dicious extremes, such, indeed, as our Lord condemned,
and which seem a fair subject for notice amongst Scottish peculiarities.
But the philosophy of the question is curious. Scotland has ever made
her boast of the simplest form of worship, and a worship free from
ceremonial, more even than the Church of England, which is received as,
in doctrine and ritual, the Church of the Reformation. In some respects,
therefore, may you truly say the only standing recognised observance in
the ceremonial part of Presbyterian worship is the Sabbath day--an
observance which has been pushed in times past even beyond the extreme
of a spirit of Judaism, as if the sabbatical ceremonial were made a
substitute for all other ceremony. In this, as well as in other matters
which we have pointed out, what changes have taken place, what changes
are going on! It may be difficult to assign precise causes for such
changes having taken place among us, and that during the lifetime of
individuals now living to remember them. It has been a period for many
changes in manners, habits, and forms of language, such as we have
endeavoured to mark in this volume. The fact of such changes is
indisputable, and sometimes it is difficult not only to assign the
causes for them, but even to describe in what the changes themselves
consist. They are gradual, and almost imperceptible. Scottish people
lose their Scotchness; they leave home, and return without those
expressions and intonations, and even peculiarity of voice and manner,
which used to distinguish us from Southern neighbours. In all this, I
fear, we lose our originality. It has not passed away, but with every
generation becomes less like the real type.

I would introduce here a specimen of the precise sort of changes to
which I would refer, as an example of the reminiscences intended to be
introduced into these pages. We have in earlier editions given an
account of the pains taken by Lord Gardenstone to extend and improve his
rising village of Laurencekirk; amongst other devices he had brought
down, as settlers, a variety of artificers and workmen from England.
With these he had introduced a _hatter_ from Newcastle; but on taking
him to church next day after his arrival, the poor man saw that he might
decamp without loss of time, as he could not expect much success in his
calling at Laurencekirk; in fact, he found Lord Gardenstone's and his
own the only hats in the kirk--the men all wore then the flat Lowla