Hew Morrison Collection > Gaidheal > 1 Leabh 2 Air

Juij, 1872.
THE GAEL.
131
onset they make on the bilingual
preaching of the Highlander. But
the attack is not always successful.
In the present instance it has been
signally unfortunate. The bilingual
preaching, which the Dunoon people
have been accustomed to for a genera-
tion or two back, must have been of no
inferior species. They enjoyed for a
long time the services of a learned
father and even-going divine, whom
even Free Church Philistines delighted
to raise many years ago to the dignity
of Moderatorsliip of the Free Churcli
Assembly. — We refer to the Rev. Dr.
Macintosh Mackay, whose perfect
shapeliness of body, and general fiue
physical appearance, along with gentle-
manly, highly dignified bearing, used to
attract, when he stood in the Free
Church pulpit of Dunoon, the admiring
attention of the nobly born. His ser-
mons, on the other hand, whether
delivered in the sonorous language of
Ban Macintyre, or in the sharp hissing
tongue of Shakespeare, always partook
of the excellent, whether we consider
the matter, the style, the manner, mode
of utterance, or accuracy of pronuncia-
tion. Is it possible that a man of a
different stamp would be so honoured by
high and low, Gall and Gael, at home
and abroad, as he has been ? Is it possi-
ble that, in an Assembly in the Scottish
Capital where you meet on such occa-
sions with the Hower, the wealth, the
chivalry, and the learning of all the
land, the fashionable lady whose ear is
so finely-strung as to distinguish the
sounds of the various breezes, or the
lawyer who' has devoted years to the
acquisition of faultless accent and
accurate English pronunciation, or
the lady and lord of high degree,
would endure for a moment the tor-
ture of listening to " twaddle in
broken English" from the Moderator's
chair? The thought of the possibility
of such is simply harrowing to the
feeling. Now the fact that Dr. Mac-
Kay, a Gaelic-speaking Celt, once
occupied the Moderator's chair, leaves
no reasonable ground of existence for
the Herald's exulting sneer. The late
Dr. Calder Macintosh, the last Gaelic-
speaking minister the Dunoon people
had, was no common-place man. He,
the man of cultured intellect, of refined
feeling, of piety, and of holy unction,
was as capable of appreciating the true,
the beautiful and the good, in the
highest sense of the terms, as the
Herald has hitherto proved itself to be.
And this mind of his would make itself
known and felt in English.
Other Gaelic-speaking ministers have
been, and are, who have shown them-
selves highly acceptable even to EnglLsh-
speaking congregations; — the whole of
the Macleod family, four of whom have
been Moderators of the General Assem-
blies of their respective churches, — the
two Normans, .John of Morven, and
Roderick, Skye. Among the most
eloquent ministers in Glasgow could
you point, while he lived, to a more
excellent preacher in every way, to a
man of really greater power, greater
unction, than the Rev. Duncan Macnab,
late of Renfield Free Church? Among
the living there are two whose eloquent
voices are well known in Glasgow — the
Revs. Dr. MacGilvray of Aberdeen, and
D. MacGregor of Dundee. The accom-
plished, the refined, the widely-esteemed
Mr. Kennedy of Dingwall is well known.
In broad Scotland, can you point out
one who is a more real preacher, one
more refined even in English ? Many
do not know that the learned and deep-
cultured Dr. Taylor of Crathie, to
whose preaching the Queen delights to
listen, is also a Gaelic-speaking Celt.
Even the generic Highland preacher
we do not hesitate to set side by side
with the English-speaking preacher any
day ; and this we can specially affirm re-
garding the matte?', because the former
is as yet more truly Puritanic, possesses
more of the fiesh and bone of Calvinism.