nsported from the gay court of France to Knox's Scotland, divided
between theology and bloodshed. In the evening he would sweep his
table clean of German books on the Pentateuch, and cover it with prints
of the old masters, which he had begun to collect, and ancient books of
Catholic devotion, and read two letters to his mother from her uncle,
who had been a Vicar-General, and died in an old Scottish convent in
Spain. There was very little in the letters beyond good wishes, and an
account of the Vicar-General's health, but they seemed to link a Free
Kirk divinity student on to the Holy Catholic Church. Mother Church
cast her spell over his imagination, and he envied the lot of her
priests, who held a commission no man denied and administered a
world-wide worship, whom a splendid tradition sanctioned, whom each of
the arts hastened to aid; while he was to be the minister of a local
sect and work with the "fruits," who knew nothing of Catholic
Christianity, but supposed their little eddy, whereon they danced like
rotten sticks, to be the main stream. Next day a reaction would set
in, and Carmichael would have a fit of Bohemianism, and resolve to be a
man of letters. So the big books on theology would again be set aside,
and he would write an article for _Ferrier's Journal_, that kindliest
of all journals to the young author, which he would receive back in a
week "with thanks." The Sunday night came, and Carmichael sat down to
write his weekly letter to his mother--she got notes between, he found
them all in her drawers, not a scrap missing--and as he wrote, his
prejudices, and petulances, and fancies, and unrest passed away.
Before he had told her all that happened to him during the
week--touching gently on the poor Revivalist--although his mother had a
saving sense of humour, and was a quite wonderful mimic--and saying
nothing of his evening with St. Francis de Sales--for this would have
alarmed her at once--he knew perfectly well that he would be neither a
Roman nor a reporter, but a Free Kirk minister, and was not utterly
cast down; for notwithstanding the yeasty commotion of youth and its
censoriousness, he had a shrewd idea that a man is likely to do his
life-work best in the tradition of his faith and blood. Next morning
his heart warmed as he went in through the college gates, and he would
have defended Knox unto the death, as the maker of Scotland. His
fellow-students seemed now a very honest set of men, as