"THE MEN."

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3170, 26 August 1881, Page 4

"THE MEN."

In the northern counties of Scotland there is a sect, or rather a special class of Presbyterians, called ' The Men.' They have been compared to the Fakirs of India, tho i 'everishos of Turkey, the Methodists of England. I shall nut refer.. /.- comparisons further, lest I should give oifence to worthy persons whom I esteem, except to say that 'the Men,' like these %„",lons religionists, represent an advanced, not to say an exaggerated, form of tho belief held by those among whom they live. They are regarded by those around them with reverence, as men of especially holy lives, and from their pronounced avowal of religion, are often called 'professors,' receiving that title as regularly as if they had chairs in the University. Occasionally, doubtless, this 1 profession ' of theirs takes gorf esque and even laughable forms : perhaps also, it has beon sometimes adopted by cunning and unscruptilos men for their own self purposes. Like zealous men every vhe'-e they may not also be altogether from a trace or fanatcism, which is the besetting sin of men in earnest. They are simple people ignorant of the ways of the world, and it is not difficult to turn them to ridicule ; but, those who know them best, and have had most opportunities of judging, have no doubt at least of their sincerity. In some districts of the country they labour as lay preachers ; in others they work at their ordinary employments, reading and expounding the Bible to their neighbours in the evening; They are always welcome visitors in the houses of the peasantry, and are sometimes credited with the powers that border on the miraculous. Sometimes they are peculiar in dress and manner. They wear a long cloak and a handkerchief tied round the head, and intersperse their reading and expounding with many groans. Those who do so, as far as I know, are now the exception, The majority of them are undoubtedly decent God-fearing men, trying to do the Master's work according to the light given them. They are the extreme embodiment of Celtic piety. I knew, long ago, one of them —a simple-minded weaver—who was reverenced by the people of a glen as their friend and counsellor ; and another, a slater, a hard-headed, shrewd, practical man — who was better acquainted with his Bible tban some doctors of theology. Perhaps such men would be improved by a great admixture of ' sweetness and light.' That, howerer, is a matter of opinion. A rugged, weather-beaten rock is, in its place, as beautiful an object as a polished and carved marble pillar. —Good Words.