"Horse! horse!" the Douglas cried, "and chase!" Walter Scott. NOTES.-In the poem from which this extract is taken, Marmion is represented as an embassador sent by Henry VIII., king of England, to James IV., king of Scotland, with whom he was at war. Having finished his mission to James, Marmion was intrusted to the protection and hospitality of Douglas, one of the Scottish nobles. Douglas entertained him, treated him with the respect due to his office and to the honor of his sovereign, yet he despised his private character. Marmion perceived this, and took umbrage at it, though he attempted to repress his resentment, and desired to part in peace. Under these circumstances the scene, as described in this sketch, takes place. Tantallon is the name of the Douglas castle at Bothwell, Scotland. XLII. THE PRESENT. Adelaide Anne Procter, 1825-1864, was the daughter of Bryan Waller Procter, known in literature as "Barry Cornwall." She is the author of several volumes of poetry, and was a contributor to "Good Words," "All the Year Round," and other London periodicals. Her works have been republished in America. Do not crouch to-day, and worship The dead Past, whose life is fled; Hush your voice in tender reverence; Crowned he lies, but cold and dead: For the Present reigns, our monarch, With an added weight of hours; Honor her, for she is mighty! Honor her, for she is ours! See the shadows of his heroes She inherits all his treasures, Living on his grave she stands, Coward, can she reign and conquer XLIII. THE BAPTISM. John Wilson, 1785-1854, a distinguished Scottish author, was born at Paisley. When fifteen years of age, he entered the University of Glasgow; but, three years later, he became a member of Magdalen College, Oxford. Here he attained eminence both as a student and as a proficient in gymnastic games and exercises. Soon after graduating, he purchased an estate near Lake Windermere, and became a companion of Wordsworth and Southey; but he soon left his estate to reside in Edinburgh. In 1817, when "Blackwood's Magazine" was established in, opposition to the "Edinburgh Review," he became chief contributor to that famous periodical. In its pages, he won his chief fame as a writer. In 1820, he succeeded Dr. Thomas Brown as Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh; this position he held for thirty years. His "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life" was published in 1822. This is a collection of pathetic and beautiful tales of domestic life in Scotland. His contributions to Blackwood appeared over the pseudonym of "Christopher North," or more familiarly, "Kit North." Professor Wilson was a man of great physical power and of striking appearance. In character, he was vehement and impulsive; but his writings show that he possessed feelings of deep tenderness. THE rite of baptism had not been performed for several months in the kirk of Lanark. It was now the hottest time of persecution; and the inhabitants of that parish found other places in which to worship God, and celebrate the ordinances of religion. It was now the Sabbath day, and a small congregation of about a hundred souls had met for divine service, in a place more magnificent than any temple that human hands had ever built to Deity. The congregation had not assembled to the toll of the bell, but each heart knew the hour and observed it; for there are a hundred sundials among the hills, woods, moors, and fields; and the shepherd and the peasant see the hours passing by them in sunshine and shadow. The church in which they were assembled, was hewn by God's hand out of the eternal rock. A river rolled its way through a mighty chasm of cliffs, several hundred feet high, of which the one side presented enormous masses, and the other corresponding recesses, as if the great stone girdle had been rent by a convulsion. The channel was overspread with prodigious fragments of rocks or large loose stones, some of them smooth and bare, others containing soil and verdure in their rents and fissures, and here and there crowned with shrubs and trees. The eye could at once command a long-stretching vista, seemingly closed and shut up at both extremities by the coalescing cliffs. This majestic reach of river contained pools, streams, and waterfalls innumerable; and when the water was low -which was now the case, in the common drought-it was easy to walk up this scene with the calm, blue sky overhead, an utter and sublime solitude. On looking up, the soul was bowed down by the feeling of that prodigious height of unscalable, and often overhanging, cliff. Between the channel and the summit of the far extended precipices, were perpetually flying rooks and wood pigeons, and now and then a hawk, filling the profound abyss with their wild cawing, deep murmur, or shrilly shriek. Sometimes a heron would stand erect and still, on some little stone island, or rise up like a white cloud along the black walls of the chasm, and disappear. Winged creatures alone could inhabit this region. The fox and wild cat chose more accessible haunts. Yet, here came the persecuted Christians and worshiped God, whose hand hung over their head those magnificent pillars and arches, scooped out those galleries from the solid rock, and laid at their feet the calm water, in its transparent beauty, in which they could see themselves sitting, in reflected groups, with their Bibles in their hands. Here, upon a semicircular ledge of rocks, over a narrow chasm, of which the tiny stream played in a murmuring waterfall, and divided the congregation into two equal parts, sat about a hundred persons, all devoutly listening to their minister, who stood before them on what might be called a small, natural pulpit of living stone. Up to it there led a short flight of steps, and over it waved the canopy of a tall, graceful birch tree. The pulpit stood in the middle of the channel, directly facing the congregation, and separated from them by the clear, deep, sparkling pool, into which the scarce-heard water poured over the blackened rock. The water, as it left the pool, separated into two streams, and flowed on each side of that altar, thus placing it in an island, whose large, mossy stones were richly embowered under the golden blossoms and green tresses of the broom. At the close of divine service, a row of maidens, all clothed in purest white, came gliding off from the congregation, and, crossing the murmuring stream on stepping stones, arranged themselves at the foot of the pulpit with those who were about to be baptized. Their devout fathers, just as though they had been in their own kirk, had been sitting there during worship, and now stood up before the minister. The baptismal water, taken from that pellucid pool, was lying, consecrated, in an appropriate receptacle, formed by the upright stones that composed one side of the pulpit, and the holy rite proceeded. Some of the younger ones in that semicircle kept gazing down into the pool, in which the whole scene was reflected; and now and then, in spite of the grave looks and admonishing whispers of their elders, letting fall a pebble into the water, that they might judge of its depth, from the length of time that elapsed before the clear air bells lay sparkling on the agitated surface. The rite was over, and the religious service of the day closed by a psalm. The mighty rocks hemmed in the holy sound, and sent it in a more compact volume, clear, sweet, and strong, up to heaven. When the psalm ceased, an echo, like a spirit's voice, was heard dying away, high up among the magnificent architecture of the cliffs; and once more might be noticed in the silence, the reviving voice of the waterfall. Just then, a large stone fell from the top of the cliff into the pool, a loud voice was heard, and a plaid was hung over on the point of a shepherd's staff. Their wake |
