The Scottish Philosophy [56]
of men and horses, and in such articles as oats, bear, mutton, salmon, geese, poultry, and peats. In these regions the peasantry had not been taught to think and act for themselves, as they had been in the south-west by the ploughing {92} up of the soil effected by the great covenanting movement. But in some of the towns, particularly in Aberdeen, which was looked up to as a capital by a considerably wide district, there was not a little refinement, which spread its influence over the landlords, the ministers of religion, and the other professional men: in particular, there had been in the city named a gifted painter, Jameson, a disciple of Rubens; and a very superior printer, Raban, who put in type the works of the Aberdeen doctors. The two universities, King's and Marischial's, trained and sent forth a large body of educated men, some of whom found their proper field on the Continent; while the great body of them remaining at home, were the special instruments-as teachers, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, or country gentlemen-of spreading a civilizing influence in these regions. For ten years after the Restoration, seventy students entered annually at King's, and a considerable number, though not so large, at Marischal some of these rose to eminence, and all of them helped to create a taste for learning and an appreciation for it, on the southern slope of the Grampians, and in the wide region lying north of that range of mountains, which was never crossed by the Roman legions, but was now conquered by the Roman literature.
The Calvinistic and covenanting principles which had determined the Scottish character in the south and west, and so far north as Fife, Perth, and some parts of Angus, had not generally permeated the region beyond. No doubt, the common people in the northern counties gladly listened to the evangelical preachers from the west, when they had the opportunity; and some of the covenanting ministers, banished in the times of persecution from their own people in the south, gathered around them in the places of their exile -- as Samuel Rutherford in Aberdeen, David Dickson in Turriff - - bodies of devoted adherents attached to the Presbyterian preaching and organization. Still these were as yet merely fermenting, but leavening, centres in the midst of influences which were resisting their extension. In the wide country held by the Gordon family, the Roman Catholic religion still held its sway. In the other parts, the landlords, the college regents, and the clergy were mostly Cavalier in politics and High Church in religion; and the mass of the people bad not learned to claim the prerogative {93} of thinking and acting for themselves. When a deputation from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland-consisting of Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, and Andrew Cant-went north to Aberdeen to proclaim the Covenant in 1638, they were met by "Replies and Duplies" on the part of the Aberdeen doctors, and the landlords discouraged their tenantry from following the new zeal imported from the south. The divines of Aberdeen, during that century, such as Baron and John Forbes (author of "Irenicum"), were adherents of Episcopacy; their studies were in the later fathers of the church, and their sympathies with the Laudean divines of England; and like them they wrote against Popery on the one hand, and Puritanism on the other. It was years after the Revolution before the Presbyterian Church could put its legal rights in execution in the north-east of Scotland. Almost all the old Presbyterian ministers had disappeared; and, in 1694, the Synod of Aberdeen consisted of six clerical members, most of them brought from the south. It was not till 1703 that John Willison was settled as first Presbyterian minister at Brechin in Angus; it was not till 1708 that he was in a position to dispense the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. When he intimated that he was to do so next Lord's day, Mr. Skinner, the Episcopalian minister who preached in the same church in the after part of the day, announced that he would dispense
The Calvinistic and covenanting principles which had determined the Scottish character in the south and west, and so far north as Fife, Perth, and some parts of Angus, had not generally permeated the region beyond. No doubt, the common people in the northern counties gladly listened to the evangelical preachers from the west, when they had the opportunity; and some of the covenanting ministers, banished in the times of persecution from their own people in the south, gathered around them in the places of their exile -- as Samuel Rutherford in Aberdeen, David Dickson in Turriff - - bodies of devoted adherents attached to the Presbyterian preaching and organization. Still these were as yet merely fermenting, but leavening, centres in the midst of influences which were resisting their extension. In the wide country held by the Gordon family, the Roman Catholic religion still held its sway. In the other parts, the landlords, the college regents, and the clergy were mostly Cavalier in politics and High Church in religion; and the mass of the people bad not learned to claim the prerogative {93} of thinking and acting for themselves. When a deputation from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland-consisting of Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, and Andrew Cant-went north to Aberdeen to proclaim the Covenant in 1638, they were met by "Replies and Duplies" on the part of the Aberdeen doctors, and the landlords discouraged their tenantry from following the new zeal imported from the south. The divines of Aberdeen, during that century, such as Baron and John Forbes (author of "Irenicum"), were adherents of Episcopacy; their studies were in the later fathers of the church, and their sympathies with the Laudean divines of England; and like them they wrote against Popery on the one hand, and Puritanism on the other. It was years after the Revolution before the Presbyterian Church could put its legal rights in execution in the north-east of Scotland. Almost all the old Presbyterian ministers had disappeared; and, in 1694, the Synod of Aberdeen consisted of six clerical members, most of them brought from the south. It was not till 1703 that John Willison was settled as first Presbyterian minister at Brechin in Angus; it was not till 1708 that he was in a position to dispense the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. When he intimated that he was to do so next Lord's day, Mr. Skinner, the Episcopalian minister who preached in the same church in the after part of the day, announced that he would dispense