Search -
Reminiscences of Scottish life and character. 2 pt. [in 1 vol.].
Reminiscences of Scottish life and character 2 pt - in 1 vol. Author:Edward Bannerman Ramsay Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I. On Religious Feelings And Religious Observances. N this subject we would speak with deference. We have no intention of entering, in this v... more »olume, upon those great questions which are connected with recent church movements amongst us, or with national peculiarities of faith and discipline. It is impossible, however, to overlook entirely the fact of a gradual relaxation having gone on for some years, of the sterner features of the Calvinistic school of theology, —at any rate, of keeping its theoretic peculiarities more in the background. What we have to notice, in these pages are changes in the feelings with regard to religion and religious observances, which have appeared upon the exterior of society—the changes which belong to outward habits rather than to internal feelings. Of such changes many havetaken place within my own experience. Scotland has ever borne the character of a moral and religious country; and the mass of the people are a more church-going race than the masses of English population. I am not at all prepared to say that in the middle and lower ranks of life, our countrymen have undergone much change in regard to religious observances. But there can be no question that amongst the upper classes there are manifestations connected with religion now, which some years ago were not thought of. The attendance of men on public worship is of itself an example of the change we speak of. I am afraid that when Walter Scott described Monkbarns as being with difficulty "hounded out" to hear the sermons of good Mr. Blattergowl, he wrote from a knowledge of the habits of church going then generally prevalent amongst Scottish lairds. The late Bishop Sandford told me that when he first came to Edinburgh—I suppose fifty years ago—few gentlemen attended church—v...« less