Matthew Paris, writing of the last expedition of Alexander II, king of Scots, said that it was reported to be due to “the constant urging of a certain indiscreet bishop of Strathearn, a friar, of a truth, of the Order of Preachers’’. (Chron. Maj., V. p. 89; Rolls Ser.) This indiscreet bishop was Clement of Dunblane, with whom the history of the Dominican Order in Scotland begins. Apart from the words of Matthew Paris, there appears to be nothing written about him which is not laudatory, and since the 17th century at least he has commonly been referred to by Scottish writers, whether Catholic or Protestant, as “Saint Clement”, although there has never been any authorisation of cultus. The title is probably due solely to Camerarius, who assigned Bishop Clement a place in his calendar of Scottish saints, under the date March 19th. But before that time warm praise was given to Clement, though not the name of saint, both by mediaeval Scottish writers and by chroniclers of his own order; and it is safe to say that no Scottish Dominican has left so great a memory, and few others are so deserving of remembrance.

In the history of the Friars Preachers at the beginning of the 16th century, Dominican Scotland is of very special interest. While the other provinces of the Order were struggling, by the setting up of special congregations, to bring about a rebirth of stricter religious life, Scotland was able to effect, by and in herself, her own reform. Such an achievement was due to the activity of a religious, father John Adamson, whom Dominican chroniclers and Scottish historians have been pleased to describe as a Friar Preacher of great holiness and uncommon learning. It is, therefore, all the more regrettable that the work of fr. John Adamson has been somewhat eclipsed. The religious persecutions which the Scottish Dominicans had to undergo as a result of the introduction of the Reformation into the kingdom of the Stuarts, have led to the loss of many documents. Four briefs of Pope Leo X, preserved in the collection in the Vatican Archives known as Brevi Lateranensi, allow us to supplement the information supplied by various collections of documents in Scotland.

The Parliament of 1560 having effectively destroyed the power of the Auld Kirk in Scotland, ratified and approved Knox’s Confession of Faith as “hailsome and sound doctrine groundit upoune the in-fallibill trewth of Godis word’’.

This decision marked a crisis in Scottish history, but revolutionary though it was it must not be thought that Presbyterianism as it now exists in Scotland, was born, like Athene, fully formed and armed. The infant Reformed Church of Scotland was, in 1560, indeed a babe and it was only in the following two centuries that she took shape and developed the persona she now presents to the world.

So difficult and so complex is the history of Scottish Presbyterianism, reflecting as it does the ebb and flow of logic and passion that make up the Scottish character, that a short account of it can only explain its dominant features by pointing to those elements and problems which have conditioned its growth. It would be quite simple to describe the ecclesiastical system of Calvin or the present organization of Church courts in Scotland, but such a description would not suffice to give any idea of historic Presbyterianism in Scotland.

Some fifty years ago at an investigation into Glasgow housing sponsored by a committee of the Church of Scotland, Bruce Glaiser, secretary of the Glasgow branch of the Socialist League, invited to explain why Irish immigrants did not rise so easily as native labourers to be craftsmen, replied: “I do not believe that it is vice that is against the Irishmen, but rather virtue. The improvidence of the Irish springs rather from virtues; while the success of Scotchmen is on account of their canny disposition and desire to make money ... I think that, as a whole, as social beings they are quite equal to the Scotch; I do not think the ambition to take a position side by side with Scotchmen is a very high one.”

Whether the Catholic has revolted instinctively or not against the bleakness of Scottish industrialism in the past century, the fact remains that he has not made his presence effectively felt among the forces that attempt to control and guide it. For this, the circumstances that have conditioned his existence in Scotland are largely responsible.

The romantic gloss that adheres to the crofter, his homestead and way of life, has given ample target for the shafts of the critics. They point out, with some justice, the poverty and hardship frequently entailed and the ambition of many crofters to send their sons to the cities. With less justice, probably none, they claim greater efficiency for larger units of cultivation. These critics are essentially children of the Industrial Age, as ever overlooking the more acute destitution that no reform has as yet eradicated from the way of life begotten of their own concepts. They have ever a notion that urban hardship can be eliminated with just a few more rules, regulations and by-laws. Unconsciously, they pay the crofter tribute in recognising that his life is not so easily directed.

We can hardly assess the value of the crofter to a civilised community without considering certain fundamentals. The root of the problem lies at the very quick of the question: is man an individual servant of God, or a servant of society? I do not think this is an over-simplification of the issue. Throughout the world today that same issue is being disputed. Everywhere, peasant societies are the backbone of resistance to authoritarianism and the subjection of man to society as vested in the State.

Peter F. Anson, in his article “Modern Catholic Architecture in Scotland” (The Dublin Review, April, 1937), and in his book “The Catholic Church in Modern Scotland”, published in the same year by Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., has supplied with characteristic clarity and completeness an account of the heritage of ecclesiastical architecture and art upon which the Catholic artist of Scotland has to build. And, as he observes in the closing paragraph of his article, it is not a very inspiring retrospect. For all that, it will one day have—already begins to have—a distinct archaeological value, not unlike that of those early Christian Sarcophagi executed in the late Roman manner. For this nineteenth century art had likewise been designed in a style borrowed from the past, and was executed in a technique long since rendered alien to its origins by adaptation to the servile requirements of the neo-classical style: our good Scottish Freestones, for example, polished to look like marble or stucco, by masons for whom “blind” uncomprehending precision was the best guarantee of a job. Such a combination of archaistic design, largely the work of aliens, and of debased technique, could only give Birth, at best, to quaintness. We look upon these buildings, nevertheless, with gratitude and affection and venerate them as landmarks in the heroic task of bringing back the Faith to our country. Also, they provide a wealth of object lessons in “how not to do it”!