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THE HISTORY OF SCOTTISH THEOLOGY
The History of Scottish Theology, Volume I
Celtic Origins to Reformed Orthodoxy
The History of Scottish Theology, Volume II
The Early Enlightenment to the Late Victorian Era
The History of Scottish Theology, Volume III
The Long Twentieth Century
 EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

PROFESSOR ALEXANDER BROADIE

(University of Glasgow)
PROFESSOR STEWART J. BROWN
(University of Edinburgh)
PROFESSOR SUSAN HARDMAN MOORE
(University of Edinburgh)
PROFESSOR COLIN KIDD
(University of St Andrews)
PROFESSOR DONALD MACLEOD
(Edinburgh Theological Seminary)
PROFESSOR CHARLOTTE METHUEN
(University of Glasgow)
PROFESSOR MARGO TODD
(University of Pennsylvania)
PROFESSOR IAIN TORRANCE
(University of Aberdeen)
The History of Scottish
Theology
Volume II

The Early Enlightenment to

the Late Victorian Era

Edited by
DAVID FERGUSSON
and
MARK W. ELLIOTT

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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First Edition published in 2019
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 Acknowledgements

We wish to record our thanks to several people who have assisted with the
production of this three-volume work. Dr Sandy Forsyth has provided valuable
support with contracts, organization of conferences, and regular communication
with authors. As associate editor, he has contributed much to this project and we
are greatly indebted to him for his labours. Initial copy editing was undertaken by
Dr Cory Brock, Revd Craig Meek, and Dr Laura Mair and indexing by Richard
Brash. Three conferences were held which enabled contributors to present initial
drafts of their work; these were held in 2016–17 at Princeton Theological Semi-
nary and New College, Edinburgh with financial support from the UK Arts and
Humanities Research Council. We are also grateful to the members of the
Editorial Advisory Board for their advice and encouragement, particularly during
the early stages of the project.
David Fergusson and Mark W. Elliott
 List of Contributors

Thomas Ahnert is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Edinburgh. He has

published two monographs, Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment: Faith
and the Reform of Learning in the Thought of Christian Thomasius (2006) and The Moral
Culture of the Scottish Enlightenment, 1690–1805 (2014), numerous articles and book
chapters on subjects in German and British history of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and several editions and translations of early modern texts. He also co-edited a
volume of essays with the late Susan Manning on Character, Self, and Sociability in the
Scottish Enlightenment (2011).
David Bebbington is Professor of History at the University of Stirling, has several times
served as Visiting Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, Texas, and is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His publications include The Baptists in Scotland
(ed., 1988), Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (1989),
and Victorian Religious Revivals: Culture and Piety in Local and Global Contexts (2012). His
current research on Wesleyan Methodism in the Victorian period includes a case study of
the Shetland Isles.
Michael Bräutigam holds degrees in theology and psychology. He is an ordained minister
of the Free Church of Scotland, and he currently serves as Lecturer in Theology, Church
History, and Psychology at Melbourne School of Theology. He has published a monograph
on the Christology of Swiss theologian Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938), available both in
English (2015) and German (2017). His current research focuses on the integration of
theology and psychology with a particular emphasis on Christian identity.

Stewart J. Brown is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Edinburgh. He

has research interests in religion and the European Enlightenment, and religion, politics,
and society in modern Britain, Ireland, and the Empire. His books include Thomas
Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth in Scotland (1982), William Robertson and the
Expansion of Empire (1997), The National Churches of England, Ireland and Scotland,
1801–1846 (2001), and Providence and Empire: Religion, Politics and Society in the United
Kingdom, 1815–1914 (2008). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Ian Campbell is Professor Emeritus of Scottish and Victorian Literature in the University of
Edinburgh, where he worked from 1964 till retirement in 2009. He remains a Teaching
Fellow, and has had visiting appointments in the USA, Canada, Europe, China, and Japan.
One of the senior editors of the Carlyle Letters project, he has published extensively on
Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, on Victorian and modern Scottish literature, and taught
Bible and Literature courses.
Mark W. Elliott, formerly Professor of Historical and Biblical Theology at the University of
St Andrews at St Mary’s College, School of Divinity, has been since February 2019 Professor
xii   

of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. Glaswegian by birth, he was further educated at

Oxford, Aberdeen, and Cambridge, where he wrote a PhD on The Song of Songs and
Christology in the Early Church. His main focus is the relationship between biblical
exegesis and Christian doctrine, both ancient and modern, but has a particular interest in
Scottish theology in its international context.

David Fergusson is Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. A Fellow of the

British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he has published Faith
and Its Critics (2009), based on his Glasgow Gifford Lectures (2008). His most recent book
is The Providence of God: A Polyphonic Approach (2018).

James Foster is the Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Theology, and director of the
Honors Program, at the University of Sioux Falls. Before coming to Sioux Falls he spent a
year on a Fulbright Scholarship at the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the
University of Aberdeen. He is also the editor of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy, and
director of the Institute for the Study of Scottish Philosophy. He is currently working on a
book about Thomas Reid’s moral philosophy.
Paul Helm is an Emeritus Professor of King’s College, London, where he served as the
Professor of the History and Philosophy of Religion, 1993–2000. Since then he taught at
Regent College, Vancouver, Canada. He previously lectured in the Department of Philoso-
phy, University of Liverpool (1964–93). Among his books are Eternal God (1988, second
edition 2010), and John Calvin’s Ideas (2004).
Frances M. Henderson is a Transition Minister in the Church of Scotland, and is currently
based in Shetland. She is a graduate in English Language and Literature from Magdalen
College, Oxford, and later in Divinity from New College, Edinburgh, where her doctoral
specialism was Biblical hermeneutics. She has also worked as Assistant Principal of New
College, where she lectured in Systematic Theology. She has served as Vice Convener of the
Theological Forum of the Church of Scotland, and is a frequent contributor to church
publications.

Andrew R. Holmes is Reader in History in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy,

and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. He is the author of The Shaping of Ulster
Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770–1840 (2006) and The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conser-
vative Theology, Evangelical Experience, and Modern Criticism 1830–1930 (2018).

Alison M. Jack is Senior Lecturer in Bible and Literature at the University of Edinburgh and
Assistant Principal of New College. Her publications include Scottish Fiction as Gospel
Exegesis (2012), and The Prodigal Son in English and American Literature: Five Hundred
Years of Literary Homecomings (2018).

William Johnstone is Professor Emeritus of Hebrew & Semitic Languages in the University
of Aberdeen. He was President of the British Society for Old Testament Study in 1990. He
organized and edited the proceedings of conferences held in Aberdeen in 1994 and 2002 to
mark respectively the centenary of the death of William Robertson Smith and the bicen-
tenary of the death of Alexander Geddes. In 1997 he published a two-volume commentary
on Chronicles and in 2014 a two-volume commentary on Exodus; in 1998 he published a
    xiii

collection of essays exploring the analogy of the relationship between Chronicles and the
Deuteronomistic History in Samuel–Kings with that between Deuteronomy and the pre-
ceding books of the Pentateuch, especially Exodus.
Colin Kidd is Wardlaw Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews.
A Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he is the
author of Subverting Scotland’s Past (1993), British Identities before Nationalism (1999),
The Forging of Races (2006), Union and Unionisms (2008), and The World of Mr Casaubon
(2016).

Raymond McCluskey is a graduate of the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford. Until

retirement in 2019, he was Lecturer in Social Studies (History) in the School of Education,
University of Glasgow. He is a past Convener of Council of the Scottish Catholic Historical
Association, with broad interests in the history of the Scottish Catholic community. He is
co-editor (with Professor Stephen J. McKinney) of A History of Catholic Education and
Schooling in Scotland (2019).
Finlay A. J. Macdonald was Church of Scotland minister at Menstrie, Clackmannanshire
(1971–7) and Glasgow: Jordanhill (1977–96) and Principal Clerk of the General Assembly
(1996–2010). He was appointed Moderator of the General Assembly (2002–3) and a
Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland (2001). His publications include Confidence in a
Changing Church (2004) and From Reform to Renewal: Scotland’s Kirk Century by Century
(2017).
Tom McInally is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Irish and
Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His doctoral research was on the Scots
Colleges abroad and the lives of their alumni in the early modern period out of which arose
his monographs, The Sixth Scottish University: The Scots Colleges Abroad 1575–1799 (2012)
and A Saltire in the German Lands (2017). Both books are histories of institutions but his
primary interest and the focus for his continuing research is on the individuals who ran the
Scottish monasteries and colleges and their students.

