Thomas Carlyle - "Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History"

Edward Gibbon - "The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5"

Henry R. Plomer - "A Short History of English Printing, 1476 to 1898"

Various - "Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

I >> Ian Maclaren >> Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers




"'Janet will often be saying to me, "Mister Dugald, it iss a thankful
woman that I ought to be, for though I lost my man in the big storm and
two sons in the war, I hef had mercies, oh yes. There wass the
Almighty and my cow, and between them I hef not wanted, oh no: they
just did."

"'"Janet, you will be forgetting your field that iss lying next the
manse, and the people will be thinking that it iss a glebe; but I am
telling them that it iss Janet Cameron's, who iss a fery experienced
woman, and hass nefer seen the inside of a Moderate Kirk since the
Disruption."

"'Maybe you will be astonished, Mister John, but when Janet's will will
be read that piece of ground wass left to the Free Kirk, which wass
fery kind and mindful of Janet, and I made a sermon about her from the
text of the "elect lady."

"'It wass a good field, but it needed a dyke and some drains, and it
wass not our people that had the money. So I made another sermon on
the text, "The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast
of the field doth devour it," and went down to the south. It wass not
a dyke and some drains, but enough to build a byre and a stable I came
back with. That wass in '55, and before '60 there will be a new manse
with twelve rooms that iss good for letting to the English people. But
it wass ten years the church needed, and a year for the porch to keep
it warm, for I am not liking stoves, and will not hef one in
Crianshalloch.

"'It iss wonderful how much money the bodies hef in Glasgow, and it iss
good for them to be hearing sound doctrine at a time. There will be no
Arminianism when I am preaching, and no joking; but maybe there will be
some parables, oh yes, about the sheep coming in at the manse door for
want of a fence, and the snow lying in the pulpit.'

"There is a cateran for you, and, mind you, a good fellow too. It's
not greed sends him out, but sheer love of spoil. Would you like to
see MacTavish next time he passes up with the cattle?" for Carmichael
was emboldened by the reception of his sketch.

"Nothing we should like better, for the General and I want to know all
about Scotland; but don't you think that those ministers have injured
the Highlanders? Janet, you know, has such gloomy ideas about
religion."

"There is no doubt, Miss Carnegie, that a load of Saxon theology has
been landed on the Celt, and it has disfigured his religion. Sometimes
I have felt that the Catholic of the west is a truer type of northern
faith than the Presbyterian of Ross-shire."

"I am so glad to hear you say that," said Miss Carnegie, "for we had
one or two west Catholics in the old regiment, and their superstitions
were lovely. You remember, dad, the MacIvers."

"That was all well enough, Kit, but none of them could get the length
of corporal; they were fearfully ignorant, and were reported at
intervals for not keeping their accoutrements clean."

"That only showed how religious they were, did n't it, Mr. Carmichael?
Hadn't the early Christians a rooted objection to the bath? I remember
our Padre saying that in a lecture."

"There are a good many modern Christians of the same mind, Miss
Carnegie, and I don't think our poor Highlanders are worse than
Lowlanders; but Catholic or Protestant, they are all subject to the
gloom. I cannot give the Gaelic word.

"What is that? Oh, a southerner would call it depression, and assign
it to the liver, for he traces all trouble to that source. But there
is no word for this mood in English, because it is not an English
experience. My mother fell under it at times, and I saw the effect."

"Tell us, please, if all this description does not weary you?" and Kate
shone on Carmichael, who would have talked on the Council of Nice or
the rotation of crops to prolong his privileges.

"It comes on quite suddenly, and is quite a spiritual matter--a cloud
which descends and envelops the soul. While it lasts a Highlander will
not laugh nor sing; he will hardly speak, and he loses all hope about
everything. One of our men has the gloom at a time, and then he
believes that he is . . . damned. I am speaking theologically."

"The regiment must have been fond of theology, dad. Yes, we
understand."

"Once he went out to the hill, and lay all night wrestling and
agonising to be sure whether there was a God. You know he 's just a
small farmer, and it seems to me splendid that such a man should give
himself to the big problems of the universe. Do you know," and
Carmichael turned to the General, who was smoking in great peace, "I
believe that is the reason the Highlanders are such good fighting men.
They fear God, and they don't fear any other person."

"I 'll vouch for one thing," said the veteran with emphasis; "our men
put off the gloom, or whatever you call it, when they smelt powder; I
never saw a panic in a Highland regiment in more than forty years'
soldiering."

"What's the reason of the gloom? I believe that I have a touch of it
myself at times--don't stare at me, dad, it's rude--just a thin mist,
you know, but distinctly not indigestion. Is it a matter of race?"

