not paid yet the debt of gratitude; that country has not protected their memory from insult; she permits, without a burst of public indignation, the infidel historian to follow the partial and absurd details of those royalists who confounded the virtuous struggles of a people to regain their liberties with the crime of treason. She permits him to confound virtue and vice; to asperse the memory of her best patriots; to laud the name of the atrocious Clavers!* The poet and the novelist have lent their bewitching aid in the work of slander. At one time they laud, with mawkish sentimentalism, the piety of English inquisitors and Scottish bishops, whose hands were dipt in human blood to the wrists. At another time they worship, in sublime style, and hardly without tears, the gallant deeds of the muscovegran savage Dalziel, and the vandal Clavers, who butchered, in cold blood, the father and son; the mother and infant, and blooming maid! who shot down, as the deer of the forest, free born citizens, without a trial, on their own land, and at their own fire sides!—At one time we see them throwing themselves into theatrical attitudes at the fictitious rusticity and ferocious habits of the men of the conventicles. At other times with imperturbable impudence they disturb the awful repose of the sainted martyrs, and drag them from their bed of glory to hold them up, in the rusticity and fanaticism which they have made to clothe them, to the laugh of the vulgar, and the scoff of the profane.† The hierarchy, galled at the victory gained over its tyrannical and bloody purpose, to dragoon a nation into its religion and ceremonies, has impo • See Hume's well known partial history of this period. vol. iv. chap. 66, 67, &c. The inimitable beauties of "Old Mortality," can never atone to the church for that studied concealment of much of the character of the bloody Graham, which the mind cannot contemplate in real history, without deep oppression; for that generosity and heroism with which her deadliest enemy is invested; (Edinburgh Review, No. 54, p. 259.) for the studied concealment of cool-blooded personal murders; for that outrage offered to sacred doctrines and worthy ministers, by the fictitious preachments put into the lips of its orators and conventicle men; and for its slanderous, or to say the least, thoughtless charges of murder brought against good men. Nothing can be more outrageous to historical fact, than the fictitious death of cornet Graham at Drumclog, or that horrible fiction of intended murder on the evening of the battle of Bothwell Bridge. tently and ungenerously branded their virtuous struggle with the opprobrious name of the "grand rebellion." Nay, they have been wounded by their degenerate sons. "Tu quoque mi fil, Brute." Not contented with that outrageous length of Erastianism into which they have gone; a moderate share of which we Americans could have forgiven to men in their circumstances; not content with their unblushing testimony of perfect indifference to the form of church government, while they cling to the civil establishment, which damns all other but its own; not contented with telling us Americans that the presbytery of Scotland was the mere effect of fortuitous circumstances,* they have dared to violate the sacred memory of our martyrs; for we two are presbyterians and to represent the calm and christian peace of their last moments as the effects of enthusiasm. But let shame cover the face of that man who yields the honour of his native country to the popular sentiment of a foreign kingdom: and who is so cowardly, or so venal as to court popularity by surrendering the glory of his native patriots to the form of the hierarchy; to the sneer of profligates, or to the ridicule of the infidel mob! My martyred ancestors! I feel more pride in the deeds of your prowess in the ranks of those patriotic christians who contended by the pen and the sword, for the illustrious prize of religion and liberty, than if you had worn the fairest coronet in the ranks of the licensed oppressors of their country and of the church! : § 13. It was during the excitement of this period, and among people strongly marked by this character, that the early Quakers fell in their first missionary tours into Scotland. They found the tempers of the people soured, but not gloomy. They found them enthusiastically attached to that system of truth which their fathers had delivered to them, and sealed with their blood. But they soon discovered that they were not fanatics. The sacred scriptures they invariably and most scrupulously made the rule of their faith, and of their severe morals. Though firm believers in the holy and constant interpositions of Provi * See Cook's History of the Kirk of Scotland from the Establishment of the Reformation to the Revolution, vol. iii. chap. 22, ad fin. Edin. Edit. † See this display of modern bigotry in the remarks on the character and writings of that illustrious martyr James Guthrie. Cook. do. vol. iii. ch. 22. p. 240, 241. dence, they were avowed and implacable enemies to the doctrines of the new revelations and impulses, which the Quakers brought. Hence they opposed a firm phalanx of reason and piety to George Fox's innovations. In the city of Glasgow he could not prevail" on even one of the town to come to his meeting."