John R. McIntosh is Professor of Church History at Edinburgh Theological Seminary

(formerly the Free Church College). Previous to this appointment in 2005, he was a Free
Church minister in Lochgilphead (Argyll), and Poolewe and Aultbea (Wester Ross). He has
published Church and Theology in Enlightenment Scotland: The Popular Party, 1740–1800
(1998) and is at present working on a history of the Free Church of Scotland, 1843–1900.
Eric G. McKimmon is a Church of Scotland minister. He is a doctoral graduate of
Edinburgh University (2012) with the thesis: ‘John Oman: Orkney’s Theologian:
A Contextual Study of John Oman’s Theology with Reference to Personal Freedom as the
Unifying Principle’. He contributed to John Oman: New Perspectives (2012) and he wrote
on John Cairns in Scottish History Society: Records (2014). He is a regular contributor of
homiletical literature to the Expository Times.
Donald Macleod (MA, Glasgow University; DD Westminster Theological Seminary)
served as Minister of Kilmallie Free Church (Inverness-shire) from 1964 to 1970, and as
Minister of Partick Highland Free Church (Glasgow) from 1970 to 1978. He was Professor
xiv   

of Systematic Theology at the Free Church of Scotland College (now Edinburgh Theological
Seminary) 1978–2010. His publications include A Faith to Live By (2016), Jesus is Lord
(2000), The Person of Christ (1998), and Christ Crucified (2014).
Anne Macleod Hill completed her PhD in the School of Celtic and Scottish Studies at the
University of Edinburgh in 2016. She was awarded the Johann Kaspar Zeuss Prize 2017, by
Societas Celtologica Europaea for her thesis, ‘The Pelican in the Wilderness: Symbolism and
Allegory in Women’s Evangelical Songs of the Gàidhealtachd’. Her research into Gaelic
spiritual poetry and song is ongoing, focusing on the collection, literary analysis, and
contextualization of women’s songs against their theological and historical background.

Christian Maurer is SNSF–Professor at the Department of Philosophy in Lausanne Uni-

versity (Switzerland). Maurer is a specialist of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British
moral philosophy and theology. He is the author of Self-love, Egoism and the Selfish
Hypothesis: Key Debates from Eighteenth-Century British Moral Philosophy (2019), and
he has published widely on the passions, on Archibald Campbell and Francis Hutcheson,
on the reception of Stoicism, on seventeenth-century Scottish moral philosophy, and on
tolerance regarding religion.
Andrew Purves is the Jean and Nancy Davis Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology,
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is now retired, living in Leland, NC, where he reads
theology for fun and walks regularly on the beach.
Bryan D. Spinks is Bishop F. Percy Goddard Professor of Liturgical Studies and Pastoral
Theology at Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School. He is a former
president of the Society for Oriental Liturgy, former co-editor of the Scottish Journal of
Theology, a former member and consultant to the Church of England Liturgical Commis-
sion, president emeritus of the Church Service Society of the Church of Scotland, and a
fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of Churchill College, Cambridge. A priest in the
Church of England, his most recent books are Do This in Remembrance of Me: The
Eucharist from the Early Church to the Present Day (2013) and The Rise and Fall of
the Incomparable Liturgy: The Book of Common Prayer 1559–1906 (2017). He is currently
working on a book on Scottish Presbyterian worship.
William Storrar is Director of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, USA. After
parish ministry in the Church of Scotland, he taught practical theology at the universities of
Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, where he held the Chair of Christian Ethics and
Practical Theology and initiated the Global Network for Public Theology. His publications
on church and society include edited volumes on God and Society: Doing Social Theology in
Scotland Today (2003), Public Theology for the 21st Century (2004), A World for All? Global
Civil Society in Political Theory and Trinitarian Theology (2011), and Yours the Power:
Faith-Based Organizing in the USA (2013).
Rowan Strong is Professor of Church History at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia. He
has written a number of books and articles on Scottish Episcopalianism in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. Most recently, he was the General Editor of The Oxford History of
Anglicanism (2017–18) and editor of the Volume III in that series on the nineteenth
    xv

century. His latest book is Victorian Christianity & Emigrant Voyages to British Colonies
c.1840–c.1914 (2017).
Iain Whyte has been a Church of Scotland parish minister and Chaplain to the Universities
of St Andrews and Edinburgh. In 2005 he completed a PhD at Edinburgh University where
he is presently an Honorary Associate in the School of Classics, History, and Archaeology.
His publications include Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery 1756–1848 (2006),
Zachary Macaulay: The Steadfast Scot in the British Anti-Slavery Movement (2011), and
‘Send Back the Money’: The Free Church of Scotland and American Slavery (2012).

Jonathan Yeager is UC Foundation Associate Professor and Gerry Professor of Religion at

the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. His research interest is in eighteenth-century
British and American religious history and thought, the history of evangelicalism, and the
history of the book. His publications include Enlightened Evangelicalism: The Life and
Thought of John Erskine (2011), Early Evangelicalism: A Reader (2013), and Jonathan
Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture (2016). He is currently editing The Oxford
Handbook of Early Evangelicalism and co-editing Understanding and Teaching Religion
in American History.
 1
The Significance of the Westminster
Confession
Donald Macleod

The compilers of the Scots Confession famously disclaimed infallibility, protesting

that if anyone found in their draft anything ‘repugnant to God’s holy word’ they
should inform them in writing. The Westminster Confession contains no such
protest, but this does not mean that it saw itself as an unquestionable standard. Its
companion document, the Shorter Catechism (Answer 2), describes the Scriptures
as not only the ‘supreme’ rule of faith and life, but as the ‘only’ rule. The
Confession itself categorically affirms both the ‘entire perfection’ of Scripture
and its finality as the supreme judge of all councils and of all purely human
compositions (I:10).
In the two centuries following its adoption by the Church of Scotland these
positions went virtually unchallenged. The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture
received little attention, and the fact of its being of authentically human, as well as
of divine, authorship, even less. There was, however, at least one exception: the
Secession theologian, John Dick (1764–1833). Dick was a firm believer in the
plenary inspiration of Scripture, but he also recognized that in giving the Scrip-
tures God accommodated himself to the character and genius of the persons
employed, and even argued that there were different degrees of inspiration:
superintendence, elevation, and suggestion. He was aware, too, of the issues raised
by variant readings in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, but was untroubled by
them, as were the Westminster divines themselves (Dick 1838: vol. 1, 92–226).
It is notable, however, that while the Confession insists that only the OT in
Hebrew and the NT in Greek are authentic, it does not, like modern inerrantists,
focus on the autographs. Not only were the Scriptures ‘immediately inspired’ at
the point of origin (I:8): they were also ‘kept pure’ during the process of trans-
mission, and thus it was not some lost originals, but the Hebrew and Greek
Scriptures as we currently have them, that are to be received as the word of
God. At the same time, the belief in the ‘immediate’ inspiration of the originals
stimulated the search for ever-closer approximation to the autographs, and
theologians such as Thomas Chalmers and William Cunningham warmly wel-
comed the labours of the textual critics, Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tischendorf
(Needham 1991: 1–32).

