CLOUD-CATHEDRAL.--PREACHING.

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Shepherd. No! not with such a show of clouds. A congregation of a million might worship in that Cathedral! What a dome! And is not that flight of steps magnificent? My imagination sees a crowd of white-robed spirits ascending to the inner shrine of the temple. Hark-a bell tolls! Yonder it is, swinging to and fro, half-minute time, in its tower of clouds. The great air-organ 'gins to blow its pealing anthemand the overcharged spirit falling from its vision, sees nothing but the pageantry of earth's common vapours-that ere long will melt in showers, or be wafted away in darker masses over the distance of the sea. Of what better stuff, O Mr North, are made all our waking dreams? Call not thy Shepherd's strain fantastic; but look abroad over the workday world, and tell him where thou seest aught more steadfast or substantial than that cloud-cathedral, with its flight of vapour-steps, and its mist towers, and its air-organ, now all gone for ever, like the idle words that imaged the transitory and delusive glories.

Tickler. Bravo, Shepherd, bravo! You have nobly vindicated the weather as a topic of conversation. What think you of the Theatre-Preaching-Politics-Magazines and Reviews, and the threatened Millennium?

Shepherd. Na, let me tak my breath. What think ye, Mr Tickler, yoursel, o' preachin?

Tickler. No man goes to church more regularly than I do; but the people of Scotland are cruelly used by their ministers. No sermon should exceed half-an-hour at the utmost. That is a full allowance.

North. The congregation, if assured that the sermon would stop within that period of time, would all prick up their ears, and keep their eyes open during the whole performance. But when there is no security against an hour, or even an hour and a half, the audience soon cease to deserve that name, and the whole discourse is lost.

Tickler. Then, most ministers do drawl, or drivel, or cant after a very inexcusable fashion. A moderate degree of animation would carry almost any preacher through half-anhour agreeably to an audience-yet is it not true, that, generally speaking, eyelids begin to fall under ten minutes, or from that to a quarter of an hour? Why is it thus?

Shepherd. What yawns have I not seen in kirks! The women, at least the young anes, dinna like to open their

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SLEEPING IN CHURCH:

mouths verra wide, for it's no becoming, and they're feared the lads may be glowering at them; so they just pucker up their bit lips, draw in their breath, haud doun their heads, and put up their hauns to their chafts,' to conceal a suppressed gaunt, and then straughtenin themsels up, pretend to be hearkenin to the practical conclusions.

2

Tickler. And pray, James, what business have you to be making such observations during divine service?

Shepherd. I'm speakin o' ither years, Mr Tickler, and human nature's the same noo as in the Ninety-eight. As for the auld wives, they lay their big-bonneted heads on their shouther, and fa' ower into a deep sleep at ance; yet you'll never hear a single ane among them committin a snore. I've often wondered at that, for maist o' the cummers hae sonorous noses when lyin beside the gudeman, and may be heard through a' the house, as regular as clock-wark.

Tickler. Yes, James, the power of the mind over itself in sleep is indeed inexplicable. The worthy fat old matron says to herself, as her eyes are closing, "I must not snore in the kirk;" and she snores not-at the most, a sort of snuffle. How is this?

Shepherd. Noo and then you'll see an ill-faured, pockmarked, black-a-viced hizzie in the front laft, opposite the poupit, wha has naething to houp frae our side o' the house, openin the great muckle ugly mouth o' her, like that o' a bull-trout in Tarras Moss, as if she were ettlin to swallow the minister.

North. James-James-spare the softer sex!

Shepherd. But the curiousest thing to observe about the lasses, when they are gettin drowsy during sermon, is their een. First a glazedness comes ower them, and the lids fa' doun, and are lifted up at the rate o' about ten in the minute. Then the poor creatures gie their heads a shake, and, unwillin to be overcome, try to find out the verse the minister may be quotin; but a' in vain, for the hummin stillness o' the kirk subdues them into sleep, and the sound o' the preacher is in their lugs like that o' a waterfa'.

North. Your words, James, are like poppy and mandragora. Shepherd. Then, a'thegither inconscious o' what they're doin, they fix their glimmerin een upon your face, as if they 1 Chafts-jaws.

2 Gaunt-yawn.

were dyin for love o' you, and keep nid-noddin upon you, for great part o' ane o' the dizzen divisions o' the discourse. You may gie a bit lauch at them wi' the corner o' your ee, or touch their fit wi' yours aneath the table, and they'll never sae much as ken you're in the same seat; and, finally, the soft rounded chin draps down towards the bonny bosom; the blue-veined violet eyelids close the twilight whose dewy fall it was sae pleasant to behold; the rose-bud lips, slightly apart, reveal teeth pure as lily leaves, and the bonny innocent is as sound asleep as her sister at hame in its rockin craddle.

North. My dear James, there is so much feeling in your description, that, bordering though it be on the facetious, it yet leaves a pleasant impression on my mind of the Sabbathservice in one of our lowly kirks.

