found containing "a little dust." Stray bones are occasionally discovered under the cross-road "cairns."* 2.ቀ "And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they brought stones and made a heap: and they did eat there upon the heap."-Genesis xxxi. 46. "Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have set between thee and me; this heap shall be a witness, that I will not come over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not come over this heap and this pillar to me, for evil.”—Genesis xxxi. 51, 52. "And Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount [i. e., the heap], and called his brethren to eat bread."-Genesis xxxi. 54. Larger heaps of stones than the ordinary "cairns" are likewise still extant, as well in Scotland as in England and Ireland; and antiquaries are agreed that they correspond with the "covenant heap " of Jacob and Laban. 66 Rowlands," says the judicious Dr Jamieson, "has some observations on these [carnedde] which deserve attention." They are as follows: "Of the larger carnedde [or "cairns "] such as are in some places to this day, of considerable bulk and circumference, I cannot affirm them to be any other than the remains and monuments of ancient sacrifices. And though the particular manner and circumstances of that sort of worship, viz., by throwing and heaping up stones, are found extant in no records at this day, except what we have of the ancient way of worshipping Mercury in that manner; yet some hints there are of it in the most ancient history of Moses, particularly in that solemn transaction between Laban and Jacob, which may be supposed to be an ancient patriarchal custom, universally spread in those unpolished times." 'And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they brought stones and made a heap: and they did eat there upon the heap.' "Now the design of the whole affair was to corroborate the pact and covenant mutually entered into by those two persons, Jacob and Laban, with the most binding formalities. The whole tenor of it runs thus:"'Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have set up between thee and me: this heap shall be a witness, that I will not come over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not come over this heap and this pillar to me, for evil.' "This whole affair has no semblance of a new institution, but is rather a particular application to [of] a general practice, because concluded by a sacrifice, the highest act of their religion; and that sacred action seems to have been a main part of it, and the chief end for which it was instituted; and, together with the other circumstances, made up one solemn religious ceremony. 'And Jacob offered sacrifices upon the mount [i. e., the heap], and called his brethren to eat bread.' "Now, this whole transaction was a religious ceremony, instituted to adjust and determine rights and possessions in those times between different parties and colonies. And as it seems to have been one of the statutes of the sons of Noah, so it is likely that the colonizing race of mankind brought with them so necessary an appurtenance of their peace and security of living, wherever they came to fix themselves; that they carried at least the substance of the ceremony, though they * Very beautiful are the lines of the American poet Bryant, on "Monument Mountain." Having told his touching story of the Indian maiden, he says: "There was scooped And o'er the mould that cover'd her, the tribe Built up a simple monument, a cone Of small loose stones. Henceforward all who passed— In silence on the pile. It stands there yet." "Occasionally we meet with examples of the pillar and heap united in a memorial cairn, as in one of large dimensions situated at the junction of two roads near the village of Fowlis, Perthshire, which is surmounted by a large standing-stone, corresponding to the barron's, for which the distinctive appellation of crowned tumuli is suggested.”—WILSON, p. 59.. might here and there vary in some rules of application, or perhaps pervert it to other uses than what it was designed for."* The quaintly-expressed conclusion arrived at by Rowlands appears to be confirmed by more recent researches, in respect of the fact that these larger carnedde [or "cairns"] have invariably been found on the "boundaries shires. 3. WORSHIP OF BAAL-" BELTANE."† of estates and "They worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal."—2 Kings xvii. 16. "They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal."-Jeremiah xix. 5. Those who have joined in the "myrth and jollitie" of the "Beltane " festival, which is still celebrated in Scotland on the 1st of May, may be little aware of those darker under-lying rites and superstitions of which, in our own country,' it is the dim memorial. Nevertheless, " of truthe and veritie is it," that our forefathers on this very occasion "worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal." There is a town in Perthshire, on the borders of the Highlands, which is "unto this day" called Tillie- (or Tullie) beltane; i. e., the eminence ["high place"] or rising ground, of the fire of Baal. In the neighbourhood is a druidical temple of eight upright stones, where it is supposed the "fire" was kindled. At some distance from this is another temple of the same kind, but smaller, and near it a well, still held in great veneration. On Beltane morning, the inhabitants of the village go to this well, and drink of it; then they make a procession round it nine times. After this, they in like manner go round the temple. But there are even more explicit "memorials "of idolatry in its most degrading and bloody aspects. The people of Callander, in Perthshire, have [or had within these very few years] a custom which indubitably points to Baal worship. They "Upon the first day of May all the boys in a township or hamlet meet in the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by casting a trench in the ground, of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk, in