about to level their pieces at him, flung his plaid over their faces, and was gone in a moment. "Meanwhile Lindsay had knocked at the door of the old chief, and had asked for admission in friendly language. The door was opened. Mac Ian, while putting on his clothes and calling to his servants to bring some refreshment for his visitors, was shot through the head. Two of his attendants were slain with him. His wife was already up and dressed in such finery as the princesses of the rude Highland glens were accustomed to wear. The assassins pulled off her clothes and trinkets. The rings were not easily taken from her fingers; but a soldier tore them away with his teeth. She died on the following day. "The statesman to whom chiefly this great crime is to be ascribed had planned it with consummate ability; but the execution was complete in nothing but guilt and infamy. A succession of blunders saved three-fourths of the Glencoe men from the fate of their chief. All the moral qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre Hamilton and Glenly on possessed in perfection. But neither seems to have had much professional skill. Hamilton had arranged his plan without making allowance for bad weather, and this in a country and at a season when the weather was very likely to be bad. The consequence was that the fox earths, as he called them, were not stopped in time. Glenlyon and his men committed the error of despatching their hosts with firearms, instead of using the cold steel. The peal and flash of gun after gun gave notice, from three different parts of the valley at once, that murder was doing. From fifty cottages the half-naked peasantry fled under cover of the night to the recesses of their pathless glen. Even the sons of Mac Ian, who had been especially marked out for destruction, contrived to escape. They were roused from sleep by faithful servants. John, who by the death of his father, had become the patriarch of his tribe, quitted his dwelling just as twenty soldiers with fixed bayonets marched up to it. It was broad day long before Hamilton arrived. He found the work not even half performed. About thirty corpses lay wallowing in blood on the dunghills before the doors. One or two women were seen among the number, and-a yet more fearful and piteous sight-a little hand which had been lopped in the tumult of the butchery from some infant. One aged Macdonald was found alive. He was probably too infirm to fly, and, as he was above seventy, was not included in the orders under which Glenlyon had acted. Hamilton murdered the old man in cold blood. The deserted hamlets were then set on fire and the troops departed, driving away with them many sheep and goats, 900 kine and 200 of the small shaggy ponies of the highlands. the "It is said, and may but too easily be believed, that the sufferings of the fugitives were terrible. How many old men, how many women, with babes in their arms, sank down and slept their last sleep in the snow; how many, having crawled, spent with toil and hunger, into nooks among precipices, died in those dark holes, and were picked to the bone by the mountain ravens, can never be known. But it is probable that those who perished by cold, weariness, and want, were not less numerous than those who were slain by the assassins. When the troops had retired, the Macdonalds crept out of the caverns of Glencoe, ventured back to the spot where the huts had formerly stood, collected the scorched corpses from among the smoking ruins, and performed some rude rites of sepulture. The tradition runs that the hereditary bard of the tribe took his seat on a rock which overhung the place of slaughter, and poured forth a long lament over his murdered brethren and his desolate home. Eighty years later that sad dirge was still repeated by the population of the valley." Macaulay. 209 DOMESTIC ASSOCIATIONS. HOME DUTY AND SOCIAL DUTY. I MUST begin by telling you frankly, that we must all be just before we are generous. I must, indeed, speak plainly on this point. A woman's first duties are to her own family, her own servants. Be not deceived: if any one cannot rule her own family, she is a poor member of the Church of Christ. If any one cannot sympathise with the servants with whom she is in contact all day long, she will not readily sympathise with the poor whom she sees once a week. I know the temptation not to believe this is very great. It seems so much easier to women to do something for the poor than for their own ladiesmaids, and housemaids, and cooks. And why? Because they can treat the poor as things: but they must treat their servants as persons. A lady can go into a poor cottage, lay down the law to the inhabitants, reprove them for sins to which she has never been tempted; tell them how to set things right, which, if she had the doing of them, I fear she would do even more confusedly and slovenly than they. She can give them a tract, as she might a pill; and then a shilling, as something sweet after the medicine; and she can go out again and see no more of them till her benevolent mood returns; but with the servants it is not so. She knows their characters; and what is more, they know hers; they know her private history, her little weaknesses. Perhaps she is a little in their power, and she is shy with them. She is afraid of beginning a good work with them, because, if she does, she will be forced to carry it out; and it cannot be cold, dry, perfunctory, official. It must be hearty, living, loving, personal. She must make them her friends; and perhaps she is afraid of doing that, for fear they should take liberties, as it is called, which they very probably will do, unless she keeps up a very high standard of self-restraint and earnestness in her own life-and that involves a great deal of trouble; and