Shepherd. Far be it frae me or mine, Mr North, to treat wi' levity ony sacred subject. But gin folk wull sleep in the kirk, where's the harm in saying that they do so? My ain opinion is, that the mair dourly you set yoursel to listen to a no verra bricht discoorse, as if you had taken an oath to devour't frae stoop to roop, the mair certain sure you are o' fa'in ower into a deep lang sleep. The verra attitude o' leanin back, and stretching out your legs, and fixing your een in ae direction, is a maist dangerous attitude; and then, gin the minister has ony action,-say, jookin down his head, or see-sawin wi' his hauns, or leanin ower, as if he wanted to speak wi' the precentor, or keepin his een fixed on the roof, as if there were a hole in't lettin in the licht o' heaven, —or turnin first to the ae side and then to the ither, that the congregation may hae an equal share o' his front physiognomy as weel's his side face,—or staunin bolt upright in the verra middle o' the poupit, without ever ance movin ony mair than gin he were a corp set up on end by some cantrip,1 and lettin out the dry, dusty moral apothegms wi' ae continued and monotonous girn,-oh! Mr North, Mr North, could even an evil conscience keep awake under such soporifics, ony mair than the honestest o' men, were the banns cried for the third time, and he gaun to be married on the Monday morning? North. Yet, after all, James, I believe country congregations are, in general, very attentive.

Shepherd. Ay, ay, sir. If twa are sleepin, ten are wauken; 1 Cantrip-magical spell.

VOL. I.

L

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POPULAR PREACHERS.

and I seriously think that mair than ae half o' them that's sleepin enter into the spirit o' the sermon. You see they a' hear the text, and the introductory remarks, and the heads; and, fa'in asleep in a serious and solemn mood, they carry the sense alang wi' them; neither can they be said no to hear an accompanying soun', so that it wadna be just fair to assert that they lose the sermon they dinna listen to; for thochts, and ideas, and feelings, keep floatin doun alang the stream o' silent thocht, and when they awaken at the "Amen," their minds, if no greatly instructed, hae been tranquilleezed; they join loudly in the ensuing psalm, and without remembering mony o' the words, carry hame the feck' o' the meaning o' the discourse, and a' the peculiarities o' the doctrine.

North. I never heard a bad sermon in a country church in my life.

Shepherd. Nor me neither. Oh, man, it's great nonsense a' that talk about preachin that gangs on in Embro'. Simplicity, sincerity, and earnestness, are a' I ask frae ony preacher. Our duty is plain, and it requires neither great genius nor great erudition to teach and enforce it. To me nae mair disgusting sight than a cretur thinkin o' himsel, and the great appearance he is makin afore his brother-worms!

Tickler. The popular preacher has written his sermon according to the rules of rhetoric, and for the sake of effect. He chuckles inwardly before he delivers the blow that tells; and at the close of every climax the inward man exclaims, "What a fine boy am I!"

North. He dares some antagonist to the fight who has been dead for a hundred years-digs up such of his bones as are yet unmouldered, and erects them into a skeleton - figure veiled with its cerements. There stands the champion of infidelity; and there the defender of the Faith! Twenty to Flesh against Bones-and at the first facer, Hume or Voltaire is grassed, and gives in.

one

Tickler. The pride of the presbytery is in high condition, and kicks his prostrate foe till the shroud rings again like a bag of bones.

Shepherd. Then, when the kirk scales, what a speerin3 o' questions about the discourse! "Oh! wasna the doctor great the day?" "Oh! Mem, wasna he beautifu' about 1 The feck-the chief part.

2 The kirk scales-the congregation disperses.

3 Speerin-asking.

COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS.

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the myrrh ?" "Will you go, Miss Katie, and hear him speke in the General Assembly?" "He seemed very much fatigued, and perspired most profusely-he is quite equal to Chalmers." And so the vulgar slang spreads along the streets, and renders denner itsel loathsome. Is this, I ask, the spirit of religious worship on God's holy day?

North. No, James-a thousand times worse than the sleeping you so beautifully described.

Shepherd. Hard-working auld men, wi' white heads, that hae walked four or sax miles to the kirk, may weel close their een, for a short space, during ony discourse ever delivered by one of woman born so may their wives, whose hauns have never had an idle hour during the stirring week-so may their sons, who have been sowing, or reaping the harvestand so may their daughters-God bless them! who have been singing at their domestic toils, frae the earliest glint o' morn to the lustre o' the evening star. But thinkna that I meant to speak the exact truth when I was jokin about their sleepin in the kirk. I kent whom I was talkin to, and that they wouldna mistake the spirit o' my pictur. A country congregation carries into the House of God heart-offerings o' piety, gratefu' to Him and his angels. They go there to sing his praises, and to join in prayer to his throne, and to hear expounded his Holy Word. They go not thither as to a theatre, to see an actor

North. Nor to compare Mr This with Dr That

Tickler. Nor to cock the critic eye at the preacher, and palaver about the sermon, as about an article in the Edinburgh Review

North. Nor to assume a Sabbath-sanctity, from which their week-day avocations are all abhorrent.

Shepherd. Nor to turn up the whites of their eyes to Heaven, that have their natural expression only when devouring the dust o' the earth.

Tickler. Nor to dismiss all charity from their hearts towards "the sitters below" another preacher, and to look upon them returning from their own church as so many lost sheep.

North. Nor to drive away home, in unpaid chariots, the most pious of women, but the sulkiest of wives.

Tickler. Nor unforgetful of the cards of yester-night, nor unhopeful of the rubber of to-morrow.

Shepherd. To eat a cold denner, wi' a sour temper, and a