Principal Cairns | Page 9

or have their own intellectual powers stimulated in the
bracing atmosphere it has created. The instances of Robert Burns and
Thomas Carlyle, who both came out of homes in which religion--and
religion of the old Scottish type--was the deepest interest, will occur to
everyone. Not the least striking illustration of this principle is shown in
the case of John Cairns. In the life of his soul he owed much to the
godly upbringing and Christian example shown to him by his parents;

but the home at Dunglass, where religion was always the chief concern,
was the nursery of a strong mind as well as of a strong soul, and both
were fed from the same spring. In this case, as in so many others,
spiritual strength became intellectual strength in the second generation.
The Cairns family attended church at Stockbridge, a mile beyond
Cockburnspath and two miles from Dunglass, and the father was an
elder there from 1831 till his death. The United Secession--formerly the
Burgher--Church at Stockbridge occupied a site conveniently central
for the wide district which it served, but very solitary. It stood amid
cornfields, on the banks of a little stream, and looked across to the
fern-clad slopes of Ewieside, an outlying spur of the Lammermoors.
Except the manse, and the beadle's cottage which adjoined it, there was
no house within sight, nor any out of sight less than half a mile away.
The minister at this time was the Rev. David M'Quater Inglis, a man of
rugged appearance and of original and vigorous mental powers. He was
a good scholar and a stimulating preacher, excelling more particularly
in his expository discourses, or "lectures" as they used to be called.
When he tackled some intricate passage in an Epistle, it was at times a
little hard to follow him, especially as his utterance tended to be
hesitating; but when he had finished, one saw that a broad clear road
had been cut through the thicket, and that the daylight had been let in
upon what before had been dim. "I have heard many preachers," said
Dr. Cairns, in preaching his funeral sermon nearly forty years later,
"but I have heard few whose sermons at their best were better than the
best of his; and his everyday ones had a strength, a simplicity, and an
unaffected earnestness which excited both thought and Christian
feeling." Nor was he merely a preacher. By his pastoral visitations and
"diets of examination" he always kept himself in close touch with his
people, and he made himself respected by rich and poor alike.
The shepherd's family occupied a pew at Stockbridge in front of the
pulpit and just under the gallery, which ran round three sides of the
church. That pew was rarely vacant on a Sunday. There was no herding
to be done on that day, and in the morning the father looked the sheep
in the parks himself that the herd-boy might have his full Sabbath rest.

He came back in time to conduct family worship, this being the only
morning in the week when it was possible for him to do so, although in
the evening it was never omitted, and on Sunday evening was always
preceded by a repetition of the Shorter Catechism. After worship the
family set out for church, where the service began at eleven.
The situation of Stockbridge, it has been already said, was solitary, but
on Sundays, when the hour of worship drew near, the place lost its
solitude. The roads in all directions were thronged with vehicles, men
on horseback, and a great company on foot; the women wearing the
scarlet cloaks which had not yet given place to the Paisley shawls of a
later period, and each carrying, neatly wrapped in a white handkerchief,
a Bible or Psalm-book, between whose leaves were a sprig or two of
southernwood, spearmint, or other fragrant herb from the cottage
garden.
The service lasted about three hours. There was first a "lecture" and
then a sermon, each about fifty minutes long; several portions of
psalms were sung; and of the three prayers, the first, or "long prayer,"
was seldom less than twenty minutes in length. In summer there was an
interval of half an hour between the lecture and the sermon, "when,"
says Mr. William Cairns, "there was opportunity for a delightful
breathing-time, and the youths who were swift of foot could just reach
the bottom of a hill whereon were plenteous blaeberries, and snatch a
fearful joy if one could swallow without leaving the tell-tale marks on
the lips and tongue."
At the close of the afternoon service there was a Sunday school, chiefly
conducted by Mr. Inglis himself, at which an examination on the
sermon that had just been delivered formed an important part of the
exercises.