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are now blotted out," let us, also with the Assembly, "cherish the hope," if we can, "that the new system may be productive of the same benefit to the country."

NOTE.

At the close of my address Mr George J. Campbell complained of the brevity and inadequacy of my notice of the Free Church schools. I frankly confess that his complaint is not without foundation. But my omission was not accidental, or a mere oversight. The educational attitude of the Free Church, if dealt with at all, would require copious and most delicate handling. The programme of 1843 was, indeed, grandly ambitious. All over the length and breadth of Scotland it aimed at a Non-Intrusion church and school, set down at the door of every church and school of the Establishment. Now, nothing is more likely than that, when viewed in the short perspective of less than fifty years, the motive of this ambitious programme may be seriously misunderstood. I knew something of the men who made the Free Church in the North, and I feel bound to credit them with nobler motives than unmingled ambition, or mingled ambition and resentment. What was their raison d'être for the Free Church? It was their belief, so loudly proclaimed at the time, that the Spirit of God had left the old Church, from which, therefore, "conscience compelled them to come out and be separate." In this they may have been terribly mistaken. But undoubtedly it was their honest belief; and, from that point of view, we are bound to concede that a real concern for the godly upbringing of the young was the most potent factor in their attitude to the schools of the National Church. These schools, whether belonging to the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, or to the General Assembly's Education Committee, as well as the old Parochial Schools, they denounced not less uncompromisingly than the churches. "The leprosy was in their walls, and their teaching graduated for hell." Now, these men may, as I have said, have been utterly and entirely mistaken; but no man has a right to say that they did not honestly believe every word of what thus, with such dreadful earnestness, they continually asserted. With the men who in 1843 made the Free Church in the North, this magnificent programme of Free Church schools became thus a logical, as well as a religious, necessity. And was it not a splendid testimony to the rightful place of the Christian religion in the schools of a Christian land? But where is that testimony to-day? The schools of Scotland are secularised;

and it is the hand of the Free Church that has done it. If only the needful funds had been forthcoming, her splendid testimony of 1843 might still perhaps hold up its banner bravely. But when the funds were not forthcoming this splendid testimony of the Free Church schools was stopped. And, with her own, she must needs also haul down the banner of her more fortunate neighbour. To the old Church of Scotland her schools had never been a burden, but a great delight. Over and over again she proclaimed her willingness to charge herself with the whole school education of Scotland. But it must not be she must abdicate the position which her neighbour cannot afford to share with her. Now, if in my address I had at all taken up the history of the Free Church schools, these things could not possibly be passed over; nor could I avoid the consideration of more recent and even more significant developments, strangely incompatible with the high position of exclusive spirituality on which, in 1843, began that splendid ecclesiastical drama, now fast ripening into tragedy. From all such ground of controversy I naturally wished to keep aloof, and I only regret that I should, however unwillingly, have been compelled thus briefly to touch upon it. For an impartial history of the Free Church of Scotland the time is not yet, nor will a meeting of the Gaelic Society--where Protestant and Catholic, Churchman and Dissenter, meet and work only as brother Highlanders-ever be the proper place for its discussion.

13th NOVEMBER, 1889.

At this meeting the following gentlemen were elected members of the Society-Charles Julian Brewster Macpherson of Bellville, Kingussie, honorary member; John Gunn, 14 Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh; Eneas Mackintosh, The Doune, Daviot; John B. Hatt, Abbey School, Fort-Augustus; Walter Jamieson, Glenarm, Ireland; Rev. F. H. I. MacCormick, Whitehaven ; Hector Macpherson, 7 View Place, Inverness; John Cook, commission agent, 21 Southside Road, Inverness; and John Finlayson, commercial traveller, Elsie Cottage, Porterfield, Inverness-ordinary members. The Secretary intimated the receipt of Dr Bedel's copy of the Old Testament in the Irish language of date 1685, from Mr Paul Campbell, Blair-Athole, as a donation towards the Society's Library. Thereafter Alex. Macbain, M.A., read a paper contributed

by the Rev. Mr Macgregor, Farr, entitled "Celts and Teutons." Mr Macgregor's paper was as follows:

:

CELTS AND TEUTONS—A STUDY IN ANTHROPOLOGY.

The history of Europe for the last fifteen centuries has been mainly the history of the two races whom we know as the Celts and the Teutons. Before that epoch, of course, the Latin power was supreme over the greater part of the world, and all other nations were of comparatively little account. But when the Roman Empire was at the height of its greatness, signs were not wanting to show that the inheritance of the Cæsars was soon to pass away into the hands of others. As early as the year 9 A.D., tidings came to the imperial city that a great disaster had befallen the empire. The army of Varus-the whole forces of the hitherto unconquered Rome-had been defeated, and nearly exterminated by the Germans, amid the dark forests and treacherous morasses of their Fatherland. It was the first serious check which had been given to a people whose career for many generations had been one brilliant success. The Rhine from that day became the eastern boundary of the Roman territory, and the ancient Germania remained, what the modern Germany is to this day, the home of a free and a mighty nation. This event may be called the turning point in the history of Rome. It was the first step in the decline, that ended in the fall of come centuries later. The warrior, whose campaign came to such a disastrous end, is said to have killed himself in despair, and the Emperor Augustus never ceased grieving for the loss of his splendid legions. He had cause to grieve, for the loss was all the harder to bear, because it meant the loss of prestige and the beginning of national ruin. The Germans still remember with pardonable pride the glory of that day; and Herman, who led his countrymen to victory at the battle, which is known as Herman-Schlacht, or Herman's fight, has been immortalised, as the Wallace, or King Arthur of his native country.