Donald Macleod, The Significance of the Westminster Confession In: The History of Scottish
Theology, Volume II. Edited by: David Fergusson and Mark W. Elliott, Oxford University Press
(2019). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198759348.003.0001
2  

This commitment to Scripture as both the source and the norm of theology was,
of course, nothing new, and it is hardly surprising that the key features of
Westminster theology were already well established in the Scottish Reformed
tradition before the adoption of the Confession in 1647. Indeed, most of it was
already the possession of the church universal. On the Trinity and on Christology
Westminster simply endorsed Nicaea and Chalcedon; on Original Sin it set forth
the anti-Pelagianism of Augustine; and on the Atonement it followed the broad
outline of the doctrine of Vicarious Satisfaction which the whole Western church
had derived from Anselm. Much of the rest was the common creed of all the
churches of the Reformation.
But the more distinctive doctrines of ‘Westminster Calvinism’ had also been
adopted by Scottish theology before 1647. For example, though Westminster was
the only Reformation confession to adopt a Federal framework, it was already
firmly embedded in the thinking of Scottish theologians. As early as 1597 Robert
Rollock had laid down in his Tractatus De Vocatione Efficaci that, ‘God speaks
nothing to man without the covenant’, and he had then gone on to be among the
first to speak of the Covenant of Works. In his Sermons on the Sacrament,
preached in St Giles in 1589, Robert Bruce had already described the Lord’s
Supper as a holy seal annexed to the Covenant of Grace; in 1638, in a speech
before the General Assembly, David Dickson had given a comprehensive outline
of the Covenant of Redemption; and Samuel Rutherford’s Trial and Triumph of
Faith, incorporating careful treatments of both the Covenant of Redemption and
the Covenant of Grace, was published in 1645, when the Westminster Assembly
had scarcely begun its work on the Confession.
Nor was the Confession responsible for introducing the doctrine of Limited
Atonement to Scottish theology. It was already present in Dickson and
Rutherford, while, on the other hand, there is room for debate whether it is
present in the Confession at all. The Assembly contained a vocal group of
Hypothetical Universalists, and their influence is clearly apparent in the final
deliverances on this subject. Later Scottish Hypothetical Universalists such as
James Fraser and John Brown III were certainly able to argue, plausibly, that
their position was not inconsistent with the Confession; even if the doctrine of
Limited Atonement is there, as it probably is (III:6, VIII:8), it takes a trained eye
to find it. The real question is whether a pronouncement on this issue should
feature in a creed at all, but the Anglican Articles (XXXI) had set a precedent,
albeit they came down on the opposite side.
Did the Confession introduce an unwelcome strand of ‘Bezan Scholasticism’
into Scottish theology? Tempting as it is to see Beza through the eyes of John
Cameron, the self-styled ‘scourge’ of Beza, the temptation should be resisted. John
Knox and Andrew Melville already shared a common theological outlook with
Beza. While it is true that Rutherford adopted Beza’s unambiguous supralapsar-
ianism, the Confession did not endorse it. Besides, as is increasingly recognized,
       3

scholasticism refers not to the content of a theological system, but to the method
of delivery which theology adopts when it moves from the pulpit to the academy.
The same individual—Rutherford, for example—could be a scholastic in the one
and a passionate evangelist in the other. If by ‘scholastic’ we mean the use of
Aristotelian rhetoric, definitions, and distinctions, Calvin by no means avoided
them. True, Melville made it his business to introduce Ramus to his students, but
he still insisted that they be familiar with ‘the Philosopher’; and the Confession’s
systematic order, precision, and use of such distinctions as that between necessity,
freedom, and contingency (V:2), are all perfectly consistent with the humanist
vision which Melville had introduced to Scotland seventy years previously
(Holloway 2011: 155–249).
The true significance of the Confession was not that it introduced new streams
into Scottish theology, but that it protected the consensus which had developed in
the Reformed community in the hundred years after Calvin, Bucer, Vermigli, and
Perkins. From this point of view, what was crucially important was not so much
the contents of the Confession as the ultimate Formula of Subscription. When it
originally approved the Confession in 1647, the General Assembly contented itself
with affirming that it had found it ‘most agreeable to the word of God, and in
nothing contrary to the received doctrine, worship, discipline and government of
this Kirk’. In 1711, however, after a series of modifications, a new Formula was
adopted, requiring all ordinands to affirm their sincere personal belief in ‘the
whole doctrine’ of the Confession. This Formula defined the significance of the
Confession for the next 250 years and there was one clear result: it gave Scottish
Christianity a striking degree of theological consensus. These were doctrines on
which all were agreed—every pulpit, with varying degrees of emphasis, would
preach them, and none would contradict them.
Such a degree of mandatory unanimity could be regarded as disturbing. It
should be borne in mind, however, that such unanimity was imposed only on the
Kirk’s office-bearers, not on ordinary members. Moreover, it may be argued that
the church has the same right as any voluntary society to ensure that its officers
stay ‘on-message’. Later Scottish theologians were aware of the dangers of a too-
extensive creed. For example, some regarded the Formula Consensus Helvetica
(1675) as too minute and detailed to be imposed as a doctrinal standard. Some
even hinted that Calvin himself would have scrupled to subscribe to some of the
deliverances of his seventeenth-century successors.
In defence of the Westminster Confession, however, it may be said that the
unanimity focuses on doctrines covered by the principle, Quod semper, quod
ubique, quod ab omnibus, while at the same time underlining the harmony
between Scottish Protestantism and the Reformed churches of the continent.
This is not to say that some retrenchment might not have been appropriate, but
the steer it gave to the ideal of agreement on fundamentals may be the supreme
significance of the Confession. True, the consensus was sometimes achieved by a
4  

studied ambiguity, but it was a consensus that could be shared even by men like
Robert Leighton and Henry Scougal, despite their pragmatic attitude towards
Episcopacy. It is precisely the unlikelihood of achieving any sort of consensus
today that renders it impossible either to replace or revise the Confession.
But does the Confession, especially in the light of the 1711 Formula, not reflect
an irreversible and immobile orthodoxy, precluding any accommodation of
clearer light, and ruling out all further revision, debate, and progress? Champions
of the Confession would certainly have contended that it contained the truth, and
nothing but the truth. Few, however, would have claimed that it contained the
whole truth. There was room for development, just as there was within post-
Tridentine Catholicism. In this respect the Westminster Confession was in no
different case from the Ecumenical Creeds. Nicaea had laid down boundaries,
but it had not stifled discussion, and eventually it led to Chalcedon. While
Westminster was content to endorse the doctrines of these ancient creeds, this
did not deter Scottish theologians, even under the 1711 Formula, from continuing
to explore such Christological themes as the eternal sonship, the temptability of
Jesus, the import of his ‘obedience and sacrifice’, and the meaning of kenosis.
There was also room for further development of key themes within the Con-
fession itself, including its Federalism. Westminster’s understanding of the cov-
enants is tentative and unclear, but overall it adhered to a two-covenant
arrangement, the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. This was a
significant, if silent, divergence from the position of men like Dickson and
Rutherford, who had espoused a three-covenant framework, distinguishing
between the Covenant of Redemption between the Father and the Son on the
one hand, and the Covenant of Grace between God and the believer on the other.
However, the authority of the Confession was not sufficient to dislodge the
Covenant of Redemption from its position in Scottish theology. Instead, the
three-covenant framework was reiterated with fresh clarity in the Sum of Saving
Knowledge, composed around 1650, and then regularly bound together with the
Confession in printed copies of the Westminster Standards.
Come the eighteenth century Thomas Boston and Ebenezer Erskine rejected
the three-covenant framework, even arguing that it contravened the Standards of
the Church. They restricted the Covenant of Grace to the eternal covenant
between the Father and the Son (representing the elect), and denied that there
was a second covenant between God and the believing sinner. As they saw it, such
a covenant, established through faith, introduced a dangerous element of condi-
tionality into the administration of grace and thus compromised the ‘absolute
freeness’ of the gospel, which was fully protected by the one eternal covenant
between the Father and the Son: a covenant in which Christ became the Surety for
his people’s debts, the Trustee with whom all the blessings of the covenant were
lodged, and the Testator who bequeathed his inheritance to the elect. What
remained an open question was whether election was prior to the covenant, or
       5

part of it. No clear answer was given, but there was a general concern to safeguard
the divine sovereignty, even to the extent of arguing that Christ could not be the
cause of election. Nor, according to Fisher’s Catechism (1753), was there prece-
dence. In one and the same decree, the love of God alighted on both the Head and
the members.¹
Behind this rejection of a separate Covenant of Grace lay a reluctance to speak
of faith as a ‘condition’. Rutherford, arguing against Antinomianism, had insisted
on such language. Boston et al., confronted by Neonomianism, disowned it: faith
received, but did not give. This shrinking from the merest whiff of legalism places
Scotland’s Federal Theology at the furthest possible remove from the idea of the
covenant as a legal contract negotiated between two equal parties. Indeed, such
was the aversion of the Marrowmen to any hint of conditionality that they even
rejected the comparison of the covenant to a marriage contract (as distinct from a
commercial one). The element of ‘consent’, they feared, would introduce too
much ‘of one’s own doing’.
The fact that there was room for such disagreements makes clear that though
the Confession set limits to theological pluralism, it was careful not to set these
limits too tightly. Liberty of opinion was still allowed on a range of significant
issues. For example, the Confession leaves open the question of Millennialism.
This can hardly be due to the debate being irrelevant. Many of the sectaries who
swirled around seventeenth-century London were Premillennialists, while most of
the Puritans were Postmillennialists. Everyone, then, had a position on the
question, yet the Confession appears to have none, and this allowed for the
emergence of a significant group of Premillennialists in the Church of Scotland
in the nineteenth century. The most prominent of these was Edward Irving, who
found Premillennialism in the Scots Confession, and regarded this as one of the
marks of its excellence. Irving’s theology did eventually provoke controversy, but
this had little to do with his Premillennialism—nor did his Premillennial views die
with himself. They were adopted by others who, unlike Irving, had no problem
with the Confession, and stood out instead as champions of Calvinist orthodoxy.
The most prominent of these were the brothers Andrew and Horatius Bonar, but
around them stood a much wider circle, and their views drew a vigorous response
from David Brown, a Postmillennialist. Both views were tolerated, and there is no
sign that the Bonars (who, like Brown, adhered to the Free Church in 1843) felt
any tension between Premillennialism and the Confession. It was an issue on
which, to say the least, there was room for latitude of interpretation.
The Confession was also less than dogmatic on the doctrine of the imputation
of Adam’s sin. Is it immediate or mediate? The Confession assumes, of course, the