the consistence of a custard. knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of cake into a bonnet. Every one blindfold draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit, is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they mean to implore, in rendering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this country as well as in the East, although they now pass from the act of sacrifice, and only compel the devoted person to leap three times through the flames; with which the ceremonies of this festival are closed. In further elucidation of the text cited (2 Kings xvii. 16), it may be mentioned, that there is a curious monument of the worship of the heavenly bodies in the parish of Cargill, also in Perthshire. "Near the village of Cargill may be seen some erect stones of considerable magnitude, having the figure of the moon and stars carved upon them. The cornfield in which these stones stand is called the moon-shade [shed]."§ Edinburgh. *Rowlands' "Mona Antiqua," in loc. Vide Wilson voce "Strongholds," p. 418, for correlate notices. A. B. T. Statistical Account of the Parish of Callander, Perthshire. A similar modification presents itself in the simple smoking of the Calumet-pipe of peace among the North American Aborigines. § Statistical Account of the Parish of Callander and Cargill, Perthshire. See subsequent No. of these Illustrations; and note in loc. Note. "The Cromlech is another Scottish memorial of ancient Fire-worship.' The name is supposed to be derived from the Hebrew chorœminah, a devoted stone;' or cœremlnah, burning stone.' It is composed of broad flat slabs, placed on high, in a horizontal position, upon others fixed on their edges in the ground." a SANATORY REFORM IN SOME OF ITS MORAL, RELIGIOUS, AND SOCIAL ASPECTS, CHIEFLY APPLIED TO THE CITY OF GLASGOW. SINCE the beginning of the present century, the elements and agencies of material civilisation have been developed and expanded in Great Britain, with an intense and continuous action, greater than at any former period of our national history. The numerous discoveries in science, with their application to manufactures and the arts, have changed in no inconsiderable degree the general aspects of social life, and introduced new elements into the machinery of society. With material civilisation, moral and intellectual cultivation have, to some extent, kept pace. A higher tone of social morality prevails; and amongst the higher and middling classes, self-culture, moral restraint, and enlarged philanthropy, have superseded those habits of coarse self-indulgence so prevalent formerly. Steam power has bridged over the great sea itself, and brought the ends of the earth together; and railways and electric telegraphs have made one family of the British community, throwing into one common stock the productive virtue and intelligence of the whole. As might be expected, from the advanced intelligence of society, a higher tone of legislative morality has been exhibited in Parliament, and the condition-of-the-poor question, general education, secular and religious, and the means of improving the great body of the people, of elevating, in short, the whole lower platform of society, have occupied the attention of successive statesmen of opposite political opinions. Of the questions affecting the well-being of the operative classes, or the general mass of the population of our large cities, sanatory reform, or the means of improving their condition, by scattering them over a wider surface, improving the localities chiefly inhabited by them, and introducing into their dwellings the healthful elements of family separation, ventilation and cleanliness, with such other adjuncts and conveniences as can be affected, has occupied, and still occupies, a large share of public attention. We propose, briefly, to lay before the reader a few statements regarding the social masses in our native city of Glasgow, and which will be chiefly taken from documentary evidence of unimpeachable character, showing the urgent necessity of a vigorous and united effort to stem the progress of social evils and dangers of the most formidable character. And first, let us look into the state of education amongst the lowest classes of our city population. The Rev. Dr Robert Buchanan, in an able lecture, delivered in the Merchants' Hall, Glasgow, on the 30th January 1852, and subsequently published by Messrs Blackie and Co., under the title of "The Schoolmaster in the Wynds, or how to Estimate the Masses," states as follows : "Instead, however, of extending any further these preliminary observations, I shall now proceed to the more immediate object of this lecture; which is, to exhibit the schoolmaster in the Wynds, and to endeavour, by the help of an actual experiment, to throw some light on the question-How to educate the masses? It will not be denied by any one acquainted with Glasgow, that a better field than the Wynds could not be found, for testing the efficiency of any educational and reformatory scheme, that professes to deal with the masses of our city population. The parish to which the Wynds belong occupies very little more than ten acres of ground; and, on that narrow space, which, if it were a grass field, would scarcely pasture half a dozen cows, there are crowded together upwards of 10,000 human beings. The oldest street of the city,-the original thoroughfare from the Cathedral to the river,-forms, towards its lower extremity, the boundary of two sides of the parish. The two ends of that long and winding thoroughfare were the first inhabited parts of the city,-the little nuclei of that immense and rapidly increasing population, which now covers an area of from three to four miles square. The antiquity which thus undoubtedly belongs to the Wynds is, unhappily, however, the only venerable thing about them. The comforts, and the burghal dignities which distinguished the Saltmarket in the days of Bailie Nicol