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LIKE HIM.
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"We shall be like Him," what is this 1 read?
We shall be like Him, is it so indeed?
Like Him, our Lord, the Holy One. the Fair,
And in the glory of His kingdom share.
We shall be like Him, Ah, we cannot tell
What meaneth it, until with Him we dwell;
Then bouI of mine, thou shalt be satisfied,
Awaking with His likeness to abide.
Is earth against thee, and thy path-way hedged?
Wait but His time, the word of God is pledged;
With Him, like Him, forever more at home,
Wihen He with his ten-thousand saints shall come.
Watchman on Zion's wall, what dost thou see?
Turn to the East, and tell us presently,?
For we shall be like Him, when day appears,
And God himself shall wipe away all tears.
Marlinton, 'West Virginia.
SCOTLAND'S HISTORIC ROCK.
BY THE REV. JAMES JOHNSTON.
Not a few of the distinguished guests from
Europe, America and other parts of the globe
who celebrated in September the live hundredth
anniversary of St. Andrews, the oldest university
in Scotland, visited the world-famous Bass
Rock on the opposite side of the Firth of Forth,
skirting the Haddingtonshire coast.
The "wonderful craig," as a French officer
styled it centuries gone, apart from its extraorHinnrv
formation and shaDe. rising DreciDitOUslv
from ocean depths, is dear to Scotia's sons. Not
simply from the winds that blow over it and the
sea beneath its rocks, but on account of the splendid
witness it has borne to the faith in Reformation
and Covenanting times.
Although the traditional records of the Bass
extend back to the eighth century, relating to
one Fr. Baldred, a Celtic missionary, and reappear
in the turbulent Middle Ages of the thir
LUUIllIl UiiU 1UU1 IDClilU tcuiuuc^ It JO UUljr ill tUU
seventeenth century that the celebrated islet
plays a distinctly notable part in. the national
history of Scotland. Captured by Cromwell,
after it had been in the hands of the Lauder
family for many generations, the Bass subsequently
fell into the hands of Charles II, who
used it as a State prison.
Then came a black period in the annals of the
Bass, which has made its name so widely renowned.
"Within its dreary dungeons several of
the most eminent of the Scottish Covenanters
were thrown. Horrors well-nigh unnamable
were Demetrated on the Covenanters committee.
both in Dunnotar Castle and on the Bass Rock.
About forty individuals, principally ministers
of the gospel, were confined to the Bass, their
terms of imprisonment ranging from two months
to six years, many of them contracting illnesses
which enfeebled them for the rest of their lives.
The prisoners were seldom allowed to leave their
cells.
The ruins of the "Castle" on the Rock bear
out what these unfortunate souls said they had
endured in its gloomy dungeons. Sir Walter
Scott makes Tlabbaknk Mueklewrath assert, that
his visions of slaughter and vengeance were made
known to him in that awful prison of despair,
"that overhangeth the wide, wide sea." The
dungeons received the perpetual moisture from
the precipices above them, and were washed in
the sprays of the stormy seas below them.
Among the forty sufferers or more in the Bass
Rock prison the two best known worthies are
Alexander Peden and John Blackadder. Peden,
the fiery prophet of the Covenanters, was one of
four hundred ministers who were ejected from
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SC
"leadings
i ?
*6
their charges for refusing to be presented by
their respective patrons. So dauntless was this
hero of the prophetic soul and uncommon gifts
that he refused to obey the order ejecting him,
and only forcible measures removed Peden from
his church. Peden lay four years in the island
prison.
In the case of the distinguished preacher, John
Blackadder, his prison on the Bass proved his
grave. A man of good descent, whose nama still
lingers on the Bass Rock, Blackadder was one
of the mast determined of the itinerant preachers.
Outlawed in 1674, a reward of 1,000 merks
was offered for his apprehension, notwithstand
ing winch lie continued to preach to large congregations
in the fields and on the braes. He
made a voyage to Holland, and settled his son
as a student of medicine at Leyden. Returning
to Scotland in 1681, he was arrested and deported
to the State prison on the Bass. He suffered
greatly in his damp cell. His friends made zealous
efforts to secure the brave man's release, but
ere it was accomplished the spirit of John Blackadder
four years later fled from its islet prison.
Blackadder's remains lie in the North Berwick
churchyard, on the mainland near by, one of the
most hallowed spots on Scotland's shores, containing
also the dust of fellow witness-bearers.
The precipices of the northern face of the
Rock have ever been the home of those who know
no imprisonment?the solan geese of the Bass.
It is easy to imagine how the eyes of the prisoners
from out their grimy cells must have followed
the flight of the ancestors of the birds who inhabit
the rock today, as they took their free
way by their dungeon windows.
