staunch Presbyterian and full of zeal for the Covenant. He lived on gracious terms with his opponents, and of one, with whom he was at variance, he could say, “I love him as my own soul." He served as chaplain in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and that great King is reported to have said of him, when he took leave, "There is a man who, for wisdom and prudence, might be counsellor to any prince in Europe; he might be a moderator to a General Council, and even for military skill I could very freely trust any army to his conduct."1 Douglas was popularly believed to be of royal descent, and Bishop Burnet says of him, "There was an air of greatness in Douglas that made all that saw him inclined enough to believe he was of no ordinary descent. He was a reserved man; he had the Scriptures by heart, to the exactness of a Jew, for he was as a concordance; he was too calm and grave for the furious men, but yet he was much depended on for his prudence." Douglas was the leader of the "Resolutioners" in the Church-the party to which Leighton afterwards belonged. Leighton's immediate predecessor at Newbattle was Andrew Cant, who had been translated to Aberdeen, where he had been known about 1638 as one of "the Apostles of the Covenant." It is interesting to observe that all the churches which Leighton served were ancient ecclesiastical centres; about 1 The Church of Scotland, p. 104. 2 History of His own Time: edited by Osmund Airy, vol. i. pp. 55, 56. every one of them, as well as of his ancestral home at Usan there was much "That rung to an old chime And bore the mark of time." Every one of them recalled the old pieties, and spoke reverently of the past. Newbattle had the ruins of a Cistercian monastery about it-a house belonging to the order that claimed St. Bernard of Clairvaux as its great saint, whose writings Robert Leighton knew well, frequently quoted and earnestly studied. The Cistercians were originally among the purest and strictest of the orders, and their early aspirations may well be described as issuing in a spirituality as pure as anything on this side of time can be. Robert Leighton in many respects recalls St. Bernard; his mysticism, piety, devotion, love of solitude, are not unlike those of this early saint, but on the other hand, like St. Bernard, he did overcome his natural tendency to live apart, dedicating his soul entirely to the bridegroom, and stepped into the arena with the passion to heal the breaches of the Church. Like him, too, he restored in practice, if not in name, the famous motto which that great churchman assumed as the guiding-star of his life, and with which he is represented in art-sustine et abstine (bear and forbear). The little, too, that remained of the old abbey at Newbattle was at Leighton's time sufficient, as it is still sufficient to recall that peculiar and undefinable tenderness which the Cistercians expressed in all their religious structures that were always situated in secluded river valleys. No place could be more attractive, historically as well as for its natural situation and beauty, than Newbattle to Robert Leighton. "Its situation," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, the editor of its chartulary, "is of that kind which the Cistercian most of all affected. The South Esk, escaped from the green hills of Temple and the woody ravines of Dalhousie, widens its valley a little to give room for a long range of level 'haughs.' At the very head of these meadows, and close to the brook, the abbey stands. Behind, to the north, are the remains of the ancient monkish village, and occupied by the hinds and shepherds of the convent, but separated from the abbey gardens by a massive stone wall, ascribed to the time and the personal care of William the Lion, which still forms the boundary of the park on that side. Across the little river the bank rises abruptly, broken into fantastic ravines, closely wooded, which only upon examination are discovered to be the remains of the ancient coal-workings of the monks, of a period when the operation was more a sort of quarrying than like modern coal-mining. The abbey was not placed to command a prospect. The river banks have probably always been covered with a growth of native oak. What was the clothing of the level lawn of old we can only conjecture. As it is, situated at the bottom of its narrow valley, close by the brook, hidden among beeches and venerable sycamores, it gives an idea of religious seclusion such as Saint Bernard sought at Citeaux." 1 The abbey was founded in 1140 or 1141 by David I for monks of the Cistercian order, who were brought to Neubotle (or new residence) from Melrose. The first abbot was Ralph, described as a person of beautiful presence, occupied continually in divine meditation, who from his youth had loved his Creator with all his heart. The second abbot, Alfred, was a benefactor of the abbey, and adorned the chapterhouse and cloisters. The dedication of the abbey church took place in 1233, the service being conducted by Andrew de Moravia, a predecessor of Leighton's ancestral relative in the old Scottish See of Moray. The fabric seems to have been far advanced in 1241, and Mary de Couci, Queen of Alexander II, was buried within its church in 1271. The death of Abbot Waldeve in 1275 is thus described in the old chronicle of Melrose :-" Waldeve of pious memory and holy conversation, Abbot of Neubotle, going the way of all flesh, Introduction to Registrum de Neubotle, pp. xiii., xiv. |