¹ See James Fisher, The Assembly’s Shorter Catechism Explained by way of Question and Answer,
20:7: ‘Is Christ the cause of election? No; the free love of God sent Christ to redeem the elect, and
therefore he could not be the cause of electing love, John iii.16.’
6  

historicity of Adam and Eve, and denial of this would clearly be inconsistent with
the 1711 Formula of Subscription. However, when it comes to defining the
significance of Adam’s sin (VI:3), the Confession proceeds with caution: the
guilt of this sin was imputed to his posterity, his corrupted nature was conveyed
to them, and the rationale for this was the biological fact that he and Eve were the
root of all humankind. But Reformed Orthodoxy had already begun to trouble its
soul over the relation between the guilt and the corruption. According to imme-
diate imputation, guilt is imputed to Adam’s posterity simply on the basis that
they are his posterity, irrespective of any actual sinfulness on their part. Yet
mediate imputation states that guilt is imputed not simply because we are
descendants of Adam, but because we are tainted with the corruption inherited
from him.
This latter view is commonly associated with Joshua de la Place, who was
condemned by the 1645 Synod of the French Reformed Church for allegedly
denying the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity. He repudiated this charge,
but what he did hold was that we share in the guilt of Adam’s sin only because
we habitually consent to it. On this understanding, personal corruption comes
before inherited guilt. The reaction to this by Reformed Orthodoxy was a dubious
refining of the doctrine of immediate imputation to the effect that our native
depravity is the penal consequence of our inherited guilt.
The Confession takes no notice of this debate, possibly because members of the
Assembly were unaware of it, more likely because they did not think such
refinements were appropriate in a basis of unity. However, via Francis Turretin
and the Formula Consensus Helvetica, the idea that depravity is the penal conse-
quence of imputed guilt passed to such influential figures as Charles Hodge in
America and to Ebenezer Erskine and William Cunningham in Scotland. Others
disowned it, arguing that it could not claim sanction from either Scripture, the
Confession, or Calvin. In Scotland, theologians such as Robert Dick, John
Macpherson, and John Laidlaw maintained a discreet silence, though Macpherson
did insist that no one suffered the punishment due to a guilty race without having
personally committed offences which deserve such punishment (see Armstrong
2004: 114–15; Macleod 2014).
There is, however, one issue, now seen as very much an open question, which
the Confession seems to regard as a closed one: divine passibility. ‘God,’ declares the
Confession, ‘is without body, parts or passions’ (II:1). The assertion of divine
incorporeality and divine simplicity will raise no eyebrows. But what of the state-
ment that God is without passions?
This wording is not peculiar to the Westminster Confession: it is lifted directly
from the first of the Anglican Articles. But does it rule out the idea of divine
passibility? It may be, for example, that what is in view is not passions as such, but
bodily passions; or, alternatively, what Augustine called ‘a movement of the mind
contrary to reason’. The language also covers other important points which not
       7

even the most ardent advocate of divine passibility would deny, such as the notion
that God cannot suffer passively, as a mere victim; nor is he, like pagan deities,
liable to furious outbursts of passionate anger.
To infer from this statement that subscribers to the Confession were bound to
the view that God has no emotions, or that he is not affected by events outside
himself, or that he was not moved by the death of his own Son, would be to
remove from Scripture key elements of its revelation of God. If the crucifixion cost
God the Father nothing, the Christian Eucharist loses much of its focus. Typical
Scottish preachers certainly give no impression that they moderated their lan-
guage for fear of being accused of denying divine impassibility. Samuel Rutherford,
referring to the Cross, can even speak of ‘God weeping, God sobbing under the
water!’ It is devoutly to be hoped that all churches will leave divine impassibility an
open question.
If we were to gauge the significance of the Confession by the volume of criticism
it has attracted, our minds would immediately turn to its chapter on the Divine
Decree (Chapter III). At the head of the chapter, however, lies a statement that
cries out, not for either irate rejection or stubborn dogmatism, but for careful
attention and fruitful development. While divine foreordination, we are told, does
indeed cover ‘whatsoever comes to pass’, it does so without violating the human
will, or eliminating either liberty or contingency (III:1).
At the heart of these caveats lies a deliberate distinction between foreordination
and determination. While the distinction may be as difficult to articulate as the
Trinitarian distinction between ‘generation’ and ‘procession’, it is none the less
real. God foreordains our human decisions, but he ordains them as free decisions.
This clearly implies that our individual choices are not determined by genetics,
childhood experiences, environment, instinct, character or any other factors
external or internal. They are our own personal choices: free choices. How far
this can comport with divine foreordination has so far remained beyond us. What
is important, as Cunningham pointed out, is that there is nothing in the West-
minster Confession which requires subscribers to be Determinists (1862: 508). On
the contrary, they are free to be Calvinistic Libertarians.
Even more fascinating is the Confession’s statement on contingency: a state-
ment which has taken on a whole new significance in the light of Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty Principle. Unfortunately, subsequent Scottish theology, including
expositions of the Confession, refused to linger over the idea that God had decreed
the contingent as well as the free and the necessary, and rushed on, instead, to the
more comfortable topic of predestination. It remains, however, that while piety
may protest that there is no such thing as chance, physics and the Westminster
Confession both leave room for it, while the Confession adds that it is established
by God. This still cries out for elucidation.
Yet any assessment of the significance of the Confession must take account of
the fact that side by side with such metaphysical flights there are several
8  