Literary as well as historical associations entwine
themselves around the Bass. Robert Louis
Stevenson, as an Ediburgh boy and man, naturally
took great interest in the Bass Rock, and
his knowledge of it and its history was used by
him with fine effect in his romance, "Catriona,"
where David Balfour figures as a victim immured
on the historic islet. It is an eerie narrative,
fit to rank with that older most powerful
short story, "The Tapestried Chamber," by Sir
Walter Scott, who, by the way, depicts in "Marmion,"
in stirring lines, the fortunes of the
iwugiasses linked with the time-swept towers
and battlements of Tantallon Castle, perched on
the adjacent rocky cliffs to the Bass. So again,
Ilugli Miller described its physical appearance,
and portrayed in his own masterly style its undying
spiritual and heroic memories. Some two
hundred years earlier Daniel Defoe makes interesting
references to the celebrated Rock.
In 1701 the fortress on the Bass was razed after
a body of soldiers, fighting for the declining
Stuart cause, surrendered, and until the erection
some years of the Bass Rock light-house of 39,000
candle power, which nightly throws its line of
light across the troubled waters,little has changed
in the outlook from this island fortress. Sub
isequeiuiy, in iyuo, tne autnorities erected there
an automatic foghorn worked by compressed air,
which gives every minute in foggy weather a
blast that can be heard miles out at sea. Fishermen
say that the noise of the great siren is scaring
away numbers of its millions of sea birds,
among which the solan geese have hitherto reigned
undisturbed for centuries on the Bass Rock.
Referring to the roll of the martyrs of the
Bass, a writer eloquently observes, " Is it nothing
to you, all ye who pass by? Is this everlasting
Rock silent; has it no word to say to the idlers
IUTH [March 13, 1912 |
of an idle day? Those who land on its narrow
bounds are treading on soil which has been /
pressed by the feet of those who have endured (
unto the end," whose names are in the book of
life.?New York Observer. \
RELIGION AND EDUCATION.
Vmm. + V.~ 1 1? /XT V \ * -
x .vm tuo xjiuouui journal, Monday,
October 2: William Jennings Bryan made the
principal address last evening at the union service
at the First Presbyterian church of the
city, a service held under the auspices of the
Presbyterian Association of the University of
Nebraska. This Association is the representative
of the Synod of Nebraska, directing the
students affiliated with this particular church.
The service was called a recognition service,
marking the larger relationship which Rev. Dean
R. Leland holds toward this work, beginning
this year.
For the past two years the First Presbyterian
church has stood sponsor for the work and now
the work will be conducted for the Synod of
Nebraska in co-operation with the board of education
of the Presbyterian Church of the United
States. Rev. Leon Young, of Beatrice, as president
of the Association, presided and Dr. W. W.
Lawrence delivered a brief charge to the university
pastor.
Chancellor Avery in introducing Mr. Bryan
took occasion to express his interest in the
student work of the churches of the community
and the influence of such work upon the university
life. He said he felt the great importance
of spiritual and ethical culture along with
the studies in the regular lines. He expressed
great interest in the results that have been attained
here in our own university and in the
ereneral
? .uv/ nvin numu mis movement
inaugurates. Mr. Bryan spoke in part as follows
:
"There are in attendance at the Nebraska University
some six hundred young men and young
women who come from Presbyterian homes, and
the members of this denomination can not be indifferent
to the religious growth and development
of these students who are destined to exert
that large influence which educational advantages
will give them. Dr. Leland has been
selected by the authorities of the church and put
in charge of this branch of the work.
"The university pastor, or personal counsellor
in religion, is a necessity; he is a result of
modern conditions. The great state university,
which has acquired a fixed Dosition in nnr
tional system and enjoys a growing influence,
can not fully satisfy the spiritual wants of the
students. There are two respects in which it is
at a disadvantage as compared with the smaller
denominational colleges. First, the personal contact
with the student is not so intimate in the
large institution as in the smaller one, and,
second, an institution supported by public taxation
can net apply to its instructors the religious
tests applied in denominatioiuil schools.
As the spiritual needs of university students are
as great as those of other students it follows
that, if such needs are to be supplied, they must
oe supplied from some source outside the institution.
The church would seem to be the proper
instrumentality. Sectarianism is not unduly emphasized
when each denomination seeks to extend
its protecting influence to those who go
from its local churches to enter the university.
"The minor is recognized by law as immature
in judgment and constantly in need of instruction.
The young always and everywhere require
for this proper training the assistance of those
who feel a deep and sympathetic interest in their
moral development. Even students need th^ir