it was chiefly among the middle and upper classes that
the reaction had begun; and scarce any portion of the humbler people,
lost to the Church during the course of the two preceding generations,
had yet been recovered. And so the working men of Edinburgh and its
neighbourhood, at this time, were in large part either non-religious, or
included within the Independent or Secession pale.

John Wilson--for such was the name of my new comrade--was a truly good
man--devout, conscientious, friendly--not highly intellectual, but a
person of plain good sense, and by no means devoid of general
information. There was another labourer at the work, an unhappy little
man, with whom I have often seen John engaged in mixing mortar, or
carrying materials to the builders, but never without being struck by
the contrast which they presented in character and appearance. John was
a plain, somewhat rustic-looking personage; and an injury which he had
received from gunpowder in a quarry, that had destroyed the sight of one
of his eyes, and considerably dimmed that of the other, had, of course,
not served to improve his looks; but he always wore a cheerful,
contented air; and, with all his homeliness, was a person pleasant to
the sight. His companion was a really handsome man--grey-haired,
silvery-whiskered, with an aristocratic cast of countenance, that would
have done no discredit to a royal drawing-room, and an erect though
somewhat petit figure, cast in a mould that, if set off more to
advantage, would have been recognised as elegant. But John Lindsay--for
so he was called--bore always the stamp of misery on his striking
features. There lay between the poor little man and the Crawford peerage
only a narrow chasm, represented by a missing marriage certificate; but
he was never able to bridge the gulf across; and he had to toil on in
unhappiness, in consequence, as a mason's labourer. I have heard the
call resounding from the walls twenty times a day--"John, Yearl Crafurd,
bring us anither hod o' lime."

I found religion occupying a much humbler place among these workmen of
the south of Scotland than that which I had used to see assigned to it
in the north. In my native district and the neighbouring counties, it
still spoke with authority; and a man who stood up in its behalf in any
society, unless very foolish or very inconsistent, always succeeded in
silencing opposition, and making good its claims. Here, however, the
irreligious asserted