statements of clear pastoral relevance. One striking example occurs in the chapter
on Justification (XI:5). This recognizes that believers, once justified, can never fall
out of the state of justification, but it leaves no place for the view expressed by
James Hogg’s justified sinner, Robert Wringhim, that ‘a justified person could do
no wrong’ (1991: 134). Instead, it declares that the sins of believers bring them
under God’s ‘fatherly displeasure’. The key word here is ‘fatherly’. Believers are no
longer liable to judicial condemnation, but as God’s children they are subject to his
house-rules. Although he will never turn them out, they will quickly find that they
cannot sin with impunity. On the contrary, they will incur divine displeasure,
expressed, very likely, in challenging providences. But what is particularly moving
is the paragraph’s description of the backslider’s road to recovery. They must
‘humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and
repentance’. This is grace, but it is not cheap grace, and it shows the Confession as
not only theologically acute, but pastorally aware.
But if the Confession did not preclude debate and development, did its very
status not silence anti-Confessional voices? A mere forty years after the passing
of the 1711 Formula, control of the General Assembly passed to the Moderates
under the leadership of Principal Robertson of Edinburgh University. Even
allowing for the fact that the line between Moderates and Evangelicals (otherwise,
the ‘Popular Party’) is far from clear, there can be no doubt that among the
Moderates there was deep resentment of the Confession since, in theory at least, a
minister could be deposed for contravention of any of its doctrines. If this bred
resentment, it also bred fear. The outcome, according to Drummond and Bulloch,
was that the Moderates failed to produce any theology of distinction: ‘They were
restrained by the Westminster Confession. They did not hold its doctrines, but
could not say so in public’ (1973: 104).
It was not merely a matter of feeling restrained. There was also a serious degree
of contempt, as John Witherspoon highlighted in his satirical Ecclesiastical Char-
acteristics (1753), declaring it ‘a necessary part of the character of a moderate man,
never to speak of the Confession of Faith but with a sneer’. Yet the contempt
produced little inclination to propose revision of either the Confession or the
Formula of Subscription. Living as they did in the shadow of the Jacobite upris-
ings, men like Robertson were opposed to any ecclesiastical move that might
jeopardize ‘the late happy settlement’ of 1707. That settlement had the Confession
at its heart, and even had churchmen proposed a change, the government would
not have allowed it.
Yet, whatever the restraint arising from fear of breaching the Confession, the
years of Moderate dominance were not a complete blank in Scotland’s theological
history. Not only did men such as Adam Gib within the Secession, and John
Erskine within the Kirk, continue to produce theology along Confessional lines,
but even within the Moderate party itself some significant work was being done.
For example, George Campbell of Marischal College, Aberdeen, published an
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Night settled early, for long before twilight the sky became heavily
overcast and a wind rose, sweeping the dust up in clouds as it drove
through the town, and auguring a rainstorm. The doctor placed a
light in his office, then took his station at a window in an unlighted
front room.
The minutes dragged. Eight o’clock struck, and nine.
“Mebbe that sick feller did die,” he said to Letty over the telephone.
“But——”
He hung up the receiver abruptly. There was a sound of galloping in
the street. It ceased at the gate, when heavy steps came hurrying to
his porch. It was the man with the scar.
“Doc,” he began, panting with his hard ride, “you said you’d operate
——”
“Ready in a jiffy,” answered the doctor, and turned away to pick up
hat and case.
The next instant there was a choking cry from the porch, then loud
curses and the sound of fierce scuffling. The doctor whirled.
The man with the scar was flat on his back at the threshold, his
wrists manacled, his shins ironed; over him stood a smooth-shaven,
thick-set, middle-aged man armed with a revolver—the man who had
halted the doctor on the Blue Top road; and Eastman was there.
“He stole my boy!” the father called out furiously. “I’m going to kill
him!” He flung himself forward.
The man with the revolver pushed him back. And, “No! No!”
expostulated the doctor. “Eastman! You’re makin’ a mistake!”
The prisoner gave a loud, hard laugh. “You bet your life he’s making
a mistake!” he declared.
“We got you just the same,” said the man with the revolver
triumphantly.
“Put him on a horse,” ordered Eastman, maddened more than ever
by the taunting laugh. “He’ll take me to my boy or I’ll kill him.”
The captured man ignored the father. His look was on the doctor,
and it was full of hate. “Ah, h—l!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “I could
kick myself! Last night I had my finger on the trigger. But like a fool
——”
Eastman was sobbing in baffled rage. “My baby!” he cried. “Four
days with this brute! Think of it!”
“No more monkey business.” The man with the revolver was
speaking, and he gave his prisoner a rough poke in the side with his
boot. “You’re in the hands of the Sheriff, and you’re going to take us
out to that cañon. We start right off.”
“No, we don’t,” was the answer. “You’ve trapped me, the three of
you. Send me up if you can. My word’s as good as this doctor’s, and
I don’t have to take you anywhere to hunt for evidence against me.”
“Get up,” commanded the sheriff. He unbuckled the irons from his
prisoner’s legs.
The man with the scar rose. “Nobody’ll ever find that cabin or what’s
in it,” he said doggedly. “And when Bill dies——”
“Oh, my God!” It was the father.
The doctor was leaning in the doorway. “What’d you do this for, Mr.
Eastman?” he asked.
The tears were streaming down Eastman’s face. “We thought the
Sheriff ought to come,” he faltered. “The boy’s mother is frantic. And
this seemed the surest way.” The doctor shook his head. “I’m afraid
we’ve lost our best chance,” he said.
“See here, Doc,” broke in the sheriff. “I made the capture. And I want
you to understand when we find the boy I’m entitled to the reward.”
The other turned astonished eyes upon him. “Reward?” he repeated.
“You mean to say you didn’t know there’s five thousand offered?”
“So that’s why you done this,” said the doctor, and shrugged his
shoulders. “You know, I’ve heerd tell of fellers that put their foot in it.
You’ve got your’n in plumb to the knee.”
“I’ll come out all right,” retorted the sheriff boastfully. “I’ll send for
dogs. There’s three in Sacramento. I can have ’em here in eighteen
hours.”
“If I don’t git to Bill,” said the doctor, “he’ll be dead before that.” He
looked at the man with the scar.
“Eighteen hours!” repeated Eastman miserably.
Now the sheriff advanced upon his prisoner. “You’re going to take me
to that cabin,” he said threateningly. “You don’t think so now, but I
can make you change your mind. Come along.” He seized his
prisoner by a shackled arm and jerked him toward the gate.
Eastman started after the two, pleading incoherently. But half-way to
the gate he stopped. A girl blocked the walk. It was Letty.
“Depend on the doctor,” she said. “He took his life in his hands to
find the boy. He was going to risk it again to bring him to you. And he
didn’t even know there was a reward.”
Eastman turned and went stumbling back.
“But he doesn’t know the way,” he protested. “He said he didn’t.”
In answer, the doctor took his arm and led him down the street to the
wide gate opening into Bobby’s corral. “I’ll have a horse here for you
in a minute,” he said. “I’ll ride this one. You see, there’s another
scheme. But it really don’t depend on me—it depends on this little
bronc.”
When Bobby was saddled and bridled Letty put her cheek against
his soft nose. “Do your best,” she whispered; and to his rider: “Don’t
fail.”
The doctor took both her hands in his. “I’m a-goin’ to make it,” he
declared. “Stay with the boy’s maw, little gal, till we come.”
Bobby was eager to be off, pawing as the doctor mounted and
backing in a circle when his rider held him in to wait for Eastman.
The reins loosened, the little horse sprang forward at a brisk canter,
leading the way out of town.
It was at the forks of the road that the first halt was made. Here the
doctor, having first tied the bridle reins to his pommel assumed the
exact position in the saddle that he had twice been compelled to
take, and laid his hands on his saddle-horn.
“Now, Bobby,” he said, touching the mustang gently with his heels,
“here we are. Go on.”
Bobby moved forward, but hesitatingly, and, when he had gone a
few steps, stopped, looking about him.
Again the doctor urged him kindly. “Want your supper, Bobby?
Come, now.”
The little horse made forward at a brisk walk then, travelling straight
south along the road that followed the track. Presently, however, he
turned sharply to the right and entered the brush.
“Do you think he’s going right?” called out Eastman anxiously.
“Wal,” answered the doctor, “he acts like he means business. You
see, for two days I ain’t give him a bite to eat except when he was
out yonder in that cañon.”
Bobby was taking a westward course that was almost at right angles
to the road he had just come down. He wound through scrubby
liveoaks and bristling chaparral, evidently along no path. Behind him
the other horse had to be urged constantly, for the undergrowth was
heavy and hung across the way. But soon the brush parted to leave
a straight, open track, so narrow, however, that it seemed only a
path. The doctor got down and lit a match. They were on a trail that
showed recent use. Upon it, stamped plainly in the dust, were the
round, eastward-pointing hoofprints of a mule.
“Are we right?” asked Eastman.
“So far.”
Now both horses were pushed to a canter—until the path grew rough
and steep. The doctor recognised this descent and listened for the
sound of the rushing stream he had crossed both times under the
guidance of the man with the scar. When the stream was washing
the hoofs of their horses the doctor reached out to lay a hand on
Eastman’s shoulder.
“My friend, we’re half-way!”
Eastman would have pressed ahead then, but the doctor would not
permit it.
“Leave it to Bobby,” was his counsel. “Mr. Nick didn’t blindfold
Bobby.”
The path ascended the long slope of a hogback. Pine needles
covered the slope, and though the doctor dismounted a half-dozen
times no path could be seen. But each time, as he stepped into the
saddle again, the little horse went forward eagerly.
The hogback ended abruptly. Bobby turned to the left. The trip had
seemed so short that now, as the doctor looked into the darkness
below him, he could scarcely credit his senses.
“Eastman,” he said. “See below there!”
It was a spot of light.
From then on it was a wild ride. The horses did not leave the steep
path; but they stumbled, slid or scrambled for a footing down the
whole of the black descent. The doctor kept his eyes on the light.
Eastman, divided between joy and fear, shouted out frenziedly
toward the nearing shanty.
At the edge of the clearing both men flung themselves out of their
saddles, then ran. Eastman led. And as he entered the low door he
still hoarsely called: “Laurie! Laurie! Laurie!”
A faint cry answered. It came from beyond the bed, on which lay a
quiet form. The doctor reached to shove at the boards forming the
blind door. They gave, disclosing a small inner room.
The next moment a little figure in soiled rompers came out of the
darkness of the room, toddling unsteadily on bare legs, for the baby
stockings were down over worn sandals. Fair hair hung uncombed
about a face that was pitifully thin and streaked by tears and dust.
The doctor lifted the boy up and swung him out, and the father
spread his arms to receive him and caught the child to his breast.
The doctor laid back the rumpled covers of the bed then. “Bill,” he
said kindly, and began to unbuckle the strap of his case.
“So that’s the other one.” It was Eastman, on his knees, the child
clasped tight.
The doctor laid back the bedcovers very gently. “It was the other
one,” he answered.

