The tremendous earnestness, scrupulous conscientiousness, and stubbornness, which clothe these minor questions with the dignity and grandeur of fundamental principles, are highly amusing to an outsider. Yet, in reality, they are but the shadows of a great virtue, for religion in Scotland is something taken quite seriously. Looking more profoundly under the surface of the wavelets of difference between the sects, one finds that the deep-sea currents meet and flow into a unity of resistless movement. Instead of antagonism, there is harmony; and one must acknowledge that, in the main, Scotland is marked for a type of manly, sturdy, God-fearing, solid, persevering type of Christianity. While Scotsmen are musing on what is deepest in man, the fires of devotion burn brightly and the soul utters itself in song, so that Scotland is not least among the nations in its repertoire of either poetry or music. “Why are the Scotch so different from the English?” is a question often asked. In my view the roots of the difference are best discerned in a critical study of the Reformation. In Scotland this great movement of the human mind was far more consistent and radical than in England, and it therefore affected all classes more thoroughly. Even more than a knowledge of racial elements does an examination of religion--the deepest thing in man’s soul--explain the peculiarities of Scottish as compared with English life, character, and temperament. England is politically free, but is socially aristocratic. Scotland is democratic in church and society. These historical facts are worth remembering, especially when we reflect that the Lowlanders were of Teutonic stock, like the English. In England politics controlled religion. In Scotland religion controlled politics. Hence common schools were more general. The leading figure was neither a bishop nor a king, but a plain presbyter, John Knox. In England, Cranmer, who may be called the father of the English Book of Common Prayer, was timid, cautious, and conservative. Knox, the father of the public schools of Scotland, was bold, fearless, and uncompromising. It is true that in England royalty was an almost resistless force, while in Scotland it was but the shadow of feudalism. During these times that tried men’s souls, England had a wise queen, both forceful and successful, while Scotland’s sovereign was a woman as remarkable for her blunders as for her beauty and her misfortunes.