"Of course, but that's no explanation." Carmichael had fallen into his
debating society style. "I mean one has to go further back; all our
habits are shaped by environment."

"One moment, please. I have always wanted to ask some clever person
what environment meant. I asked Colonel MacLeod once, dad, and he said
it was out of the new book on tactics, and he was thankful he had
retired. Now Mr. Carmichael will make it plain," and Kate was very
demure.

"It is rather stupid to use the word so much as people do now," and
Carmichael glanced dubiously at Kate; "scientific men use it for
circumstances."

"Is that all? then do pray say environment. Such a word introduces one
into good society, and gives one the feeling of being well dressed; now
about a Highlander's environment, is it his kilt you are thinking of,
or his house, or what?"

"His country"--and Carmichael's tone had a slight note of resentment,
as of one ruffled by this frivolity--"with its sea lochs, and glens,
and mists. Any one who has been bred and reared at the foot of one of
our mountains will have a different nature and religion from one living
in Kent or Italy. He has a sense of reverence, and surely that is a
good thing."

"Nothing more needed nowadays," the General broke in with much spirit;
"it seems to me that people nowadays respect nobody, neither the Queen
nor Almighty God. As for that man Brimstone, he will never cease till
he has ruined the Empire. You need n't look at me, Kate, for Mr. . . .
Carmichael must know this as well as any other sensible man.

"Why, sir," and now the General was on his feet, "I was told on good
authority at the club last week by a newspaper man--a monstrously
clever man--that Mr. Brimstone, when he is going down to the House of
Commons to disestablish the Church, or the army, or something, will
call in at a shop and order two hundred silk hats to be sent to his
house. What do you call that, sir?"

"I should call it a deliberate--"

[Illustration: "I should call it a deliberate--"]

"_Jeu d'esprit_. Of course it is, dad," and Kate threw an appealing
glance to Carmichael, who had sprung to his feet and was standing
stiffly behind his chair, for he was a fierce Radical.

"Perhaps it was, lassie--those war correspondents used to be sad
rascals--and, at any rate, politics are bad taste. Another cheroot,
Mr. Carmichael? Oh, nonsense; you must tell my daughter more about
your Highlanders. They are a loyal set, at any rate, and we all admire
that."

"Yes, they are," and Carmichael unbent again, "and will stick by their
side whether it be right or wrong. They 're something like a woman in
their disposition."

"Indeed," said Kate, who did not think Carmichael had responded very
courteously to her lead, "that is very interesting. They are, you
mean, full of prejudices and notions."

"If a Highlander takes you into his friendship, you may say or do what
you like, he will stand by you, and although his views are as different
from yours as black from white, will swear he agrees with every one.
If he 's not your friend, he can see no good in anything you do,
although you be on his own side."

"In fact, he has very little judgment and no sense of justice; and I
think you said," Kate went on sweetly, "his nature reminded you of a
woman's?"

"You're sure that you like cheroots?" for the General did not wish this
lad, Radical though he was, sacrificed on his first visit; "some men
are afraid of the opium in them."

"Please do not interrupt Mr. Carmichael when he is making a capital
comparison," and Kate held him to the point.

"What I intend is really a compliment," went on Carmichael, "and shows
the superior fineness and sensitiveness of a woman's mind."

Kate indicated that she was sure that was his meaning, but waited for
details.

"You see," with the spirit of one still fresh to the pulpit, "a man is
slower, and goes by evidence; a woman is quicker, and goes by her
instincts."

"Like the lower animals," suggested Kate, sweetly, "by scent, perhaps.
Well?"

"You are twisting my words, Miss Carnegie." Carmichael did not like
being bantered by this self-possessed young woman. "Let me put it this
way. Would a jury of women be as impartial as a jury of men? Why, a
bad-looking man would have no chance, for they would condemn him at
once, not for what he did, but for what they imagined he was."

"Which would save a lot of time and rid society of some precious
scoundrels," with vivid recollections of her own efforts in this
direction. "Then you grant that women have some intelligence, although
no sense of justice, which is a want?"

"Far brighter than men," said Carmichael, eagerly; "just consider the
difference between a man's and a woman's speech. A man arranges and
argues from beginning to end, and is the slave of connection. He will
labour every idea to exhaustion before he allows it to escape, and then
will give a solemn cough by way of punctuating with a full stop, before
he goes on to his next point. Of course the audience look at their
watches and make for the door."

"What would a woman do?" Kate inquired with much interest.

"A lady was speaking lately at Muirtown for an orphanage at
Ballyskiddle, and described how Patsy was rescued from starvation, and
greatly affected us. 'Patsy will never want bread again,' she
concluded, and two bailies wept aloud.

