ire_ Gaelic, whereas that of Dr. Stewart was
Argyleshire Gaelic. His family understood his rendering better, in
consequence, than that of the Doctor; and so he continued to translate
from his English Bible _ad aperturam libri_, many years after the Gaelic
edition had been spread over the country. The concluding evening prayer
was one of great solemnity and unction. I was unacquainted with the
language in which it was couched; but it was impossible to avoid being
struck, notwithstanding, with its wrestling earnestness and fervour. The
man who poured it forth evidently believed there was an unseen ear open
to it, and an all-seeing presence in the place, before whom every secret
thought lay exposed. The entire scene was a deeply impressive one; and
when I saw, in witnessing the celebration of high mass in a Popish
cathedral many years after, the altar suddenly enveloped in a dim and
picturesque obscurity, amid which the curling smoke of the incense
ascended, and heard the musically-modulated prayer sounding in the
distance from within the screen, my thoughts reverted to the rude
Highland cottage, where, amid solemnities not theatric, the red umbry
light of the fire fell with uncertain glimmer upon dark walls, and bare
black rafters, and kneeling forms, and a pale expanse of dense smoke,
that, filling the upper portion of the roof, overhung the floor like a
ceiling, and there arose amid the gloom the sounds of prayer truly
God-directed, and poured out from the depths of the heart; and I felt
that the stoled priest of the cathedral was merely an artist, though a
skilful one, but that in the "priest and father" of the cottage there
were the truth and reality from which the artist drew. No bolt was drawn
across the outer door as we retired for the night. The philosophic Biot,
when employed with his experiments on the second pendulum, resided for
several months in one of the smaller Shetland islands; and, fresh from
the troubles of France--his imagination bearing about with it, if I may
so speak, the stains of the guillotine--the state of trustful security
in which he found the simple inhabitants filled him with astonishment.
"Here, during the twenty-five years in which Europe has been devouring
herself," he exclaimed, "the door of the house I inhabit has remained
open day and night." The interior of Sutherland was at the time of my
visit in a similar condition. The door of my uncle's cottage,
unfurnished with lock or bar, opened