So much for the first decisive blow that was struck by the Teuton for liberty and fame. Symptoms had begun long before this time to show that the Celt also was destined to achieve greatness. Many ages before the time of Herman, the Gauls had struck terror into the hearts of the Senators in the City of the Seven Hills. Brennus, a Gaulish chief, whose name is evidently the Latin form of Bran, or Brian, a well-known Celtic title, was the hero of this adventure. At the head of a mighty army he invaded

Italy, and subdued it easily. Rome fell before him in the year 390 B.C., and the Senate was glad to pay a heavy ransom to propitiate the conqueror, and save the country from further loss. This brought the war to an end for a time. The invaders returned to their homes, and allowed their discomfited enemies to rest, and gain strength for new enterprises. It is very remarkable how, on this occasion, the Gauls showed the invariable characteristics of their race. With them it was simply an impetuous attack, victorious, of course, but not followed by any permanent advantage. The fight being over, and the booty won, they were quite content to give up the conquered territory and enjoy the profits of their raid, without any thought of improving their position for the future.

Many years passed away, and many changes came over the spirit of their dream. Rome grew stronger. Carthage fell into her hands, and the classic land of Greece was added to her possessions. Her armies triumphed over the land that had not only overthrown the whole force of Persia at Marathon and Salamis, but had carried the fame of her heroes to the borders of India. The wealth of Corinth and the wisdom of Athens were not able to save them from the terrible legions of the consuls. Still more wonderful to say, the Empire of Alexander the Great crumbled into dust almost as quickly as it had risen. The conquests of the Macedonian King, divided under the sway of several smaller men, were swallowed up, kingdom after kingdom, by the all-powerful republic of the west. And Gaul had her own turn of adversity. Julius Cæsar came, saw, and conquered. We cannot venture to give implicit trust to his own accounts of that war, for they are no doubt highly tinted by the exuberance of his sublime self-conceit. Still, it was clear that Cæsar's conquest was very decided. The Celts of Gaul were rent asunder by internal strife, as the Celts everywhere have so often been, and the perfect discipline of the Romans gained the day. It was of no avail that the Gauls, in their desperation, forgot their rivalries, and banded themselves together against the common enemy. In the words of Motley, the historian of the Dutch Republic, the frail confederacy fell asunder like a rope of sand, at the first blow of Cæsar's sword. southern invaders became the undisputed masters of Gaul.

The

And yet the Celts were by no means wiped out of the map of the world. Across the English Channel were other families of the same warlike people, who had not learned to submit to a foreign Power, and who have not yet learned that bitter lesson. So the sea of war was transferred to Britain, and the first of a series of

invasions took place.

The success of the Roman arms was only partial. Contrary to all that might have been expected, the islanders made a stubborn resistance, which was not wholly without. avail. Their courage and endurance must have been of a high order when they could make such a stand as they did, considering the disadvantages under which they had to meet the invaders. The Romans were strong in numbers, in discipline, in implements. of war, in confidence arising from recent victory-in short, they were strong in all that constitutes the strength of an army. The Britons, on the other hand, were divided into a number of petty States; they were poorly armed, unpractised in scientific warfare, and their personal courage, great as it undoubtedly was, could not compensate altogether for defects such as these. Still, it may be claimed for our hardy ancestors that, like the Germans, they refused to be conquered. The Romans might ravage the low countries, and might boast that, with all the resources of their comparative civilisation, they were more than a match for the barbarians of the North. But the spirit of the Celts remained unbroken. Retiring to the mountains of Scotland and Wales, or to the distant island of Hibernia, they refused to confess themselves beaten, and it may fairly be said that they never were really subject to the yoke of the foreign intruders. The Celts and the Teutons were the most indomitable foes that the Romans. ever met in the tented field.

Before coming to the period where the two races began to come into close relations with each other, we may try what we can learn about their origin. That they, along with most of the other European nations, emigrated from Asia at a remote period in the past is pretty clear. This has been often disputed, but the balance of evidence is in favour of the opinion that the emigration did take place. But further details are obscure and undefined. The time at which the successive waves of invasion passed on towards the west can hardly be brought to the accuracy of given dates, and the order in which the several tribes made their journeys has not yet been quite determined. The science of Ethnology, if indeed it can properly be called a science, is a most fascinating study, but unfortunately it cannot be reduced to anything like an actual demonstration of undoubted truths. All that is known of it with certainty is but the skeleton of a system, to which the details have to be adapted, partly from bold guesses at probabilities, and partly, it is to be feared, from vivid imagination. All this, however, while it forbids us to regard the study as an exact science, makes it all the more interesting from a sentimental point of view. Where

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