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SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTCH.

Edinburgh, June 3d.

In making the tour of Great Britain, there is an advantage in taking Ireland first, Scotland next, and England last—since in this way one is always going from the less to the more interesting. To the young American traveller "fresh and green," with enthusiasm unexpended, it seems on landing in Ireland as if there never was such a bit of green earth, and indeed it is a very interesting country. But many as are its attractions, Scotland has far more, in that it is the home of a much greater people, and is invested with far richer historical and poetical associations; it has been the scene of great historical events; it is the land of Wallace and Bruce, of Reformers and Martyrs, of John Knox and the Covenanters, and of great preachers down to the days of Chalmers and Guthrie; and it has been immortalized by the genius of poets and novelists, who have given a fresh interest to the simple manners of the people, as well as to their lakes and mountains.

And after all, it is this human interest which is the great interest of any country—not its hills and valleys, its lakes and rivers alone, but these features of natural beauty and sublimity, illumined and glorified by the presence of man, by the record of what he has suffered and what he has achieved, of his love and courage, his daring and devotion; and nowhere are these more identified with the country itself than here, nowhere do they more speak from the very rocks and hills and glens.

Scotland, though a great country, is not a very large one, and such are now the facilities of travel that one can go very quickly to almost any point. A few hours will take you into the heart of the Highlands. We made in one day the excursion to Stirling, and to Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, and felt at every step how much the beauties of nature are heightened by associations with romance or history. From Stirling Castle one looks down upon a dozen battle-fields. He is in sight of Bannockburn, where Bruce drove back the English invader, and of other fields associated with Wallace, the hero of Scotland, as William Tell is of Switzerland. Once among the lakes he surrenders himself to his imagination, excited by romance. The poetry of Scott gives to the wild glens and moors a greater charm than the bloom of the heather. The lovely lake catches, more beautiful than the rays of sunset,

"A light that never was on sea or shore,

The inspiration and the poet's dream."

Loch Katrine is a very pretty sheet of water, lying as it does at the foot of rugged mountains, yet it is not more beautiful than hundreds of small lakes among our Northern hills, but it derives a poetic charm from being the scene of "The Lady of the Lake." A little rocky islet is pointed out as Ellen's Isle. An open field by the roadside, which would attract no attention, immediately becomes an object of romantic interest when the coachman tells us it was the scene of the combat between Fitz James and Roderick Dhu. The rough country over which we are riding just now is no wilder than many of the roads among the White Mountains—but it is the country of Rob Roy! I have climbed through many a rocky mountain gorge as wild as the Trossachs, but they had not Walter Scott to people them with his marvellous creations.

A student of the religious part of Scottish history will find another interest here, as he remembers how, in the days of persecution, the old Covenanters sought refuge in these glens, and here found shelter from those pursuing rough-riders, Claverhouse's dragoons. Thus it is the history of Scotland, and the genius of her writers, that give such interest to her country and her people; and as I stood at the grave of John Wilson (Christopher North), I blessed the hand that had depicted so tenderly the "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," presenting such varied scenes in the cottage and the manse, in the glen and on the moor, but everywhere illustrating the patient trust and courage of this wonderful people. It is a fit winding-up to the tour of Scotland, that commonly the traveller's last visit, as he comes down to England, is to Abbotsford, the home of Walter Scott; to Melrose Abbey, which a few lines of his poetry have invested with an interest greater than that of other similar ruins; and to Dryburgh Abbey, where he sleeps.

Edinburgh is the most picturesque city in Europe, as it is cleft in twain by a deep gorge or ravine, on either side of which the two divisions of the city, the Old Town and the New Town, stand facing each other. From the Royal Hotel, where we are, in Princes Street, just opposite the beautiful monument to Walter Scott, we look across this gorge to long ranges of buildings in the Old Town, some of which are ten stories high; and to the Castle, lifted in air four hundred feet by a cliff that rears its rocky front from the valley below, its top girt round with walls, and frowning with batteries. What associations cluster about those heights! For hundreds of years, even before the date of authentic history, that has been a military stronghold. It has been besieged again and again. Cromwell tried to take it, but its battlements of rock proved inaccessible even to his Ironsides. There, in a little room hardly bigger than a closet, Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to a prince, who when but eight days old was let down in a basket from the cliff, that the life so precious to two kingdoms as that of the sovereign in whom Scotland and England were to be united, might not perish by murderous hands. And there is St. Giles' Cathedral, where John Knox thundered, and where James VI. (the infant that was born in the castle) when chosen to be James I. of England, took leave of his Scottish subjects.

At the other end of Edinburgh is Holyrood Castle, whose chief interest is from its association with the mother of James, the beautiful but ill-fated Mary. How all that history, stranger and sadder than any romance, comes back again, as we stand on the very spot where she stood when she was married; and pass through the rooms in which she lived, and see the very bed on which she slept, unconscious of the doom that was before her, and trace all the surroundings of her most romantic and yet most tragic history. Such are some of the associations which gather around Edinburgh!

I find here my friend Mr. William Nelson (of the famous publishing house of Nelson and Sons), whose hospitality I enjoyed for a week in the summer of 1867; and he, with his usual courtesy, gave up a whole day to show us Edinburgh, taking us to all the beautiful points of view and places of historical interest—to the Castle and Holyrood, and the Queen's Drive, around Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags. Mr. Nelson's house is a little out of the city, under the shadow of Arthur's Seat, near a modest manse, which has been visited by hundreds of American ministers, as it was the home of the late Dr. Guthrie. His brother, Mr. Thomas Nelson, has lately erected one of the most beautiful private houses I have seen in Scotland, or anywhere else. I doubt if there is a finer one in Edinburgh; and what gives it a special interest to an American, is that it was built wholly out of the rise of American securities. During our civil war, when most people in England thought the Great Republic was gone, he had faith, and invested thousands of pounds in our government bonds, the rise in which has paid entirely for this quite baronial mansion, so that he has some reason to call it his American house. So many in Great Britain have lost by American securities, that it was pleasant to know of one who had reaped the reward of his faith in the strength of our government and the integrity of our people.