"Then she went on, and it seemed to me a stroke of genius, 'Speaking
about Patsy, has any lady present a black dress suitable for a widow
woman?' Before we knew that we had left Patsy, the people were in a
widow's home, and the bailies were again overcome. I mention them
because it is supposed that a bailie is the most important human being
in Scotland, and he feels it his duty not to yield to emotion.

"No, a woman speaker never sacrifices her capital; she carries it with
her from England to France in her speech, and recognises no channel
passage. In fact," and Carmichael plunged into new imagery, "a man's
progress is after the manner of a mole, while a woman flits from branch
to branch like a--"

"Squirrel--I know," came in Kate, getting tired.

"Bird, I meant. Why do you say squirrel?" and Carmichael looked
suspiciously at Kate.

"Because it's such a careless, senseless, irresponsible little beast.
Have you met many women, Mr. Carmichael? Really they are not all
fools, as you have been trying to suggest for the last ten minutes."

"Highlanders are a safer subject of conversation than women," said the
General, good-naturedly, as he bade Carmichael good-bye. "And you must
tell us more about them next time you call, which I hope will be soon."

Carmichael halted twice on his way through the woods; once he stamped
his foot and looked like a man whose pride had been ruffled; the other
time he smiled to himself as one who was thinking of a future pleasure.

It was dusk as he crossed Lynedoch Bridge, and he looked down upon the
pool below where the trout were leaping. Half an hour passed, and then
he started off at high speed for Kilbogie Manse. "Please God if I am
worthy," he was saying to himself; "but I fear she is too high above me
every way."




CHAPTER X.

A SUPRA-LAPSARIAN.

Jeremiah Saunderson had remained in the low estate of a "probationer"
for twelve years after he left the Divinity Hall, where he was reported
so great a scholar that the Professor of Apologetics spoke to him
deprecatingly, and the Professor of Dogmatics openly consulted him on
obscure writers. He had wooed twenty-three congregations in vain, from
churches in the black country where the colliers rose in squares of
twenty and went out without ceremony, to suburban places of worship
where the beadle, after due consideration of the sermon, would take up
the afternoon notices and ask that they be read at once for purposes of
utility, which that unflinching functionary stated to the minister with
accuracy and much faithfulness. Vacant congregations desiring a list
of candidates made one exception, and prayed that Jeremiah should not
be let loose upon them, till at last it came home to the unfortunate
scholar himself that he was an offence and a byeword. He began to
dread the ordeal of giving his name, and, as is still told, declared to
a household, living in the fat wheat lands and without any imagination,
that he was called Magor Missabib. When a stranger makes a statement
of this kind with a sad seriousness, no one judges it expedient to
offer any remark, but it was skilfully arranged that Missabib's door
should be locked from the outside, and one member of the household sat
up all night. The sermon next day did not tend to confidence--having
seven quotations in unknown tongues--and the attitude of the
congregation was one of alert vigilance; but no one gave any outward
sign of uneasiness, and six able-bodied men collected in a pew below
the pulpit knew their duty in an emergency.

Saunderson's election to the Free Church of Kilbogie was therefore an
event in the ecclesiastical world, and a consistent tradition in the
parish explained its inwardness on certain grounds, complimentary both
to the judgment of Kilbogie and the gifts of Mr. Saunderson. On
Saturday evening he was removed from the train by the merest accident,
and left the railway station in such a maze of meditation that he
ignored the road to Kilbogie altogether, although its sign post was
staring him in the face, and continued his way to Drumtochty. It was
half-past nine when Jamie Soutar met him on the high road through our
Glen, still travelling steadily west, and being arrested by his
appearance, beguiled him into conversation, till he elicited that
Saunderson was minded to reach Kilbogie. For an hour did the wanderer
rest in Jamie's kitchen, during which he put Jamie's ecclesiastical
history into a state of thorough repair--making seven distinct
parallels between the errors that had afflicted the Scottish Church and
the early heretical sects--and then Jamie gave him in charge of a
ploughman who was courting in Kilbogie and was not averse to a journey
that seemed to illustrate the double meaning of charity. Jeremiah was
handed over to his anxious hosts at a quarter to one in the morning,
covered with mud, somewhat fatigued, but in great peace of soul, having
settled the place of election in the prophecy of Habakkuk as he came
down with his silent companion through Tochty woods.