Midnight, and the lost boy was in his mother’s arms, with Eastman
hovering beside the two, and the doctor across from him, sitting on
his heels, with a baby hand in his big, gentle grasp.
“Doctor, we’ll never be able to make it up to you,” said the father. “I
don’t feel that the reward is half enough. But I want you to accept it
with our lifelong gratitude.” They were in Mrs. Eastman’s sitting-room
at the hotel. Her husband crossed to a desk.
The doctor stood up, colouring bashfully. “Aw, I can’t take money for
findin’ the little feller,” he protested; and when Eastman came back,
holding out a slip of paper to him, he shook his head decidedly. “No,
sir, I just can’t,” he declared. Letty entered then, carrying a tray
hidden under a napkin. He hastened across the room to take it from
her.
“We’ll see about this later on,” answered Eastman. “You must accept
it. And there’s another thing I want to offer. You know, Doctor
Fowler’s been up from San Francisco to look over the Blue Top
position. But he won’t suit. Do you think he’s been worrying about
the finding of my boy? Not a bit of it. He’s been worrying for fear the
bungalow wouldn’t be big enough to please his wife. There’s one
thing I didn’t realise the other day, Doc. What we need is a physician
that doesn’t put on so much style—the kind of a man that can meet
any emergency, you understand—take a horse over a trail if it’s
necessary.”
“Yas?” returned the doctor. The tray was still in his hands. And now it
began to tremble so that there was a faint clink of glass. He stood
looking down at it.
“In fact,” went on Eastman, “we need a doctor like you at the mine.”
The doctor raised his eyes to the girl standing at Mrs. Eastman’s
side. And he saw that there was a look of great happiness on her
face, like the happiness on the face of the young mother.
“Blue Top!” he said. Then: “Letty, do you think the little shingled
house is too small?”
 THE BOOMERANG
WHEN darkness settled a figure began to follow Patton—a tall,
ungainly, heavy-shouldered figure. It shadowed him down the single
street of the desert town to the depot, where he bought two tickets
and checked two beribboned trunks; it lurked at his heels when he
went back along the dirt sidewalk to Conley’s restaurant, the largest
of the score of unpainted pine shacks that made up Searles. The
restaurant faced the single track of the railroad line, and as Patton
ate his supper, the figure stood on the ties, quiet and watchful. When
Patton left the restaurant for the barber-shop farther along the street,
it moved parallel with him, and took up its station outside a front
window of the place.
Patton entered the shop hurriedly and dropped into the only chair.
He was a man of, perhaps, forty, with black hair that was brushed
away slickly from a narrow forehead, and black eyes set deep and
near together. His nose was long and sharply pointed. His mouth
was too full for his lean jaws, which gave his cheeks the appearance
of being constantly sucked in. But he was far from ill-looking. And
when he got out of the barber’s chair presently, fresh-shaven, there
was a healthy glow to his dark skin under its trace of powder.
He arranged a spotless collar and a fresh tie, settled his soft hat on
his carefully combed hair, adjusted his coat before a mirror, and went
out. The figure moved with him, going toward the depot once more.
A building beyond the station was brightly lighted. Patton made
toward it, walking fast and whistling. The figure walked faster than he
—until it was almost at his heels.
“Patton!”
Patton halted. “Hello,” he returned cheerily. “Who is it?”
The figure halted. “It’s Jeff Blandy,” was the answer.
“Oh.” The tone showed displeasure. Patton backed away a step.
“Well, what can I do for you?”
Blandy did not reply at once. Then, “You can’t do nothin’ for me,” he
said. “I just want to say a word or two about—Polly Baker.”
“Yes?” inquired Patton impatiently. “Well, hurry up. The ceremony’s
at nine-thirty. The west-bound goes through at eleven.”
Again there was a short silence. When Blandy went on, his voice
was lowered. “She ain’t got no paw nor maw, nor no brother. That’s
why I’m a-speakin’ to you.”
“I’ll look after her,” said Patton coldly.
“I’d like to feel right shore of that. You see, she and me has been
good friends for a long while. And I want to ask you, Patton, to play
fair with her, and——”
“Say! look here!” broke in the other man. “You’re putting your lip into
something that’s none of your business.”
“Do y’ think so?” retorted Blandy with sudden spirit. “Wal, out here in
the West, a man’s likely to find hull crowds that’ll make it their
business if he can’t see his way to treatin’ a woman white.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Patton.
“Just this: I happen to know about that Galindo business at Paicines.
There’s one place you didn’t act on the square. Wal, the Galindo
girl’s a greaser, and her men folks oughta took better care of her. We
won’t say nothin’ more about it, Patton. But don’t forgit this: A feller
owes his wife somethin’ more’n just the weddin’ ceremony.”
“Oh, I see,” sneered Patton. “You’re trying to kick up a rumpus. You
wanted Polly yourself.”
Blandy gave a short laugh. “Me?” he said. “Me? Why, you’re crazy!
All I’ve got to keep a wife on is my prospectin’ outfit and a’ old mangy
mule. Me! Huh! No girl’d look at me—no fine, pretty girl that’s had
lots of chances. I ain’t nothin’ but a slob.”
To that, Patton made no comment.
“No, you’re the kind of a man that a girl likes,” Blandy went on. “And
you git a couple of hunderd from the East every month. You can take
her away from this hole and make her nice and comfortable in Los
Angeles, and give her a hired girl to wait on her, and decent clothes.
Wal, that’s fine. But a’ easy time and good clothes don’t amount to a
hill of beans with a woman if she ain’t happy. So—play fair with her,
Patton. In the long run, it pays to do what’s right. You know that. Nine
times outen ten, when a man picks up a club to take a’ underhanded
shy at another person, Mister Stick comes whizzin’ right back and
gives him a crack in the head like one of them——”
“That’ll do, Blandy,” interrupted Patton. His voice was hoarse with
anger. “I haven’t any more time for your damned gossip.” He turned
abruptly and strode away.
Blandy stayed where he was, his heavy shoulders stooped, his arms
hanging loosely at his sides, his weight shifted to one foot. He saw a
door of the near-by house open wide to admit Patton; heard a chorus
of gay voices greet the other man, and following a short wait, heard
the tones of an organ, playing a march. He waited until the organ
ceased; then, head lowered, and hat pulled down to his brows, he
walked away slowly, going to the depot.
He halted in the shadow of the station and stayed there until the
head-light of the west-bound train shone in the distance like a fallen
star. The star grew. And through the night air came the thin shriek of
the nearing engine. It was then that a laughing, chattering group left
the brightly-lighted house and came hurrying toward the depot.
Blandy turned from the approaching light.
The centre of the group was the bride, a slender girl in a white dress.
As she stepped upon the platform, under the station lamps, Blandy
leaned forward a little to catch a glimpse of her face. Her childish
eyes, long-lashed and the blue of lapis lazuli, were bright with
happiness, her cheeks an excited pink.
She saw the tall figure standing half in and half out of the shadow,
and ran to him. “Jeff,” she began reprovingly, “you didn’t come to the
wedding!”
He took her outstretched hand. “No,” he agreed; “no, I—I didn’t, but
——” He paused awkwardly.
“I missed you, Jeff,” she declared. “Why, I wanted you there more
than anybody else. And I wanted to wait till someone could go for
you. But nobody’d seen you, and they didn’t know where you were—
What was the matter, Jeff?”
“I—I had business to attend to,” he explained.
“Business! And you my best, best friend——”
The train was close. Voices began to summon her back to the
wedding-party.
Blandy leaned down to her. “Dear little Polly,” he said huskily, “your
old side-pardner wishes you all the luck that’s in the world.”
Then she was gone again. She smiled back at him from the steps of
the car, and answered the chorus of farewells that was shouted up to
her. The engine-bell clanged, the train moved. Patton sprang to the
girl’s side amid a shower of rice. There was more shouting, which
was answered from the car platform, and the west-bound pulled out,
the green lights on the rear of the last coach glowing like the eyes of
a serpent.
Blandy lifted a hand to his breast, then to his throat, then to his eyes.
The group of wedding guests gone, and the depot platform dark, he
crossed the railroad track, walking a little uncertainly. Out in the
blackness, among the sage-brush, something was moving about—
an animal. He went up to it, untied a rope, spoke a word of
command, and started off northward—away from the town into the
desert.

