David Elginbrod

re lies frae

at lies were

rs, they hae

ly ra

nd nonsense

't wi' S

RN

surdity included. He was shown to Mr. Appleditch's pew. That worthy man received him in sleek black clothes, with white neck-cloth, and Sunday face composed of an absurd mixture of stupidity and sanctity. He stood up, and Mrs. Appleditch stood up, and Master Appleditch stood up, an

d to say in every tone: "Behold I am he that worshippeth Thee! How mighty art Thou!" Then he read the Bible in a quarrelsome sort of way, as if he were a bantam, and every verse were a crow of defiance to the sinner. Then they sang a hymn in a fashion which brought dear old Scotland to Hugh's mind, which has the sweetest songs i

ording to Hugh's description, could not have been a very distant one. And yet I doubt not that some thoughts of worshipping love mingled with the noi

the value of it, may be formed from the fact, that the first thing to be considered, or, in other words, t

t, to the wild-prancing and exultant skeletons. But the parts of the sermon corresponding to the beautiful face or arm or foot, were but the fragments of Scripture, shining like gold amidst

; and it will do the whole week's work on it. On no other supposition would it be possible to account for the earnest face of Miss Talbot, which Hugh espied turned up to the preacher, as if his face were the very star in the east, shining to gui

stry by all persons desirous of communicating with me on the state of their souls, or of being admitted to the privileges of church-fellowship. Brethren, we have this tr

clasp the world in his embrace, and pronounced the benediction in a

y blasted the congregation out of the chapel, so did

tricts and small towns, but is, I fear, all but gone from those of the cities and larger towns. What of it remains in these, has its chief manifestation in the fungous growth of such chapels as the one I have described, the congregations themselves taking this for

hat he felt all the time, as if, instead of being in a chapel built of bricks harmoniously arranged, as by the lyre of Amphion, he were wandering in the waste, wretched field whence these bricks had b

leditch introduced Hugh to Mrs. Appledi

utherland, Mrs

greed and contempt. She was meant for a lady, and had made herself a money-maggot. She was richly and plainly dressed; and until she began to be at her ease, might have passed for an unpleasant lady. Master Appleditch, the future pastor, was a fat boy, dressed like a dwarf, in a frock coat and man's hat, with a face in

brass plate on his door, with Appleditch engraved upon it in capitals: it saved them always looking

s opened, in he

me to dinner, because he was at chapel this morning." Then in a

aughed. A solemn priggi

u know what day this is?

oy!" sighed

good to live," re

s were well-to-do people. The room was full of what is called handsome furniture, in a high state of polish. Over the

ntered, followed by a pale-faced little

herland what you have got." She referred to some toy-no

a solemn voice, m

gs of gold in the

scornful giggle. "You wouldn't have

s, unable to bear the look of their Sunday clothes, if they had any, a

l in a state of nature; but when a man is once

day of wrath, poor things! I am sure that accident on the railway last Sabbath, might have been a warning to them all

id Peter, whose age Hugh had just

land," said

you a converted chara

t, Master Peter?" said

ink you are, because you say Sunday instead of Sabb

ned red-not blushed

t repeat everyt

said about-" Here his mother caught him u

boy! You shal

o, I s

re, Jane, take this

l sc

ll

, I

a yell

and porten

i

re being co

He shan't go to bed, if he'll

p to supper,

h dreadful screaming. You are v

naughty. I'll

re on, and come down to dinner.

inting; but it amused me very much one night as Hu

nything but money. They seem to say, "Take anything but my purse." Miss Talbot told him afterwards, that this same lady was quite active amongst the poor of her district. She made it a rule never to give money, or at least never more than sixpence; but she turned scraps of victuals and cast-off clothes to the best account; and, if she did not make friends with the mammon of unrighte

ithout a greater amount of difficulty than, from the anticipative precautions ad

d, what do you thin

say yet; but I am quite will

ard boy," sa

emembered the boy asking him, across the tabl

and retentive,"

to the eyes with damson tart, and render more than

I daresay," he said; "but much will dep

out to-morrow. I think y

would you li

ve said nothing yet about terms; and that is of some

hat do you feel i

tle boy, although stout, and that you cannot expect to put much Greek and Latin into him for some ti

it ought,

o you say,

tent with half-a

d!" replied the lad

ngs. Fifteen shillings a week for that mite of a boy! M

h trouble to me to teach one little boy-yes, a

You a Christian man, and talk of trouble

have to come, and that it will take n

an get lodg

d not get a

the better aff

ir, as if she had struck the decisive

ur health to walk

leditch

g more than one shillin

I must wish you good day. We need no

nday?" said the grocer, mildly. "Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Suth

f you. You always will be vulga

elp it? The sugar and soft-

itch, you d

y for that.-Suppose we

give you eighteenpence a lesson, and your dinner on the Sabbath; tha

aid Hugh. "I must have

the additional importance which the visible poss

, with an immortal soul in his inside, to one who wants th

se he had none to make. Ag

? Eighteen-pence a lesson-that's nine

im, not so much with disap

le, is irresistibly attractive. Even on a shilling a day, he could keep

rgain, then, Mr

would not be hid away under it. From this Hugh suspected that she had made a better bargain than she had hoped; but the discovery was now

rose to tak

er husband, "but Mr. Sutherland

use of it except upon great occasions-when parties of her friends came to drink tea with her. She made a point, however, of showing it to everybody who entere

fire, and Mrs. Appleditch, in her wedding-dress, over the piano; for there was a piano, and she could play psalm-tunes on it with one finger. Th

d to him, he walked home, more depressed at the prospect o

h Sabbath-a day neither Mosaic, nor Jewish, nor Christian: not Mosaic, inasmuch as it kills the very essence of the fourth commandment, which is Rest, transmuting it into what the chemists would call a mechanical mixture of service and inertia; not Jewish, inasmuch as it is ten times more severe, and formal, and full of negations, than that of the Sabbatarian Jews reproved by the Savi

t unchristian. There are far deeper and more imp

a Scotch Saabbath-between which and its cousin, the English Sunday, there is too much of a family likeness. The grand men and women whom I have known in Scotland, seem to me, as I look back, to move about in t