hat, with an individual or a community, the capability
of being exalted into a temporary enthusiasm of self-forgetfulness, so
far from being a fault, has in it a quality of something divine.

Of course, about all such things there is a great deal which a cool
critic could make ridiculous, but I hold to my opinion of them
nevertheless.

In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to see the cathedral.
The lord provost answers to the lord mayor in England. His title and
office in both countries continue only a year, except in cases of
reelection.

As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people, who
had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for
to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact, I was so worn out, that I
could hardly walk through the building.

It is in this cathedral that part of the scene of Rob Roy is laid. This
was my first experience in cathedrals. It was a new thing to me
altogether, and as I walked along under the old buttresses and
battlements without, and looked into the bewildering labyrinths of
architecture within, I saw that, with silence and solitude to help the
impression, the old building might become a strong part of one's inner
life. A grave yard crowded with flat stones lies all around it. A deep
ravine separates it from another cemetery on an opposite eminence,
rustling with dark pines. A little brook murmurs with its slender voice
between.

On this opposite eminence the statue of John Knox, grim and strong,
stands with its arm uplifted, as if shaking his fist at the old
cathedral which in life he vainly endeavored to battle down.

Knox was very different from Luther, in that he had no conservative
element in him, but warred equally against accessories and essentials.

At the time when the churches of Scotland were being pulled down in a
general iconoclastic crusade, the tradesmen of Glasgow stood for the
defence of their cathedral, and forced the reformers to content
themselves with having the idolatrous images of saints pulled down from
their niches and thrown into the brook, while, as Andrew Fairservice
hath it, "The auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are
caimed aff her, and a' body was alike pleased."

We went all through the cathedral, which is fitted up as a Protestant
place of worship, and has a simple and massive grandeur about it. In
fact, to quote again from our friend Andrew, we could truly say, "Ah,
it's a