Blair Collection > Address to Highlanders respecting their native Gaelic

tion of his hope before God, but to the latest day of his life he
never forgot it. The h'ghest degree of patriotism that ever existed
in the soul of min existed in his great heart. Hear his language :
" I say the truth in Christ, I lie not. my conscience also bearing
me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were
accursed from Christ [was willing to be appointed by Christ to
suffering and death, if by that means he could save his countrymen.
— Barnes], for my brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh."
Romans ix. 1-3. Did religion drive away patriotism from the
hearts of Jeremiah, Daniel, and Nehemiah? No; instead of that,
it made them patriots in the highest sense of the term.
As a lover of my country, I cannot but be grieved to see the
Gaelic dying away in many parts. In several districts where,
thirty or forty years ago, the great body of the people remained
after the English service, now the great body of the people retire.
In those districts where Buchanan's, Grant's, and M'Gregor's poems
were read and sung, now the great body of the people cannot read
a word of them; and as for their beautiful airs, they have lost them
almost entirely. This has arisen, no doubt, from the youth not
having been taught to read it in their schools; and the reason of
that again is, that it is generally considered as a barrier in the way
of their education. Parents wish to make scholars of their children,
aid they think the best way to do so is by renouncing the Gaelic
altogether. This, I have no hesitation in saying, is a false, and
quite an erroneous view of the subject. The Germans, the greatest
scholars in the world — I have been told that the first language
which many of them study fc the Gaelic; and I can tell those
parents who wish to make scholars of their children, by all means
to give them a good English education, but never, never lay aside
the Gaelic, but have them well grounded in it. Where is the man
that ever attempted to acquire the knowledge of Latin, Greek, or
Hebrew, that did not feel how greatly he was aided in doing so by
a knowledge of it. Were one to see two boys at school together
enjoying equal advantages, the one having the Gaelic and the other
not, he would generally see the Highlander actually rising above
his fellow; and I believe that were Highlanders to enjoy equal
advantages with others, they would be found generally rising
above their fellows at college. Were there two brothers of equal
talents — the one to neglect the Gaelic entirely, and to commence
with the English, then Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; and the other
with greater patience, while engaged with the English, to have
himself well grounded in the Gaelic, and then, although more tardy
and apparently behind his brother, to commence with Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew, he would in the long run fairly outstrip his brother.
It has been remarked that, in the time of the Peninsular war, none
in the British army could more readily hold intercourse with the
inhabitants than the Highland regiments. The Governor of Auck-
land, New Zealand, is a Highlander, and the reason why he sue-