Nor was that all he had done. When they came out from the shadow and
struck into the parish of Kilbogie--whose fields, now yellow unto
harvest, shone in the moonlight--his guide broke silence and enlarged
on a plague of field-mice which had quite suddenly appeared and had
sadly devastated the grain of Kilbogie, Saunderson awoke from study and
became exceedingly curious, first of all demanding a particular account
of the coming of the mice, their multitude, their habits, and their
determination. Then he asked many questions about the moral conduct
and godliness of the inhabitants of Kilbogie, which his companion, as a
native of Drumtochty, painted in gloomy colours, although indicating
that even in Kilbogie there was a remnant. Next morning the minister
rose at daybreak, and was found wandering through the fields in such a
state of excitement that he could hardly be induced to look at
breakfast. When the "books" were placed before him, he turned promptly
to the ten plagues of Egypt, which he expounded in order as preliminary
to a full treatment of the visitations of Providence.

"He cowes (beats) a' ye ever saw or heard," the farmer of Mains
explained to the elders at the gate. "He gaed tae bed at half twa and
wes oot in the fields by four, an' a 'm dootin' he never saw his bed.
He 's lifted abune the body a'thegither, an' can hardly keep himsel'
awa' frae the Hebrew at his breakfast. Ye 'll get a sermon the day, or
ma name is no Peter Pitillo." Mains also declared his conviction that
the invasion of mice would be dealt with after a Scriptural and
satisfying fashion. The people went in full of expectation, and to
this day old people recall Jeremiah Saunderson's trial sermon with
lively admiration. Experienced critics were suspicious of candidates
who read lengthy chapters from both Testaments and prayed at length for
the Houses of Parliament, for it was justly held that no man would take
refuge in such obvious devices for filling up the time unless he was
short of sermon material. One unfortunate, indeed, ruined his chances
at once by a long petition for those in danger on the sea--availing
himself with some eloquence of the sympathetic imagery of the 107th
Psalm--for this effort was regarded as not only the most barefaced
padding, but also as evidence of an almost incredible blindness to
circumstances. "Did he think Kilbogie wes a fishing village?" Mains
inquired of the elders afterwards, with pointed sarcasm. Kilbogie was
not indifferent to a well-ordered prayer--although its palate was
coarser in the appreciation of felicitous terms and allusions than that
of Drumtochty--and would have been scandalised if the Queen had been
omitted; but it was by the sermon the young man must stand or fall, and
Kilbogie despised a man who postponed the ordeal.

Saunderson gave double pledges of capacity and fulness before he opened
his mouth in the sermon, for he read no Scripture at all that day, and
had only one prayer, which was mainly a statement of the Divine Decrees
and a careful confession of the sins of Kilbogie; and then, having
given out his text from the prophecy of Joel, he reverently closed the
Bible and placed it on the seat behind him. His own reason for this
proceeding was a desire for absolute security in enforcing his subject,
and a painful remembrance of the disturbance in a south country church
when he landed a Bible--with clasps--on the head of the precentor in
the heat of a discourse defending the rejection of Esau. Our best and
simplest actions--and Jeremiah was as simple as a babe--can be
misconstrued, and the only dissentient from Saunderson's election
insisted that the Bible had been deposited on the floor, and asserted
that the object of this profanity was to give the preacher a higher
standing in the pulpit. This malignant reading of circumstances might
have wrought mischief--for Saunderson's gaunt figure did seem to grow
in the pulpit--had it not been for the bold line of defence taken up by
Mains.

"Gin he wanted tae stand high, wes it no tae preach the word? an' gin
he wanted a soond foundation for his feet, what better could he get
than the twa Testaments? Answer me that."

It was seen at once that no one could answer that, and the captious
objector never quite recovered his position in the parish, while it is
not the least of Kilbogie's boasting, in which the Auld Kirk will even
join against Drumtochty, that they have a minister who not only does
not read his sermons and does not need to quote his texts, but carries
the whole book in at least three languages in his head, and once, as a
proof thereof, preached with it below his feet.

Much was to be looked for from such a man, but even Mains, whetted by
intercourse with Saunderson, was astonished at the sermon. It was a
happy beginning to draw a parallel between the locusts of Joel and the
mice of Kilbogie, and gave the preacher an opportunity of describing
the appearance, habits, and destruction of the locusts, which he did
solely from Holy Scripture, translating various passages afresh and
combining lights with marvellous ingenuity. This brief preface of half
an hour, which was merely a stimulant for the Kilbogie appetite, led up
to a thorough examination of physical judgments, during which both
Bible and Church history were laid under liberal contribution. At this
point the minister halted, and complimented the congregation on the
attention they had given to the facts of the case, which were his first
head, and suggested that before approaching the doctrine of visitations
they might refresh themselves with a Psalm. The congregation were
visibly impressed, and many made up their minds while singing:

