190 EDITOR. 



nature ; but the truth of this statement does not neu- 

 tralize the fact that, under the reign of Moderatism, a 

 literary and philosophical lustre was thrown over Scot- 

 land for which, in the more earnest epoch of dominant 

 Evangelicism, we look in vain. 



It may be asked how we can hold, first, that ' Scotch 

 literature and thought' in modern times owed their 

 superiority to ' Knox and the Covenanters,' and secondly, 

 that the ecclesiastical party under whose influence the 

 literature and thought of Scotland have fallen from that 

 ascendency which they attained under Moderate sway, 

 were in deeper sympathy with 'Knox and the Covenant- 

 ers ' than their Moderate antagonists. The answer, if 

 we will reflect for a moment, is not difficult. Sir Walter 

 Scott painted a hero in Claverhouse ; Burns was ' the 

 fighting man ' of the Moderate clergy of his district, and 

 did not scruple to sneer in his satirical verses at the 

 ' holy folks ' who ' believe in John Knox : ' yet Carlyle 

 expressly mentions Scott and Burns as having become 

 what they were through the accomplished work of the 

 Scottish Reformers and Covenanters. And he is right. 

 These, under God, made the nation strong of spirit 

 and proud of heart, capable of producing a Burns 

 or a Scott. In like manner the Moderatism of Scot- 

 land, with its mellow splendour of intellectual light, 

 was a fruit of that tree which had been planted in 

 the olden time amid the storms of war and the 

 fierce contendings of faction. It would not be pleas- 

 ant to think that the good there was in Moderatism 

 has been lost to Scotland and the world. One may be 

 permitted to hold loth that the Evangelical majority 

 which led forth the Free Church in 1843 bore with 

 them the old Scottish ark of the covenant, the essential 

 principles of the Scottish Reformed Church, and that 



