was a heartiness and energy too in the congregation when, as he expresses it, they used to “skirl up the Bangor,” of which the effects still hang in my recollection.  At that time there prevailed the curious custom, when some of the psalms were sung, of reading out a single line, and when that was sung another line was read, and so throughout[18].  Thus, on singing the 50th psalm, the first line sounded thus:—­“Our God shall come, and shall no more;” when that was sung, there came the next startling announcement—­“Be silent, but speak out.” A rather unfortunate juxtaposition was suggested through this custom, which we are assured really happened in the church of Irvine.  The precentor, after having given out the first line, and having observed some members of the family from the castle struggling to get through the crowd on a sacramental occasion, cried out, “Let the noble family of Eglinton pass,” and then added the line which followed the one he had just given out rather mal-apropos—­“Nor stand in sinners’ way.”  One peculiarity I remember, which was, closing the strain sometimes by an interval less than a semitone; instead of the half-note preceding the close or key-note, they used to take the quarter-note, the effect of which had a peculiar gurgling sound, but I never heard it elsewhere.  It may be said these Scottish tunes were unscientific, and their performance rude.  It may be so, but the effect was striking, as I recall it through the vista of threescore years and ten.  Great advances, no doubt, have been made in Scotland in congregational psalmody; organs have in some instances been adopted; choirs have been organised with great effort by choirmasters of musical taste and skill.  But I hope the spirit of PIETY, which in past times once accompanied the old Scottish psalm, whether sung in the church or at home, has not departed with the music.  Its better emotions are not, I hope, to become a “Reminiscence.”

There was no doubt sometimes a degree of noise in the psalmody more than was consistent with good taste, but this often proceeded from the earnestness of those who joined.  I recollect at Banchory an honest fellow who sang so loud that he annoyed his fellow-worshippers, and the minister even rebuked him for “skirling” so loud.  James was not quite patient under these hints, and declared to some of his friends that he was resolved to sing to the praise of God, as he said, “gin I should crack the waas o’ the houss.”

Going from sacred tunes to sacred words, a good many changes have taken place in the little history of our own psalmody and hymnology.  When I first came to Edinburgh, for psalms we made use of the mild and vapid new version of Tate and Brady;—­for hymns, almost each congregation had its own selection—­and there were hymn-books of Dundee, Perth, Glasgow, etc.  The Established Church used the old rough psalter, with paraphrases by Logan, etc., and a few hymns