Old Mortality, Volume 1. by Sir Walter Scott
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page 7 of 328 (02%)
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when Charles II. returned "upon the unanimous petition of the Scottish
Parliament" (Scott's Collected Works, vol. xix. p. 78) it is not unnatural for the general reader to suppose that prayers would be read by the curates. Dr. McCrie maintains that "at the Restoration neither the one nor the other" (neither the Scotch nor English Prayer Books) "was imposed," and that the Presbyterians repeatedly "admitted they had no such grievance." No doubt Dr. McCrie is correct. But Mr. James Guthrie, who was executed on June 1, 1661, said in his last speech, "Oh that there were not many who study to build again what they did formerly unwarrantably destroy: I mean Prelacy and the Service Book, a mystery of iniquity that works amongst us, whose steps lead unto the house of the great Whore, Babylon, the mother of fornication," and so forth. Either this mystery of iniquity, the Book of Common Prayer, "was working amongst us," or it was not. If it was not, of what did Mr. Guthrie complain? If it was "working," was read by certain curates, as by Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, at Saltoun, Scott is not incorrect. He makes Morton, in danger of death, pray in the words of the Prayer Book, "a circumstance which so enraged his murderers that they determined to precipitate his fate." Dr. McCrie objects to this incident, which is merely borrowed, one may conjecture, from the death of Archbishop Sharpe. The assassins told the Archbishop that they would slay him. "Hereupon he began to think of death. But (here are just the words of the person who related the story) behold! God did not give him the grace to pray to Him without the help of a book. But he pulled out of his pocket a small book, and began to read over some words to himself, which filled us with amazement and indignation." So they fired their pistols into the old man, and then chopped him up with their swords, supposing that he had a charm against bullets! Dr. McCrie seems to have forgotten, or may have disbelieved the narrative telling how Sharpe's use of the Prayer Book, like Morton's, "enraged" his murderers. The incident does not occur in the story of the |
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