Jeff Blandy, staggering across the last mile of his journey, directed
his way over the railroad track to Conley’s restaurant. The dust of
many days and nights was upon him, powdering hair and clothes to
the colour of his grey hat. The weariness of trudging over yielding
and uneven ground was in his long legs and in the stoop of his
shoulders. And the leathern sallow of his face wore a fresh gloss of
vivid red that was like the reflection of a torch-flame. Yet in his eyes
—as brown and big and appealingly honest as the eyes of a great,
friendly dog—was a gleam that neither the sand-laden winds nor the
scorching sun had dulled. And there was a smile lurking among the
long bristles at the corners of his wide mouth.
Entering the restaurant, he found it unchanged, though a year had
passed since he had left Searles. There were the two oilcloth-
covered tables that reached from end to end of the room, and the
counter, with its cash-register. But no one was on hand to take his
order. Stiffly, he let himself down upon a chair at one end of the first
table. Then, leaning back and dropping his hat to the floor at his
side, he picked up a knife and rang a sharp summons on the rim of
an empty glass.
The door into the kitchen swung open to admit a young man in shirt-
sleeves and soiled apron,—a short, thick-set young man with the
curly flaxen hair, full blue eyes and apple-red cheeks of a boy doll.
He was carrying a pitcher of water.
Blandy drained his glass before he gave the other a nod. Then,
“Gimme some ham and eggs and fried potatoes,” he began. “A
steak, if you got it, too. And coffee. And some pie. And fruit——”
“Oranges is the only fruit,” interrupted the waiter.
“Orange’ll do. And could the cook mix me some flap-jacks?”
“I guess.”
“Then that’ll be all.”
The young man in shirt-sleeves went out, kicking the swinging door
open before him and shouting his order. Left alone, Blandy helped
himself to a second glass of water, after which he stretched his legs
far under the table, folded his arms upon his breast, and took a deep
breath. Then, as he waited, the smile at the corners of his mouth
began slowly to spread, until his burned cheeks were wrinkled with it,
and his moistened lips were parted to show a double line of strong
white teeth. Thus he sat, all a-grin, dreaming.
Beyond the swinging doors, dishes were clattering, and there was a
sound of sputtering and frying. The voice of the waiter rose and fell,
too, amid the din of crockery and cooking; and mingled with his
voice, now and then, was the voice of a woman. Presently, the
tempting smell of ham was wafted out into the dining-room. It was
then that Blandy drew in his feet and sat erect, turning his eyes
kitchen-ward.
Soon the waiter appeared. Pyramided upon his towel-draped left arm
were numerous plates and platters, topped by a huge cup of inky
coffee that steamed as it washed gently from side to side with every
sway of the arm. As the order was placed upon the table, together
with some cutlery, which the waiter scattered with his right hand,
Blandy picked up a knife and fork, pulled a platter into place before
him, and began to eat, ravenously. Someone—a man—entered the
front door and took a seat behind the cash-register. Blandy did not
look up. One by one the platters and plates were emptied. At last,
refreshed and satisfied, Blandy picked up an orange and began to
peel it leisurely.
It was now that for the first time he chanced to look across at the
man behind the counter. That glance brought him to his feet, the
half-peeled orange in his hand. “Harvey Patton!” he exclaimed in
amazement.
“How are you?” answered Patton, indifferently. The tip of his nose
moved up and down a little as he spoke.
Blandy strode toward the counter. “What under the shinin’ sun are
you doin’ back in Searles?” he demanded.
“Keeping restaurant.”
The other was silent for a moment, his astonished eyes still fixed
upon Patton. Then, “Where’s—Polly?” he asked.
Patton jerked his head sidewise toward the kitchen. “She’s doing the
cooking,” he explained, smiling.
Blandy’s staring eyes narrowed. He turned abruptly, crossed the
room to the swinging door and struck it out of the way before him.
Just within the kitchen, he halted. It was a small room, reeking with
smells, and suffocatingly hot. On the side farthest from Blandy was a
sink. And bending over the sink, with her back to him, was a girl. As
he looked at her, the red on his face slowly deepened, as if he were
holding his breath. After a while, his glance travelled to the stove,
upon which some pots were steaming; to the long kitchen table piled
high with unwashed dishes; to the heaping oil can of scraps at the
foot of the table; to the floor, spattered and unswept. When at last his
look went back to the girl, the hairy skin at either side of his mouth
was twitching with the effort of self-control.
“Polly!”
She turned. The perspiration was streaming from forehead and
temples, so that her face and throat glistened, as her arms were
glistening with the water that was streaming from elbows to finger-
ends. Her face was more scarlet than his own. Out of that scarlet
looked her eyes, which were shadowed by wide, dark circles.
“Why—why, Jeff!”
He shook his head, slowly and sadly. “And so you married to come
to this,” he said in a low voice.
There was a bench beside the sink. She sank to it, as if too weary to
keep her feet. As she sat there, leaning on a hand, he saw her, not
as she was before him, tired and blowzy and wet with sweat, but as
he had seen her last. He took a step toward her. “How does it come
that you and Patton’re keepin’ a’ eatin’-house?” he asked.
“We—we got short of money,” she answered falteringly. “Harvey
wouldn’t work in Los Angeles where he’s acquainted. He’s so proud.
So we came back here. And—and this was all we could see to do.”
“We,” repeated Blandy.
“Well,” she answered. “Well——”
“How about that two hunderd he used to git every month from the
East?” He watched her keenly.
“Never comes any more,” she declared.
“That’s too bad. Makin’ any money with the rest’rant?”
“I—I don’t know. Mr. Conley didn’t when he had it. But then he had to
pay his cook.”
“Huh!” commented Blandy, between his teeth, and fell silent again.
“This work’s too hard for you,” he said finally, when he could trust
himself to speak. “You’ll drop in your tracks. Why, I could pick you up
in my two hands like a rag and wring you.”
Her lips trembled. But she kept her face raised to his. “Oh, I don’t
mind a little work,” she declared.
The flaxen-haired waiter entered the kitchen by the rear door. Blandy
turned and went out through the other one. There was a gleam in the
dog-like eyes once more, but it was not a gleam that was good to
see.
Patton was still seated behind the cash-register. He smiled at Blandy
again, and gave another sidewise jerk of his smooth head toward the
kitchen. “It’s a pretty complete plant, isn’t it?” he questioned
boastfully.
Blandy made no reply, only reached a big, freckled hand into a
pocket, brought forth two silver dollars, and tossed them ringing
upon the counter. Then he picked up his hat and went out.
But just in front of the entrance, he halted. Before him, across the
wide, dusty street and the shining rails of the track, lay the level
desert. It was mid-afternoon. And the grey wastes were swept by
waves of heat that sank and rose unceasingly, now almost as plain
to the eye as flames would have been, now shadowy. Blandy
measured every blistering mile, from the rough, unroofed porch on
which he stood to the distant horizon, where a mountain range
traced an uneven line upon the misty blue of the sky. And as he
stood, his arms hanging loose at his sides, his shoulders lowered,
his head sunk between them, he was the very figure of indecision.
Finally, he straightened, turned about, opened the restaurant door
and re-entered. Patton was smoking, a long cigar in one corner of
his mouth, and tilted upward; one knee crossed upon the other.
Blandy walked to the counter. “Patton,” he began, “this ain’t no kind
of a business for you. You won’t make your salt here in Searles.
Now, I’ve got a proposition to make you—you and Polly. But it
mustn’t go no further.” He gave a quick glance about him.
“I’m not dying to stay in Searles,” observed Patton, blowing smoke.
“Wal,”—Blandy dropped his voice—“you go into pardnership with
me, Patton, and you don’t have to stay.”
The other took out his cigar and eyed Blandy half-suspiciously.
“You’ve changed some,” he commented. “You didn’t used to care
much about me. But—what’s your proposition?”
