appreciate the thrift and comfort of swine-keeping and swine-killing. A
Scottish minister had been persuaded by the laird to keep a pig, and the
gudewife had been duly instructed in the mysteries of black puddings,
pork chops, and pig's head. "Oh!" said the minister, "nae doubt there's
a hantle o' miscellawneous eating aboot a pig."

Amongst a people so deeply impressed with the great truths of religion,
and so earnest in their religious profession, any persons whose
principles were known to be of an _infidel_ character would naturally be
looked on with abhorrence and suspicion. There is a story traditionary
in Edinburgh regarding David Hume, which illustrates this feeling in a
very amusing manner, and which, I have heard it said, Hume himself often
narrated. The philosopher had fallen from the path into the swamp at the
back of the Castle, the existence of which I recollect hearing of from
old persons forty years ago. He fairly stuck fast, and called to a woman
who was passing, and begged her assistance. She passed on apparently
without attending to the request; at his earnest entreaty, however, she
came where he was, and asked him, "Are na ye Hume the Atheist?" "Well,
well, no matter," said Hume; "Christian charity commands you to do good
to every one." "Christian charity here, or Christian charity there,"
replied the woman, "I'll do naething for you till ye turn a Christian
yoursell'--ye maun repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, or faith
I'll let ye grafel[27] there as I fand ye." The historian, really afraid
for his life, rehearsed the required formulas.

Notwithstanding the high character borne for so many years by our
countrymen as a people, and as specially attentive to all religious
observances, still there can be no doubt that there has sprung up
amongst the inhabitants of our crowded cities, wynds, and closes, a
class of persons quite unknown in the old Scottish times. It is a great,
difficulty to get them to attend divine worship at all, and their
circumstances combine to break off all associations with public
services. Their going to church becomes a matter of persuasion and of
missionary labour.

A lady, who is most active in visiting the houses of these outcasts from
the means of grace, gives me an amusing instance of self-complacency
arising from performance of the duty. She was visiting in the West Port,
not far from the church established by my illustrious friend the late
Dr. Chalmers. Having asked