When we reached Edinburgh both General Assemblies were just closing their annual meetings. I had met in Glasgow, on Sunday, at the Barony church (where he is successor to Dr. Norman Macleod), John Marshall Lang, D.D., who visited America as a delegate to our General Assembly, and left a most favorable impression in our country; who told me that their Assembly—that of the National Church—would close the next day, and advised me to hasten to Edinburgh before its separation. So we came on with him on Monday, and looked in twice at the proceedings, but had not courage to stay to witness the end, which was not reached till four o'clock the next morning! But by the courtesy of Dr. Lang, I received an invitation from the excellent moderator, Dr. Sellars, (who had been in America, and had the most friendly feeling for our countrymen,) to a kind of state dinner, which it is an honored custom of this old Church to give at the close of the Assembly. The moderator is allowed two hundred pounds to entertain. He gives a public breakfast every morning during the session, and winds up with this grand feast. If the morning repasts were on such a generous scale as that which we saw, the £200 could go but a little way. There were about eighty guests, including the most eminent of the clergy, principals and professors of colleges, dignitaries of the city of Edinburgh, judges and law officers of the crown, etc. I sat next to Dr. Lang, who pointed out to me the more notable guests, and gave me much information between the courses; and Dr. Schaff sat next to Professor Milligan. As became an Established Church, there were toasts to the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and her Majesty's Ministers. Altogether it was a very distinguished gathering, which I greatly enjoyed. I am glad that we in America are beginning to cultivate relations with the National Church of Scotland. As to the question of Church and State, of course our sympathies are more with the Free Church, but that should not prevent a friendly intercourse with so large a body, to which we are drawn by the ties of a common faith and order. Delegates from the National Church of Scotland will always be welcome in our Assemblies, especially when they are such men as Dr. Lang and Professor Milligan; and our representatives are sure of a hearty reception here. Dr. Adams and Dr. Shaw, two or three years since, electrified their Assembly, and they do not cease to speak of it. Certainly we cannot but be greatly benefited by cultivating the most cordial relations with a body which contains so large an array of men distinguished for learning, eloquence, and piety.

In the Free Church things are done with less of form and state than in the National Church, but there is intense life and rigor. I looked in upon their Assembly, but found it occupied, like the other, chiefly with those routine matters which are hastened through at the close of a session. But I heard from members that the year has been one of great prosperity. The labors of the American revivalists, Moody and Sankey, have been well received, and the impression of all with whom I conversed was that they had done great good. In financial matters I was told that there had been such an outpouring of liberality as had never been known in Scotland before. The success of the Sustentation Fund is something marvellous, and must delight the heart of that noble son of Scotland, Dr. McCosh.

I am disappointed to find that the cause of Union has not made more progress. There is indeed a prospect of the "Reformed" Church being absorbed into the Free Church, thus putting an end to an old secession. But it is a small body of only some eighty churches, while the negotiations with the far larger body of United Presbyterians, after being carried on for many years, are finally suspended, and may not be resumed. As to the National Church, it clings to its connection with the State as fondly as ever, and the Free Church, having grown strong without its aid, now disdains its alliance. On both sides the attitude is one of respectful but pretty decided aversion. So far from drawing nearer to each other, they appear to recede farther apart. It was thought that some advance had been made on the part of the Old Kirk, in the act of Parliament abolishing patronage, but the Free Church seemed to regard this as a temptation of the adversary to allure them from the stand which they had taken more than thirty years ago, and which they had maintained in a long and severe, but glorious, struggle. They will not listen to the voice of the charmer, no, not for an hour.

This attitude of the Free Church toward the National Church, coupled with the fact that its negotiations with the United Presbyterians have fallen through, does not give us much hope of a general union among the Presbyterians of Scotland, at least in our day. In fact there is something in the Scotch nature which seems to forbid such coalescence. It does not fuse well. It is too hard and "gritty" to melt in every crucible. For this reason they cannot well unite with any body. Their very nature is centrifugal rather than centripetal. They love to argue, and the more they argue the more positive they become. The conviction that they are right, is absolute on both sides. Whatever other Christian grace they lack, they have at least attained to a full assurance of faith. No one can help admiring their rugged honesty and their strong convictions, upheld with unflinching courage. They become heroes in the day of battle, and martyrs in the day of persecution; but as for mutual concession, and mutual forgiveness, that, I fear, is not in them.

It is painful to see this alienation between two bodies, for both of which we cannot but feel the greatest respect. It does not become us Americans to offer any counsel to those who are older and wiser than we; yet if we might send a single message across the sea, it should be to say that we have learned by all our conflicts and struggles to cherish two things—which are our watchwords in Church and State—liberty and union. We prize our liberty. With a great price we have obtained this freedom, and no man shall take it from us. But yet we have also learned how precious a thing is brotherly love and concord. Sweet is the communion of saints. This is the last blessing which we desire for Scotland, that has so many virtues that we cannot but wish that she might abound in this grace also. Even with this imperfection, we love her country and her people. Whoever has had access to Scottish homes, must have been struck with their beautiful domestic character, with the attachment in families, with the tenderness of parents, and the affectionate obedience of children. A country in which the scenes of "The Cotter's Saturday Night" are repeated in thousands of homes, we cannot help loving as well as admiring. Wherefore do I say from my heart, A thousand blessings on dear old Scotland! Peace be within her walls, and prosperity within her palaces!