men to be tossed about with every wind of doctrine or
cunning craftiness of men who lie in wait to deceive. Little pity would
they have for the imperfect, weak-kneed brother, who, in the pulpit or
out of it, could presume to doubt what they had learnt at their mothers'
knees. Up here in Skye, the religion known is bright and clear. The
shops are of the poorest description, merely one room in a common
dwelling, with a stone or earth floor. There is no paper published in
all the Isle of Skye, but the people believe. You man of the nineteenth
century, the heir of all the ages underneath the sun, would think little
of the peasant of that wintry region. I believe he thinks as little of
you as you do of him. You mock, and he believes; you scorn, and he
worships; you stammer about Protoplasms and Evolutions, he says in his
old Gaelic tongue, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light."
There are many in London who would give all that they have if they could
believe as these men and women of the North.

There were sermons again in the afternoon, sermons at night, sermons
again next day, sermons on the coming Sunday, and to them came the fisher
from the sea, the little tradesman from his shop, the ploughman from his
croft, the milkmaid from her dairy, and the child from school; and it
must further be remembered that these fasts are voluntary, and not in
accordance with Acts of Parliament. Remember, also, that nothing is done
to make the service attractive. It is simply the usual form of
Presbyterian worship that is followed. The chapel was as plain as could
be, and the singing was almost funereal. But, after all, the chapel was
to be preferred to the empty streets, along which the wind raged like a
hurricane, or to the contemplation of bleak rocks and angry seas. I can
quite believe at Skye it is more comfortable to go to kirk than stay at
home. Indeed, more than once on the night after, I felt perhaps my
safest place would have been the kirk, as the wind came rushing in
through a gully in the mountains, and kept the water in a constant fury.
Really, from the deck of the _Elena_, Portree looked a very comfortable
place, with the bay lined with buildings, and conspicuous among them all
the Imperial Hotel, where the Empress of the French stayed while
travelling in these parts. There is a good deal of excitement here as
steamers rush in and out, and yachts lazily drop their anchors. It seems
to me that the pe