Scriptures, and other suitable works: and such a one, who in addition to these rare advantages, has moreover participated in the privileges of a well regulated social institution of the nature above described, perhaps for the fertile space of thirty or forty years: and it will not surprise that he should excel all other peasants in the world. He will inevitably be led to habits of close thinking, to luminous arrangement of ideas, to methodizing of general principles and their results: and his weekly practice will have the effect of generating a facility and compression of style, a rational and serious eloquence. And thus a rustic habituated to such use will be elevated considerably above the capacities of individuals even of the upper classes in other nations. There will be acquired by him a competent skill in Biblical literature, some historical knowledge, and acquaintance with the body of the sacred text and theology in general. There may also be gained exalted views of the attributes, creation, and providence of the Deity, and an estimate of his holiness and truth: a knowledge of the original sin of man, and of the blessed covenant of redemption: adequate concep.. tions of the character and offices of the Messiah; the principles of christian morality; the doctrines of justification, expiation and sanctification of the heart and life; enlarged views of death and its remote consequences :-and particularly a rich and varied store of christian experience; and familiarity with the origin, progress, and maturity of religious operation in the mind. And that this is not mere theory or probability, we may appeal to results that are known to exist. An excellent Divine, in writing somewhere of the lower orders in the North of Scotland, with whose habits he was well informed, states, that their profound observations reminded him of the disquisitions of the celebrated Dr. Owen upon theological subjects, stript of his Greek quotations. And some individuals can say with truth, that, concealed in the recess of a retired fellowship meeting, with a few rustics and mechanics; they have listened to a higher species of teaching from their lips, than it has ever been their lot to hear from the pulpit : and have been utterly astonished at the reach, and noble simplicity of the views of truth, taken by the superior minds among them; as well as captivated by the magnificent sublimity of their language. No man knows the height and depth of the Scottish character, who has not searched its mysteries, and computed its dimensions, in one of those withdrawn, and uncelebrated associations. THE END. |