Memorials of the lineage, early life, education and development of the genius of James Watt

JAMES WATT. 45
Looking at the deference paid to ecclesiastical procedures, and even
to the censures of reverend courts in those days, — a deference not
easily comprehended in our more liberal times, — one cannot fail to be
impressed sensibly with the greatness of the change which society
must have undergone in this country, even within less than the last
century. How little, for example, could Thomas Watt, while piously
pacing the lanes and harbours of Greenock and Crawfordsdyke, in
1695, with a view to the repression of even minor acts of " sabbath-
breaking," foresee the inroad that has been effected on the day of
rest, since the introduction of machinery ! How little could he anti-
cipate, while reprehending " James Rae, skipper in Cartsdyke, who
had loosed his ship, being sufficiently moored in a safe road, on the
Sabbath-day," that in the person of his own grandson was to arise
one, the results of whose splendid genius — so incalculably productive,
in one point of view, of physical and moral benefits to the human race
— were indirectly to contribute more to the desecration of that day
on a gigantic scale, through " excursion trains," steamboats, and a
thousand other subsidiary means, than all hitherto existing causes
combined had done !
But while it may hardly be disputed that reverence for the sacred
principle of the day of rest has suffered a marked declension in the
national mind since the times of our forefathers, it is, we think,
equally indisputable that, in other essential points affecting the
common good, a very decided improvement characterizes the spirit
of our own times. Not to speak of the general benefits which have
resulted from the abolition of class privileges, and from a better
understanding of the great laws of toleration, this progress is perhaps
nowhere so obvious as in everything that relates to the all-important
matter of Public Instruction. Reverting to our " Records," it has
already been observed that the §pod: " Bailie of the Burgh" was not
a schoolmaster, still less, we are bound to add, " the parish school-