A GREAT SCOTTISH PRELATE

New Zealand Tablet, 11 May 1911, Page 875

A GREAT SCOTTISH PRELATE

CENTENARY OF BISHOP HAY Mi] J he n C cfp ir ! lics Of Scotland (writes the Rev. Kentigern Milne, O.&.B.) are, this year , celebrating the centenary of Bishop Hay of Edinburgh, who died on October 15, 1811. Smse tIS? p relate it may be truly said, in a restricted sense, that he was • the pillar and ground * of the Caflmli-. Church , in Scotland after the ‘Reformation.’ The present ear, therefore, promises to be a memorable one in the ecclesiastical annals of the north. There are probably the'nlme of W England, even a ™. on those to whom tne name of Bishop Hay is quite familiar, aware that the present, year is in; any way connected with his memory fn d E l nekm] 01 ' e th han ? r °K able that £ Scotland, no less than lit- th f, coincidence would have passed by tinrftm? a: s akeaT/wel! ‘ A Warm; Friend of, Challoner. ' , . l lt 4.i Wll L be re ? d 1 -T granted by those who are acquainted iV^e 1 which caUs a f ° rS of Bi ? h .°P Hay, that the Occasion fl+lnV 1 • 1 : for a , special celebration. To English Catholics he is known chiefly by his writings whic nri remarkable for solidity and clearness of doctrinal exposition; but his warm friendship with Bishop ChallnTiPi? in whom, under : God he was indebted for I^^^^the priesthood cannot fail to arouse on the occasion of his centenary the sympathy and interest of all Sm venerate be r ni f m 1 0I - v °f those two prelates, whose names will ever ti v aiTt to " etller 111 the ecclesiastical annals of the counti> as the pioneers and leaders of a great Catholic revival - Hiose who desire to gain a close acquaintance with Bishop Hay will find a full account of him in Dr. ; Gordon’s ‘ Eccle siastical Chronicle for Scotland,’ the third voSe rf' which is almost entirely devoted to his life. of• which and l lff?nr tlail + d Bishop Hay’s name lingers on in tradition and affectionate remembrance. Art, among other influ ences, has lent its aid in co-operating to keep his memory green and has handed down to succeeding "generations i faithful portrait of him. Many will no doubt also re : member an excellent print in which he figured as the frontispiece earliest editions of the Pious Chris•:v A Striking Personality, ' and gave the impression of a character combining strength modesty, high intelligence, and asceticism. The grave features, penetrating glance,, and bent figure, as he satHn Ims episcopal dress with his hands clasped on his lap enaked one to conjure up the original in flesh and blood and nothing was needed to make it a living picture, of the man, but the old-fashioned Edinburgh accent—not the’inelegant hoot to which our modern cars are accustomed but the delightful old Doric that used to be spoken by tile cultured classes of the city a hundred years,...ago, and now a as. seldom heard, having almost entirely succumbed to ; the fascination of high English. The ‘Pious CbrSi was the Vacle Me cum of all the old folks. They liked the long prayers it contained, ’ and every time they opened the dingy volume to pray, they were confronted with tie por-

trait of the good Bishop, whose grave features and saintly appearance put them at : once into proper dispositions, and drove home to the heart of the careless every warning and lesson conveyed in the text. It was the book, too, used by those who attended the Bishop himself in his last illness, and the story is told how on one occasion he interrupted the reader to express his admiration, and to ask who was the author of such an excellent book; but on being told that he himself was the author of it, his humility was greatly embarrassed and nothing more was paid. Dr. Hay’s Medical Knowledge. Having practised as a doctor before he became a Catholic, his medical knowledge served him in good stead in after life, and tradition tells of a certain drug resembling a brownish marble —if memory serves us rightly known as Bishop Hay’s pill,’ which exercised as potent a spell in the things of the body as 1 The Pious Christian ’ did in spirituals. This drug was regarded—at least by Catholics in the north —as the concentrated essence of ecclesiastical wisdom and holiness, and its venerable origin raised it almost to the dignity of a sacramental in the eyes of the simple folks, who, when it was swallowed with sufficient faith, implicitly believed in it as a Heaven-sent remedy for all the pains and aches of suffering humanity. The little wonder-worker, under such distinguished patronage, continued to fight bravely against the advancing tide of medical science, and ran a victorious course among the faithful down to a comparatively recent date, when Holloway and his followers invaded the sanctum of domestic pharmacy with their different infallible patents. These memories and impressions of Bishop Hay still survive in Scotland, among both clergy and laity. Instead of being obscured after, the lapse of a century, they have, on the contrary, gone on gathering strength and are becoming more distinct. This is only natural, for as the centuries recede, men as well as events gradually focus themselves to their proper dimensions in the public eye, and we are then better able to assess them at their intrinsic value. This is true of Bishop Hay as well as of every chief actor on the stage of history, and there could be no better opportunity of bearing public witness to his claims on our homage and admiration, now so undoubted after a century of trial, than that afforded by the hundredth anniversary of his death.