But when the visible
effects of violence appear raw and recent, there is no feeling to
mitigate the sense of devastation with which they impress the
spectators; and such was now the scene on which the youthful page
gazed, with the painful feelings it was qualified to excite.
When his first momentary surprise was over, Roland Graeme was at no
loss to conjecture the cause of these ravages. The destruction of the
Popish edifices did not take place at once throughout Scotland, but at
different times, and according to the spirit which actuated the
reformed clergy; some of whom instigated their hearers to these acts
of demolition, and others, with better taste and feeling, endeavoured
to protect the ancient shrines, while they desired to see them
purified from the objects which had attracted idolatrous devotion.
From time to time, therefore, the populace of the Scottish towns and
villages, when instigated either by their own feelings of abhorrence
for Popish superstition, or by the doctrines of the more zealous
preachers, resumed the work of destruction, and exercised it upon some
sequestered church, chapel, or cell, which had escaped the first burst
of their indignation against the religion of Rome. In many places, the
vices of the Catholic clergy, arising out of the wealth and the
corruption of that tremendous hierarchy, furnished too good an apology
for wreaking vengeance upon the splendid edifices which they
inhabited; and of this an old Scottish historian gives a remarkable
instance.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120