And that expounding of the Scriptures^ and long
weary, though fervent, extempore prayer, brought
such memories of old back to her mind, — such
thoughts of mother and home, and brothers and
sisters, all dead and gone, that the woman — ^happy
wife and parent though she was — dropped some
sorrowful tears that night on her pillow, and re-
solved that she and the old true-hearted man — her
father, her visitor — ^would go to some Calvinistic
place of worship on the morrow, where he might
hear what she knew he had long been debarred
from,— a sermon of high-seasoned doctrine, de-
livered from the lips of a Presbyterian minister;
for Colin had for years been doomed to subsist
on such rare morsels of heavenly food as dropped
from the lips of Baptists, Independents, Methodists,
and even Church and State people. He said ** It
was a bad place where a sinner could hear nae-
thing to profit him ;" and accordingly, when other
sources of drinking from the fountain of living
waters fisdled, he repaired to church, though the
forms and manner, and frequently matter, made
him sometimes consider the draught none of the
purest or clearest; but now he looked forward



218 THB MOOBS AND THE FENS.
to a treaty— to hearing a discourse from a real
genuine disciple and follower of *'Jolin Ejiox/'
to quoting of texts and finding of proofs^ to a
wrestling with the enemy^ to a dividing into heads^
and an expounding and lengthening and branching
and explaining^ which might last for hours if only
** handled'* properly.
