FullReads

I am back at Biggar at the old sacramental times; I see and hear my grandfather, or Mr. Horne of Braehead, Mr. Leckie of Peebles, Mr. Harper of Lanark, as inveterate in argument as he was warm in heart, Mr. Comrie of Penicuik, with his keen, Voltaire-like face, and much of that unhappy and unique man’s wit, and sense, and perfection of expression, without his darker and baser qualities. I can hear their hearty talk, can see them coming and going between the meetinghouse and the Tent on the side of the burn, and then the Monday dinner, and the cheerful talk, and the many clerical stories and pleasantries, and their going home on their hardy little horses, Mr. Comrie leaving his curl-papers till the next solemnity, and leaving also some joke of his own, clear and compact as a diamond, and as cutting.

I am in Rose Street on the monthly lecture, the church crammed, passages and pulpit stairs. Exact to a minute, James Chalmers–the old soldier and beadle, slim, meek, but incorruptible by proffered half crowns from ladies who thus tried to get in before the doors opened–appears, and all the people in that long pew rise up, and he, followed by his minister, erect and engrossed, walks in along the seat, and they struggle up to the pulpit. We all know what he is to speak of; he looks troubled even to distress;–it is the matter of Uriah the Hittite. He gives out the opening verses of the 51st Psalm, and offering up a short and abrupt prayer, which every one takes to himself, announces his miserable and dreadful subject, fencing it, as it were, in a low, penetrating voice, daring any one of us to think an evil thought; there was little need at that time of the warning,–he infused his own intense, pure spirit, into us all.

He then told the story without note or comment, only personating each actor in the tragedy with extraordinary effect, above all, the manly, loyal, simple-hearted soldier. I can recall the shudder of that multitude as of one man when he read, “And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die.” And then, after a long and utter silence, his exclaiming, “Is this the man according to God’s own heart? Yes, it is; we must believe that both are true.” Then came Nathan. “There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb”–and all that exquisite, that divine fable–ending, like a thunder-clap, with “Thou art the man!” Then came the retribution, so awfully exact and thorough,–the misery of the child’s death; that brief tragedy of the brother and sister, more terrible than anything in AEschylus, in Dante, or in Ford; then the rebellion of Absalom, with its hideous dishonor, and his death, and the king covering his face, and crying in a loud voice, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom! my son! my son!”–and David’s psalm, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions,”–then closing with, “Yes; ‘when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err,’ do not stray, do not transgress ({me planasthe}),[22] ‘my beloved brethren,’ it is first ‘earthly, then sensual, then devilish;'” he shut the book, and sent us all away terrified, shaken, and humbled, like himself.

[Footnote 22: James i. 15, 16. It is plain that “do not err” should have been in verse 15th.]