The gleam of triumph came back into Blandy’s eyes. “I’ve made a
strike,” he said.
“A mine?”
Now, Blandy straightened, shoulders back, head up, face all a-grin
once more. “That’s what,” he declared proudly.
Patton slipped down from his stool. “Where?” he asked excitedly.
Blandy lifted a long arm to point out through the front window toward
the north. “Four days from here,” he answered.
“When’ll we go?” questioned the other. He reached across to lay a
hand on Blandy’s sleeve. “We’ve got to locate, you know. That’s the
law. We mustn’t miss a trick, old man.”
“Oh, I located, all right,” declared Blandy. He drew back a step.
“But you didn’t locate for me,” went on Patton. “So I’ve got to go out,
haven’t I? And there’s another reason, too. You’re the only person
that knows just where the lead is. Well, suppose anything were to
happen to you—a railroad accident, or a bad sickness. Where would
I be? That’s the way all the lost mines’ve come about, Blandy.”
“We’ll talk it over to-night. Then Polly can hear about it, too. There’s
enough for the three of us out there,—and some over. So she can
have a claim separate.”
“Oh, I’ll look after her,” said Patton carelessly.
“No.” There was determination in Blandy’s tone. “I’m lettin’ you in on
this with the understandin’ that she has her holdin’. She can lease it,
or she can work it, just whichever she likes. You know, it’s kinda
stylish for a lady to have her own bank-book.”
“All right,” agreed Patton impatiently.
It was close upon four then. Patton was for calling his wife in and
breaking the news at once. “And we’ll close up and cut out supper,”
he declared, “and have a little celebration.”
But Blandy flatly objected. “Don’t shut down just a’ hour or two
before a meal,” he advised. “Put a sign on the front door to-night.
Say on it that the rest’rant is closed ’cause your wife is plumb wored
out. We can’t afford to give ourselves away, Patton. There’s plenty of
men in Searles that can smell a strike forty mile. Look out or some of
’em ’ll be follerin’ us.”
“You’re right,” declared Patton.
Thus it came about that Polly cooked supper in ignorance of the
sudden good fortune that was to make such further toiling
unnecessary. Blandy went out into the hot kitchen a second time. But
he had little to say, and devoted his efforts to the washing and drying
of the dishes, which he received in pyramids from the swinging left
arm of the flaxen-haired waiter; and when, shortly after seven
o’clock, the last guest was gone, and the last dish clean, Blandy
swept and mopped the kitchen floor.
At eight, by the light of a single candle, there was a conference of
three at one of the oilcloth-covered tables in the front room. The
waiter had taken himself off in the direction of the main saloon down
the street, out of which were floating the strains of a violin and the
voices of singing women. Nevertheless, Blandy told his story in a
half-whisper, and without pointing.
“The ledge is in a spur of the range back of Salt Basin,” he confided.
“And clost to—what do you think?”
“What?” questioned Patton.
“The bowl in the rock!”
Patton turned to his wife. “That’s the spring I told you about,” he
explained. “I went out there four years ago with a prospector. You
wouldn’t believe, Polly, that water could be found in a place like that
—a regular ash-pile, you might say. But there it is. The bowl is
hollowed out as pretty as can be. And the water comes in drop by
drop—just at night, though. It leaks in through a split that’s so fine
you couldn’t get a knife-blade into it. But what comes in doesn’t run
out, because the bowl’s good-sized, and if the buzzards don’t drink
the water up, the sun does.”
Polly made no comment. She sat very still, watching Blandy steadily.
Her face was as pale as it had been scarlet at mid-afternoon.
“The lead ain’t more’n a stone’s throw from the bowl,” went on
Blandy; “—to the right up the slope. Say! think of the feller’s that’ve
missed it!—’cause they was so all-fired glad to find water that they
forgot all about gold. But I found it. I was comin’ down the slope,
headin’ for a drink, when my darned feet got all tangled up and I took
a double-ender. Wal, sir, when I sit up to feel if any bones was broke,
here was the blossom rock, lookin’ me straight in the eye!—yeller
chunks, Patton, as big as pine-nuts!”
Patton’s black eyes were glistening. “How high’ll that rock run?” he
asked.
“Turrible high—even where it don’t show colour. There was a fortune
right in sight—without thinkin’ of what’s laying behind. There’s all
we’ll ever want out there—a chance to do a few things for our
friends, and our relations—them that we like; and grand houses, and
outomobiles, and fine clothes, and horses, and folks to wait on us,
and travellin’, and edication, and—and what’ll make Polly a queen!”
“Did you put up a written notice?”
“Shore.”
“Have you got some specimens?”
“About a mile from here—buried.”
“A few samples aren’t enough,” asserted Patton. “Anybody can get
hold of a dozen pieces of rich rock. Why, there are men who make a
good living by selling ore that’s used to draw suckers on.”
“A-course, that’s so,” agreed Blandy.
“What we ought to have is about four barley-sackfuls. There’s
nothing like making a great, big hit at the very start.”
“Yas, I know,” said Blandy. “But when one of them millionaire fellers
is considerin’ a lease, he sends out a’ expert.”
“If you have a hundred pounds of quartz and an assay, there won’t
be any need of an expert,” argued Patton. “We’ll lease without a bit
of trouble. Of course, we might make more by taking some rich man
in as a partner, and working the mine on shares——”
“Why, there’s half a million apiece in it for us without doin’ that.”
“Half a million,” repeated Patton. “Huh! I mean to ask one million flat
for my share.”
Blandy laughed. “Oh, leave a little for the gent that’s a-going to put
up the cash,” he advised.
Patton went on arguing. “As a matter of fact,” he declared, “it
wouldn’t take us any time at all to land three hundred pounds of ore
at the track if we used an auto.”
“No.” Blandy was decisive. “No, I don’t trust none of them
flyshuffers.”
“But I’ll drive.”
“Take a machine and leave tracks, eh?” demanded Blandy. “Not on
your life! Burros is what we need. A burro can travel on a washout
and never turn a stone.”
“All right, burros then,” assented Patton eagerly. “Let’s start to-
morrow night.”
“Oh, what’s your sweat?” asked Blandy.
“Just this: The quicker we leave, the quicker we get out of Searles.”
“But—but maybe Jeff’s tired,” suggested Polly timidly.
Patton gave her a warning glance. “I know he’s tired,” he answered.
“But we won’t have to rush. We can take it easy, and only travel at
night. If we wait around here, people’re sure to begin trying to find
out where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing. The whole town
knows you’ve been on a long prospecting trip—I heard it when I
came. So (just as you said yourself a while ago) first thing you know,
we’ll have a regular gang on our trail.”
Blandy nodded, more than half-convinced.
“And when we’ve got our ore,” went on Patton, “I’ll go to Los Angeles
with you. I’m the man that can advise you when it comes to a lease.”
In the end Blandy agreed to an immediate trip to the mine.
But next morning it was he who set to work preparing for the journey.
Patton made off down the street almost immediately after breakfast,
and disappeared into one of the half-dozen drinking-places of the
town. When he did not return at noontime, Blandy consulted Polly.
“Don’t you think I’d better go find him?” he asked. “You see he might
take a glass or two and git to blabbin’.”
Patton was found at Rourke’s. Outside the resort, Blandy turned
upon him. “Say! You’re up to your old game, ain’t you, Patton?” he
demanded curtly.
Patton tried to laugh the matter off. “Oh, you don’t understand,” he
declared confidentially. He started homeward beside the other man.
The leather of Blandy’s face was pale. Out of the paleness burned
his wrathful eyes. “Don’t try to soft-soap me,” he went on. “I know
now where that remittance of your’n goes. But you got to cut it out! I
ain’t a-helpin’ you to a fortune so’s you can hurt Polly by slatherin’
money on some other woman.”
Patton gave a loud laugh. “Don’t think I’m a fool,” he answered. As
they entered the front room of the restaurant, he gave Blandy a look
of hate. “You aren’t giving me a claim because you like me. You’re
doing it on Polly’s account.”
“That’s right,” declared Blandy. “What in thunderation is there about
you that’d make any man hand you over half a million?”