so she is tempted, when she wishes to do good, to fall back on the poor people in the cottages outside, who as she fancies, know nothing about her, and will never find out whether she acts up to the rules she lays down for them. Be not deceived, I say, in this case also. Fancy not that they know nothing about you. There is nothing secret which shall not be made manifest; and what you do in the closet is surely proclaimed (and often with exaggeration enough) on the housetop. These poor folks at your gate know well enough through your servants and tradesmen, what you are, how you treat your servants, how you pay your bills, and what sort of temper you have; and they form a shrewd hard estimate of your character, in the light of which they view all that you do and say to them. And believe me, too, that if you shrink from a hearty patriarchal sympathy with your own servants, because it would require too much personal human intercourse with them, you are like a man, who, finding he had not powder enough to fire off a pocket-pistol, should try to better matters by using the same amount of ammunition in an 84-pound gun. For it is this very human friendship, trust, affection, which is the very thing you have to employ the poor, and to call upon them. Clubs, societies, alms, lending libraries, are but dead machinery, needful, perhaps, but, like the iron tube without the powder, unable to send the bullet forth one single inch-dead and useless lumber, without humanity; without the smile of the lip, the light of the eye, the tenderness of the voice; which makes a poor woman feel that a soul is speaking to her soul, a heart after her heart; that she is not merely a thing to be improved, but a sister to be made conscious of the Divine bond of her sisterhood, and taught what she means, when she repeats in her Creed, "I believe in the communion of saints."-Rev. Chas. Kingsley. HINTS TO PROMOTE HARMONY IN A FAMILY. 1. We may be quite sure that our will is likely to be crossed in the day, so prepare for it. 2. Everybody in the house has an evil nature as well as ourselves, and therefore we are not to expect too much. 3. To learn the different temper of each individual. 4. To look upon each member of the family as one for whose soul we are bound to watch, as those that must give account. 5. When any good happens to any one, to rejoice at it. 6. When inclined to give an angry answer, to lift up the heart in prayer. 7. If from sickness, pain, or infirmity, we feel irritable, to keep a very strict watch over ourselves. 8. To observe when others are so suffering, and drop a word of kindness and sympathy suited to them. 9. To watch for little opportunities of pleasing, and to put little annoyances out of the way. 10. To take a cheerful view of every thing, and encourage hope. 11. To speak kindly to the servants, and praise them for little things when you can. 12. In all little pleasures which may occur, to put self last. 13. To try for “the soft answer that turneth away wrath.” 14. When we have been pained by an unkind word or deed, to ask ourselves, "Have I not often done the same, and been forgiven ?" 15. In conversation not to exalt ourselves, but bring others forward. 16. To be very gentle with the younger ones, and treat them with respect. 17. Never to judge one another, but attribute a good motive when we can. CHOIRS AND BANDS OF SINGERS. THERE is no point of ecclesiastical history more certain, than that choral music, whatever be its merits, is a thing of Popish origin. It was altogether unknown to the first ages of Christianity. In those ages, the whole body of believers sang together the praises of God. The establishment of choral music was one of the very first manifestations of the spirit of the great apostacy. According to Eusebius the historian, this establishment first took place in the church at Antioch, in the fourth century, during the reign of Constantine-the period from which is to be dated the appearance of the "Man of Sin," and the development of the principles of Popish enormity. In that self-same century, the decree was passed, which sealed the lips of the church and people of God! They were prohibited from any further public praise of the Lamb, and a monopoly of praise was conferred upon a few individuals called the Choir! The Council of Laodicea ordained that none but the canons, or, as the word implies, singing men, should presume to sing in the public worshipping assemblies. Henceforward, musical science became confined in a great measure to ecclesiastics, and was regarded as the peculiar business of monks and priests. Such was the origin of choral music; and certainly, such an origin and such an object, are calculated to excite suspicion with respect to its character and tendencies, under any circumstances, and in any section of the Reformed Churches. Setting aside prejudice, however, we must look at a subject of so much importance in the light of reason and of Scripture, listening at the same time to experience. A writer of great independence and originality delivers his opinion on the subject in the following terms. 