ht
out in Scotland, which in reality was the battle between liberty and
despotism; and where, except in an intense, burning conviction that they
were maintaining God's cause against the devil, could the poor Scotch
people have found the strength for the unequal struggle which was forced
upon them? Toleration is a good thing in its place; but you cannot
tolerate what will not tolerate you, and is trying to cut your throat.
Enlightenment you cannot have enough of, but it must be true
enlightenment, which sees a thing in all its bearings. In these matters
the vital questions are not always those which appear on the surface;
and in the passion and resolution of brave and noble men there is often
an inarticulate intelligence deeper than what can be expressed in words.
Action sometimes will hit the mark, when the spoken word either misses
it or is but half the truth. On such subjects, and with common men,
latitude of mind means weakness of mind. There is but a certain quantity
of spiritual force in any man. Spread it over a broad surface, the
stream is shallow and languid; narrow the channel, and it becomes a
driving force. Each may be well at its own time. The mill-race which
drives the water-wheel is dispersed in rivulets over the meadow at its
foot. The Covenanters fought the fight and won the victory, and then,
and not till then, came the David Humes with their essays on miracles,
and the Adam Smiths with their political economies, and steam-engines,
and railroads, and philosophical institutions, and all the other blessed
or unblessed fruits of liberty.

But we may go further. Institutions exist for men, not men for
institutions; and the ultimate test of any system of politics, or body
of opinions, or form of belief, is the effect produced on the conduct
and condition of the people who live and die under them. Now, I am not
here to speak of Scotland of the present day. That, happily, is no
business of mine. We have to do here with Scotland before the march of
intellect; with Scotland of the last two centuries; with the three or
four hundred thousand families, who for half-a-score of generations
believed simply and firmly in the principles of the Reformation, and
walked in the ways of it.

Looked at broadly, one would say they had been an eminently pious
people. It is part of the complaint of modern philosophers about them,
that religion, or superstition, or whatever they please to call it, had
too much to do with their