Jarvie, have long since forsaken it. The whole neighbourhood has sunk down to the level of the St Giles or the Whitechapel of Glasgow,-rivalling in filth, poverty, misery, and crime, these dark places of the great metropolis itself. The feature of its condition, however, which it chiefly concerns me at pre sent to exhibit, is its educational destitution. In the year 1846, steps were taken, under the auspices of the Town Council, to ascertain the educational state of the city. The agents employed for this purpose were the teachers of the Glasgow Sabbath School Union; and though their inquiries did not extend over the whole city, they included a population of 258,853. It is from the very full and elaborate statistical table' then produced that I extract the following particulars:-The population of the Tron Parish, according to the census of 1841, amounted to 10,027. The total number of children in the parish above six, and under sixteen years of age, was found to be 1586,-while of these children, or rather of those of all ages put together, it was further ascertained, that only 567 were attending any week-day school! “To render more obvious the true and deplorable import of this fact, it may be proper to keep in mind, that no community can be considered in a right educational state if there be not from a sixth to a fifth part of the gross population at school. In two country parishes, of which successively I had the ministerial charge, with a total population in each of about 800, there was a regular attendance of from 150 to 160 children at school. Instead of a fifth or a sixth, the Tron Parish, as appears from the table above-mentioned, had only about an eighteenth of the population at school. But to illustrate still further the state of things, which the fact in question implies, let the educational statistics of the Tron Parish be placed side by side, with those which are presented in the same table, in reference to another district of the town. The district I shall select for the purpose of bringing out, by the effect of contrast, the educational destitution of which I now speak, is that of Blythswood and Garnethill,—a district which, socially as well as geographically, is one of the higher parts of the city. This district, according to the census of 1841, contained a population of 10,732. The number of children above six, and under sixteen, years of age, residing in it, was found, by the investigation of 1846, as exhibited in the satistical table already spoken of, to be 1606. So far the two districts are nearly upon a par; the gross population and the juvenile population are, in both cases, much the same. But here the similarity ceases and the contrast begins. Of 1586 children of the educational age, the Tron Parish had only 567 at school. Of 1606 children of the educational age, the west end district had no fewer than 1508 at school. In other words, instead of only an eighteenth part of the population being at school, as in the district of the Wynds, there was, in this better conditioned locality, from a seventh to a sixth part of the population at school. "It may be stated here in passing, that the table from which these statistics are taken, distinctly shows that there are large sections of the city in which the state of education is almost, if not altogether, as low as in the district of the Wynds. The average educational state of the city, as a whole, is lamentably deficient. The population, included in the educational survey of 1846, amounted, as already stated, to 258,833, and the total number of children in attendance upon any week-day school was found to be only 21,656, or rather less than onetwelfth of the population. It will be seen from these facts, that if a fifth, or even a sixth, be taken as the proportion that ought to be at school, and which actually is at school in every well educated community, half the children of Glasgow must be growing up untaught.”—Pp. 13-15. And, again, at page 16, the lamentable ignorance of persons convicted of crime is thus powerfully brought out : "With respect to crime, the statistics of our prisons are amply sufficient to show that the want of education has much to do with it. Mere secular instruction, it is true, will not reform society. Bulwer's work on the state of education in France, made it abundantly clear that the education which that country gives to the masses of its people, while it seemed to diminish crimes against the person, did in no degree diminish, if it did not rather increase, the number of crimes against property. But the education of this country has always been, and, it is to be hoped, will ever continue to be, altogether different from the education of France. The education of this country has, ever since the Reformation, been based on the Word of God, that divine directory which not only teaches men how they ought to live, but which brings to bear upon the heart and conscience the most powerful motives for constraining men to live as they ought, that can influence moral and rational beings. To be without education, therefore, in a country like ours, is not simply to be ignorant of letters, but it is, for the most part, to be ignorant of the great principles of morals and religion. At once to illustrate and confirm this assertion, reference may be made to the results of an inquiry lately instituted upon this very point, in the town of Lancaster. An examination of the prisoners in the jail of that important county town, elicited the following deplorable facts, in which secular and religious ignorance are seen hand in hand. Forty-one out of every hundred were ignorant of Christ's name, and unable to repeat the Lord's prayer: while forty-two out of every hundred were familiar with the history of Jack Sheppard and Dick Turpin. Twenty out of the hundred could not count a hundred fifty out of the hundred could not tell the name of the sovereign of their own country: and fifty out of the hundred could not name the months of the year. "With