It is to be hoped
that common sense will discover some 'outgait,' or issue, from this
distressing imbroglio. In the words which Mr. R.L. Stevenson, then a
sage of twenty-four, penned in 1874, we may say 'Those who are at all
open to a feeling of national disgrace look forward eagerly to such a
possibility; they have been witnesses already too long to the strife
that has divided this small corner of Christendom.' The eternal
schisms of the Kirk, said R.L.S., exhibit 'something pitiful for the
pitiful man, but bitterly humorous for others.'
The humour of the present situation is only too manifest. Two
generations ago about half of the ministers of the Kirk of Scotland
left their manses and pleasant glebes for the sake of certain ideas.
Of these ideas they abandoned some, or left them in suspense, a few
years since, and, as a result, they have lost, if only for the moment,
their manses, stipends, colleges, and pleasant glebes.
Why should all these things be so? The answer can only be found in the
history--and a history both sad and bitterly humorous it is--of the
Reformation in Scotland. When John Knox died, on November 24, 1572, a
decent burgess of Edinburgh wrote in his Diary, 'John Knox, minister,
deceased, who had, as was alleged, the most part of the blame of all
the sorrows of Scotland, since the slaughter of the late Cardinal,'
Beaton, murdered at St.
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