Erskines

iSo FAMOUS SCOTS
Scotland, and few even in Scotland, could follow him with
much interest into the details of his contention with the
Antiburghers, and his writings against Whitefield have
not much insight or outlook. Those of his published
sermons which are exclusively devotional and expository
lack the strength of thinking by which men's minds are
guided. The highest place that can be given him among
Scottish writers of his school is next to Thomas Boston.
That, however, is a high place, and Boston wrote nothing
like the Gospel Sonnets, the Believer's Jointure, or the
Believer's Lodging. Within forty years of Ralph's death,
no fewer than twenty-four editions of the Sonnets were
published. In a former chapter it has been recognised
that they have no enduring claim to recognition as poetry;
but for a time their influence was as marked as their popu-
larity. In dreary days, when religion was dull, dry and
negative, they secured a welcome and a home for those
doctrines of grace which were the supreme concern of
both brothers. For modern readers the Sonnets have
little attractiveness ; but any competent critic will find in
them freshness, strength, and piety, more than sufficient
to explain their influence.
It was not, however, in their books that the Erskines
left their best work, but in the religious history and the
Church life of Scotland. Apart from personal and pass-
ing results, they created a channel for the gospel outside
the Established Church. They did this deliberately, and
the stream that flowed into the channel refreshed the
thirsty land. Their Secession was prompted by a strong and
irrepressible evangelicalism which could not rest satisfied
with its own piety and orthodoxy in a time of darkness,
and they wrote this on the banner of the Church they
founded. Upon fidelity in preaching the gospel the
Secession Church depended for its first growth, for the
inward strength which carried it through futile contro-
versies, for its continued vitality, for the healing of its