"That man hath perfect blessedness;"

and while others thought it due to themselves to suspend judgment till
they had tasted the doctrine, they afterwards confessed their
confidence. It goes without saying that he was immediately beyond the
reach of the ordinary people on the second head, and even veterans in
theology panted after him in vain, so that one of the elders, nodding
assent to an exposure of the Manichaean heresy, suddenly blushed as one
who had played the hypocrite. Some professed to have noticed a
doctrine that had not been touched upon, but they never could give it a
name, and it excited just admiration that a preacher, starting from a
plague of mice, should have made a way by strictly scientific methods
into the secret places of theology. Saunderson allowed his hearers a
brief rest after the second head, and cheered them with the assurance
that what was still before them would be easy to follow. It was the
application of all that had gone before to the life of Kilbogie, and
the preacher proceeded to convict the parish under each of the ten
commandments--with the plague of mice ever in reserve to silence
excuses--till the delighted congregation could have risen in a body and
taken Saunderson by the hand for his fearlessness and faithfulness.
Perhaps the extent and thoroughness of this monumental sermon can be
best estimated by the fact that Claypots, father of the present tenant,
who always timed his rest to fifty minutes exactly, thus overseeing
both the introduction and application of the sermon, had a double
portion, and even a series of supplementary dozes, till at last he sat
upright through sheer satiety. It may also be offered as evidence that
the reserve of peppermint held by mothers for their bairns was pooled,
doles being furtively passed across pews to conspicuously needy
families, and yet the last had gone before Saunderson finished.

Mains reported to the congregational meeting that the minister had been
quiet for the rest of the day, but had offered to say something about
Habakkuk to any evening gathering, and had cleared up at family worship
some obscure points in the morning discourse. He also informed the
neighbours that he had driven his guest all the way to Muirtown, and
put him in an Edinburgh carriage with his own hands, since it had
emerged that Saunderson, through absence of mind, had made his down
journey by the triangular route of Dundee. It was quite impossible for
Kilbogie to conceal their pride in electing such a miracle of learning,
and their bearing in Muirtown was distinctly changed; but indeed they
did not boast vainly about Jeremiah Saunderson, for his career was
throughout on the level of that monumental sermon. When the Presbytery
in the gaiety of their heart examined Saunderson to ascertain whether
he was fully equipped for the work of the ministry, he professed the
whole Old Testament in Hebrew, and MacWheep of Pitscowrie, who always
asked the candidate to read the twenty-third Psalm, was beguiled by
Jeremiah into the Book of Job, and reduced to the necessity of asking
questions by indicating verbs with his finger. His Greek examination
led to an argument between Jeremiah and Dr. Dowbiggin on the use of the
aorist, from which the minister-elect of Kilbogie came out an easy
first; and his sermons were heard to within measurable distance of the
second head by an exact quorum of the exhausted court, who were kept by
the clerk sitting at the door, and preventing MacWheep escaping. His
position in the court was assured from the beginning, and fulfilled the
function of an Encyclopaedia with occasional amazing results, as when
information was asked about some Eastern sect for whose necessities the
Presbytery were asked to collect, and to whose warm piety affecting
allusion was made, and Jeremiah showed clearly, with the reporters
present, that the Cappadocians were guilty of a heresy beside
which Morisonianism was an unsullied whiteness. His work as
examiner-in-general for the court was a merciful failure, and
encouraged the students of the district to return to their district
court, who on the rumour of him had transferred themselves in a body to
a Highland Presbytery, where the standard question in Philosophy used
to be, "How many horns has a dilemma, and distinguish the one from the
other." No man knew what the minister of Kilbogie might not ask--he
was only perfectly certain that it would be beyond his knowledge; but
as Saunderson always gave the answer himself in the end, and imputed it
to the student, anxiety was reduced to a minimum. Saunderson, indeed,
was in the custom of passing all candidates and reporting them as
marvels of erudition, whose only fault was a becoming modesty--which,
however, had not concealed from his keen eye hidden treasures of
learning. Beyond this sphere the good man's services were not used by
a body of shrewd ecclesiastics, as the inordinate length of an
ordination sermon had ruined a dinner prepared for the court by "one of
our intelligent and large-hearted laymen," and it is still pleasantly
told how Saunderson was invited to a congregational _soiree_--an
ancient meeting where the people ate oranges and the speaker rallied
the minister on being still unmarried--and discoursed---as a carefully
chosen subject--on the Jewish feasts, with illustrations from the
Talmud, till some one burst a paper bag and allowed the feelings of the
people to escape. When this history was passed round Muirtown Market,
Kilbogie thought still more highly of their minister, and indicated
their opinion of the other parish in severely theological language.

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