trast to that I heard in the morning.
It is full fifty minutes long, and is an argumentative defence of the
text, "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus." The preacher proposed to deal with the objection,
which he admitted might be fairly made, that if Jesus paid the debt, our
salvation was not a matter of grace at all; and for this purpose we had
line upon line in thoroughly old Scotch fashion, the hearers all the
while looking out the passages of Scripture referred to in their Bibles.
The sermon was old-fashioned as to thought, but the language was modern.
I was glad I went to hear it. The congregation was not above half the
size of that which appeared in the Established Church, and a great deal
less fashionable. There you saw a good deal of the tourist element.
Here we had the real natives, as it were; and I must own that I saw more
men than I should have seen in a congregation of the same size at home.
At the church in the morning we had, in addition to the Scotch Psalms,
such hymns as "I lay my sins on Jesus," and "Lord of the worlds above."
In the evening we had no novelties of that kind. Indeed, the whole
service was dry and severe to a degenerate Southern. Mr. Barclay quoted
a good deal of Mrs. Alexander's fine poem on the death of Moses.
Professor Candlish did nothing of the kind. His sermon was, in fact,
quite in accordance with the day and the _genius loci_. I felt it was
such a sermon as I had a right to expect. As I leave the church, I
wonder to myself how the tourists manage. It is too wet to walk, and if
they do take a walk it is not considered the correct thing in these
northern latitudes, where, to make matters worse, the Sunday is nearly an
hour longer than it is in London. I am afraid, however, some of the
townsfolk find the time hang heavily on their hands. It seemed to me
that there was an unusually large number of female faces at the window,
and when the boat comes to fetch us on board the _Elena_ all the windows
are full of, I fear, frivolous spectators. It is true that I am adorned
with a genuine Highland bonnet, and would make my fortune in London as a
Guy on the fifth of November; but here Highland bonnets are common. It
is true my companion is a great divine from town, and one well known in
Exeter Hall; but here you would take him for a skipper, and nautical men
are as common as Highland bonnets. I fear it is for very weariness that
Oban