respect to the connection between ignorance and crime in our own city, I am in a position to make the following important statement, on the authority of the chaplain of the jail. During the year ending at the first of November 1849, that gentleman conversed with 1886 male prisoners, of whom 485 could not read at all, 1046 could read imperfectly, and only 365 could read well. Further, he ascertained that of these 1886 male prisoners, 1033 could not write, that 765 could write imperfectly, and that only eighty-eight could write well. During the same period he had conversed with 1363 female prisoners, of whom 437 could not read at all, 927 could read imperfectly, and only nine could read well. And further, he had ascertained that of these 1363 female prisoners, 1146 could not write, that 216 could write imperfectly, and only one could write well. What startling and deplorable facts are these. Every one who has paid any considerable measure of attention to this subject knows that between reading or writing imperfectly, and not being able to read or write at all, there is practically very little difference.'-Pp. 16, 17. That the religious habits of the populations of our wynds and closes are quite analogous to their other circumstances, is exhibited by the same powerful hand which drew the foregoing appalling pictures. In a speech by Dr Buchanan, in the Free Church Presbytery of Glasgow, on the 8th January 1851, and afterwards published, with the title of "The Spiritual Destitution of the Masses in Glasgow," he thus states,— 66 My brethren know that the part of the city towards which the educational and missionary efforts of my congregation have been directed is the Tron parish, lying between Trongate and Bridgegate, the Saltmarket and the Old Wynd. We are at this moment in the act of making a minute and careful survey of the parish. It is a few of the facts ascertained by this survey which I am about to produce. They have been collected by a thoroughly competent agency, and may be relied on with the most perfect confidence. The parish, as the presbytery is aware, is one dense block of buildings--a solid square. With the exception of King Street, which crosses it from north to south, and Prince's Street, which penetrates at right angles to King Street, through the eastern half of it, it is perforated only by lanes and closes so narrow as to exclude the very light and air of heaven. Within that space of little more than ten acres, more than 10,000 human beings are heaped together. First, then, let us take a glance along one of the sides of this square. Its best side is that of Trongate. The greater part of this line, fronting as it does the main street of the city, is occupied with shops, warehouses, and other places of business. The inhabitants, in consequence, are few, occupying chiefly the upper stories of the houses. From the Old Wynd to Saltmarket, in this front row, there are 132 families, making in all 505 individuals. The number of church sittings in all places of worship possessed by these 505 individuals is 85, or about 17 church sittings, on the average, to every 100 people. There are among them, moreover, 53 entire familics, or about two-fifths of the whole, that do not possess one solitary sitting in any place of worship. This is sad enough; and yet this border of the parish is light itself, compared with the darkness that meets us everywhere as we penetrate within. Let us, then, get inside of this front row of buildings, and advance into the wynds; of these there are three, running parallel to one another, and immediately contiguous. I begin with the Old Wynd, which is the western boundary of the parish, and of which only the one side, therefore, is in the Tron Parish. That one side contains 102 families, and 504 individuals. Among that population there are possessed in all only 11 church sittings, or little more than 2 to the 100. Of the 102 families, only 14 profess to be in the habit of going to any place of worship. In the New Wynd, there are 350 families, and 1976 individuals, possessing in all 66 church sittings, or little more than 3 to the 100. Of the 350 families, only 67 profess to be in the habit of attending any place of worship. Lastly, the Back Wynd contains 137 families, and 752 individuals, who possess in all only 6 church sittings, or less than 1 to the 100! Of these 137 families, only 13 profess to attend any place of worship. Here, then, in these three wynds, constituting but a section of the parish, we have a population of 3232 individuals, with only 83 church sittings, or little more than an average of 2 to the 100. Of the 589 families. of which that population consists, the enormous number of 495 families, by their own confession, are living in habitual and total estrangement from the house of God. In these appalling circumstances, it will not suprise the presbytery to learn, that in the whole of the three wynds there were found no more than 117 Bibles-in other words, that scarcely one family in five were possessed of a copy of the Word of God! Nor let it be thought that this striking fact is to be accounted for by the Popish character of the district. Though the wynds may be said to be the head-quarters of Irish Popery in this city, the population is scarcely more than one-half Popish after all; and, moreover, through the influence of our schools, no inconsiderable number of the Bibles that were met with, were in the possession of Roman Catholics. Such are some facts connected with the state of education and the religious character of the lowest strata of our vast city population-and here are some of its natural results. In 1849 the cost of pauperism in the four parishes, the Barony, City, Gorbals, and Govan annexation, was above L.106,000, having increased since 1840 to that enormous sum, from being rather less than L.20,000, as vide page 5 of "The Schoolmaster in the Wynds." "In 1849," says Dr Buchanan," there were in the four parishes 25,370 regular paupers, and 48,845 |