66 Everything calculated to disturb the gravity so requisite in the worship of God, should be carefully avoided. As places of worship are not theatres for the exhibition of public performers, bands of singers should find no place there. These are not only an obstruction to congregational singing, but frequently occasion disputes highly injurious to the usefulness of a minister, and to the peace of his people." If this witness be true, the point is settled at once. It only remains for ministers and people to set their faces as a flint against the introduction of so portentous an evil. Of the truth of these charges, to the fullest extent in many cases, there can be no manner of doubt; but that such evils are inseparable from the existence of bands in all instances is not proved. Let us hear another author, a man of judgment and experience : "In the country, this business usually devolves upon a choir; which, if well trained and regulated, is a great blessing to any place of worship; but which, if badly managed, or composed of improper materials, is one of the greatest plagues with which a congregation can be burdened." This is simply the truth, well and strongly expressed, without violence or exaggeration. The following lines, from the pen of the late Rev. Rowland Hill, deserve deep attention from all who compose choirs. The last time he supplied the pulpit at Wotton-under-Edge, circumstances connected with the choir seem to have grieved him; on that occasion, he dictated the following terrible chastisement, entitled, "A hint to all gallery singers; wherever the cap fits, let them wear it." "In solemn ranks behold we stand, While o'er our tuneful notes we glide, But how impossible to sing The praise of our most Holy King, Whilst such can sing his cleansing blood, That bids all hateful sin depart, When grace divine renews the heart! Who emulates an angel's song, With such a heart, and such a tongue! And, oh! what scandal and offence Proceed to God's own cause from hence, Let silence seize that lying tongue, Might send the sinner down to dwell Amid the darksome shades of hell! Great God in mercy, yet impart Thy powerful grace to change the heart; Where angels chant their songs divine!" The subject against which Mr. Hill deals out this tremendous condemnation is the want of personal piety on the part of such as compose the choir. This is the reigning evil of choirs generally. So far as our observation has gone, they are ofttimes largely composed of thoughtless young persons, who make no pretensions to piety. This is a very serious matter. Ungodly persons can be actuated to enter a choir, only by one or other of two motives, viz., the love of display, or the love of music, or a union of both. Either motive is, or ought to be, a bar to their admission. Exclusion is the kindest thing that can be done to the infatuated individuals, who thus presume to profane and mock the worship of the eternal God! If they repent not, the time will come when they will wish they had rather been anywhere than in the choir! For their own sakes, therefore, none should be admitted who have not made a credible profession of the Gospel, -none who do not fear God and love the Saviour. For the sake of the Redeemer's cause, Mr. Hill pathetically observes, none else ought to be admitted. From their separate and prominent position, and from the nature of their function, every eye is upon them. They soon become known to the whole people. Their levities within doors, and without, are marked and observed-a source of grief to the godly, and of scandal to the profane. Nor is this all; unless controlled by a firm and judicious clerk, they will infallibly mar the worship by a selection of such tunes as are but ill-suited, generally, to the congregation, and at best serve to feed their own vanity. In this and other ways, they will, if, ås Mr. Ford observes, they be composed of "improper materials," proye one of the greatest plagues" with which the Church of God can be afflicted.* Christian Witness. ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 66 At the request of the "Liberation of Religion Society," we beg to call the attention of our readers to the following matters of public interest. THE CHURCH RATE QUESTION.-The Church Rate Abolition Party succeeded in carrying the second reading of Sir Willian Clay's Bill, on the 5th March, by a majority of 43. It is a significant circumstance that although about the same number of Members (400) voted in 1854, 1855, and 1856, the opponents of Church Rates have each year increased their majority, and, as no less than 87 liberal members were absent on the 5th ult., they calculate on a still further increase, while the supporters of Church Rates have, it is believed, brought out their utmost strength. On this last occasion the Government, as such, voted for the Bill, instead of leaving it an open question as heretofore; reserving to themselves, however, the right of proposing some material alterations in Committee. These have since been published, and their character, as well as the view taken of them by the leaders of the abolitionists, may be learned from the following resolutions on the subject, passed by the Executive Committee of the Liberation of Religion Society. "That this committee, retaining the conviction, that the entire repeal of the law of Church Rates would be most consistent with sound policy, and conducive to the interests of religion, is earnestly desirous that the bill introduced for that purpose should receive the sanction of legislature. That having examined the amendments in such bill, of which notice has been given by the Home Secretary, it finds that they, in effect, entirely abolish Church Rates in a large number of parishes-give power to other parishes to retain or to abolish them, at their discretion-and, where rates may continue to be levied, exempt from payment all who may think fit to declare themselves not to be members of the Church of England. That as these provisions are in harmony with, though falling short of the object aimed at by this committee, and do not preclude further proceedings for securing its complete realisation, the committee deems it expedient to support the Government in its efforts to carry the bill, as so amended, through both Houses of Parliament. That in arriving at such determination, this *We thought the above, which treats the question of Choirs on both sides, would be likely to minister to the edification of our readers.-EDITOR. |