* The fact is, the higher circles, and the populace despised them; and the middling and lower classes of the community were too well informed, and had their minds too intensely fixed on the religious scenes before their eyes, to be seduced by such weak and ill-informed missionaries. § 14. That country was afterwards assailed from another quarter, and by a very different character. Though the Scottish nation never gave countenance to the principles of the Friends, it has, nevertheless, given the European and the American Quakers their best and most accomplished writer. This was Robert Barclay. Colonel Barclay, his father, a most amiable and polished gentleman, had, when abroad, imbibed the doctrines of the new sect. He instilled them, with much zeal, into the youthful mind of his son, whom he had recalled from the Scottish college of Paris. R. Barclay possessed superior talents, and a good education for that age; but he had certainly been tainted by the Catholic doctrines, under the influence of his uncle of the Scots colleget. Barclay had no disposition to imitate the leaders of the Society, nor would the genius of his nation have permitted him. While Fox and Penn came forward with all the naked deformities of mysticism, Barclay presented himself as an apologist. He appeared mild, candid, learned: he anxiously kept out of view those parts of the system which would shock the pious, and lay them open to the successful attacks of the learned. He touched not on their doctrine of the Trinity, nor on the proper divinity of Christ, nor on the true idea of the Atonement. He passed lightly on all their peculiarities which will not bear a strict scrutiny; Jour. vi. i. 442. It is certain, however, that he was fully initiated into its mysteries during his imprisonment in Edinburgh, by a fellow prisoner who had imported them from England. See Barclay's Life, duod. p. 10, 11.. ‡ Bar. Life, p. 18. He admits this. he selected those that bear a near resemblance to truth, and which, by an imposing air of benevolence and utility, prefer strong claims on the feelings of mankind. He made a dexterous use of the increasing attachment to Arminianism among some of the learned, and gave a powerful bias of his mystic system to that mode of thinking. He employed much art, and some degree of eloquence; he avoided the cant of his companions, yet he retained as much of their "luscious tedious way," as made the most rigid acknowledge him as a true heir of the spirit of the Society.* We admire Barclay more as an amiable man and a scholar, than as a Quaker. His eminence, in this respect, is conspicuous, as he stands alone. The writers of his Society, with the exception of Penn, (I do not except Fisher,) were wild and rustic. We look into Barclay's good modern Latin, and his flowing style, rather as a literary curiosity and a proof of talent, than as a defence of Quakerism. It is, indeed, not calculated to please by consistency or perspicuity. We can allow him only the merit (and it is no small merit) of writing good modern Latin, and of making a judicious arrangement of all that an apologist can say in a bad cause. The English copy wants the elegance of the original;† it is tedious and dull. He thrusts, occasionally, an octavo page into one sentence. His ambiguities and defects are numerous and glaring. But the Scottish nation, or rather the religious world, has not yet done justice to that distinguished man who entered the lists against Barclay, and helped to clear Scotland of this pestilence: I mean John Brown of Wamphry, who reviewed the Latin Apology in his book entitled "Quakerism the Pathway to Paganism."‡ Barclay, as an apologist, appears with good grace. He comes forward with the easy elegance of an old Parisian; he possesses caution, shrewdness, and cunning. He shows a mind trained in a Catholic college among Jesuits and men of taste. He had his * See the judicious note of Mosh. vol. v. cent. 17, sec. 2, on Barclay.Few writers have formed a more just idea of the sentiments of the Society than this accurate historian. He who has had the courage and patience to wade through the Quaker folios, and who next turns to Mosheim, will admire the accuracy and the lenity of that historian. See the Latin copy in the Philad. Public Library, No. 1167, 8vo. A small 4to. pp. 569. Edinburgh, A. D. 1678. See Note A. Appendix I. afflictions ;* but the laird of the barony of Uryt enjoyed affluence and domestic comfort. This had its influence on the style of the Apology. But Brown of Wamphry came rushing down, like Laocoon, into the midst of his nation, and gives the alarm to his hesitating countrymen. Without troubling himself about consequences, he hurls his spear into the Grecian monster: he rouses the energy of ministers and people. The truth lay, he thought, clearly on his side. He felt the value of the glorious gospel, for which he had suffered even to bonds and cruel imprisonment; and for the sake of which, he was, at this time, banished from his native country, and the secret and soothing comforts of the domestic circle. His spirit was irritated. He was not very nice in the selection of his weapons. Like the hardy and brave Highlander in the dress and rude weapons of his ancestors; or like Sampson, with the jaw bone of an ass, he clears the field without any ceremony or respect to nice feelings. Every circumstance conspired to produce this excitement in Brown. The church lay bleeding under a persecution which had spread desolation over Scotland for many years. Truth had fallen in the street under the steel of the hierarchy. Brown saw, with anguish, Barclay inflicting a fresh and a deep wound. He entered the single combat with the feelings of the hero who spreads his shield over his fallen friend. His feelings defy the curb of strict propriety. His scowling eye bids defiance to error only. He was not actuated by personal revenge. Grief and sorrow are uppermost in his breast, while he bends over the bleeding victim. He hurls into the dust the doctrines of Saccas; and the raging hero leaves not the field, till he has put down the foe, and scattered their ruins.§ The victory in Scotland was complete. The society does indeed pretend that Barclay's answer silenced Brown; but "Qua Five months imprisonment by an unrighteous magistracy. During the tyrannical power of Charles II. and James II. The preface of Brown partakes, in a high degree, of the tone of controversy of that age. The partial author of the "Life of Barclay," and the ill-informed author of the article Barclay, in Brewster's Encyclopedia, have not done justice to Brown. The polemic of that age should not be compared with the moderns, but with his own contemporaries. I can produce, out of Penn and other leading Quaker authors, much that is equal to the worst in Brown, and much that is worse. |