The Ministers in the Islands had attained such
knowledge as may justly be admired in men, who have no motive to
study, but generous curiosity, or, what is still better, desire of
usefulness; with such politeness as so narrow a circle of converse
could not have supplied, but to minds naturally disposed to
elegance.
Reason and truth will prevail at last. The most learned of the
Scottish Doctors would now gladly admit a form of prayer, if the
people would endure it. The zeal or rage of congregations has its
different degrees. In some parishes the Lord's Prayer is suffered:
in others it is still rejected as a form; and he that should make
it part of his supplication would be suspected of heretical
pravity.
The principle upon which extemporary prayer was originally
introduced, is no longer admitted. The Minister formerly, in the
effusion of his prayer, expected immediate, and perhaps perceptible
inspiration, and therefore thought it his duty not to think before
what he should say. It is now universally confessed, that men pray
as they speak on other occasions, according to the general measure
of their abilities and attainments. Whatever each may think of a
form prescribed by another, he cannot but believe that he can
himself compose by study and meditation a better prayer than will
rise in his mind at a sudden call; and if he has any hope of
supernatural help, why may he not as well receive it when he writes
as when he speaks?
In the variety of mental powers, some must perform extemporary
prayer with much imperfection; and in the eagerness and rashness of
contradictory opinions, if publick liturgy be left to the private
judgment of every Minister, the congregation may often be offended
or misled.
There is in Scotland, as among ourselves, a restless suspicion of
popish machinations, and a clamour of numerous converts to the
Romish religion. The report is, I believe, in both parts of the
Island equally false. The Romish religion is professed only in Egg
and Canna, two small islands, into which the Reformation never made
its way. If any missionaries are busy in the Highlands, their zeal
entitles them to respect, even from those who cannot think
favourably of their doctrine.
The political tenets of the Islanders I was not curious to
investigate, and they were not eager to obtrude. Their
conversation is decent and inoffensive. They disdain to drink for
their principles, and there is no disaffection at their tables. I
never heard a health offered by a Highlander that might not have
circulated with propriety within the precincts of the King's
palace.
Legal government has yet something of novelty to which they cannot
perfectly conform. The ancient spirit, that appealed only to the
sword, is yet among them. The tenant of Scalpa, an island
belonging to Macdonald, took no care to bring his rent; when the
landlord talked of exacting payment, he declared his resolution to
keep his ground, and drive all intruders from the Island, and
continued to feed his cattle as on his own land, till it became
necessary for the Sheriff to dislodge him by violence.
The various kinds of superstition which prevailed here, as in all
other regions of ignorance, are by the diligence of the Ministers
almost extirpated.
Of Browny, mentioned by Martin, nothing has been heard for many
years. Browny was a sturdy Fairy; who, if he was fed, and kindly
treated, would, as they said, do a great deal of work. They now
pay him no wages, and are content to labour for themselves.
In Troda, within these three-and-thirty years, milk was put every
Saturday for Greogach, or 'the Old Man with the Long Beard.'
Whether Greogach was courted as kind, or dreaded as terrible,
whether they meant, by giving him the milk, to obtain good, or
avert evil, I was not informed. The Minister is now living by whom
the practice was abolished.
They have still among them a great number of charms for the cure of
different diseases; they are all invocations, perhaps transmitted
to them from the times of popery, which increasing knowledge will
bring into disuse.
They have opinions, which cannot be ranked with superstition,
because they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops
of grain, by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon
has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a
precept annually given in one of the English Almanacks, 'to kill
hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the
better in boiling.'
We should have had little claim to the praise of curiosity, if we
had not endeavoured with particular attention to examine the
question of the Second Sight. Of an opinion received for centuries
by a whole nation, and supposed to be confirmed through its whole
descent, by a series of successive facts, it is desirable that the
truth should be established, or the fallacy detected.
The Second Sight is an impression made either by the mind upon the
eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future
are perceived, and seen as if they were present. A man on a
journey far from home falls from his horse, another, who is perhaps
at work about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly
with a landscape of the place where the accident befalls him.
Another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or
musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of
a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession, and counts the mourners
or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names, if
he knows them not, he can describe the dresses. Things distant are
seen at the instant when they happen.
