choral works of the great masters.

We might indeed adduce many more causes which seem to produce changes of
habits, tastes, and associations, amongst our people. For example,
families do not vegetate for years in one retired spot as they used to
do; young men are encouraged to attain accomplishments, and to have
other sources of interest than the field or the bottle. Every one knows,
or may know, everything that is going on through the whole world. There
is a tendency in mankind to lose all that is peculiar, and in nations to
part with all that distinguishes them from each other. We hear of
wonderful changes in habits and customs where change seemed impossible.
In India and Turkey even, peculiarities and prejudices are fading away
under the influence of time. Amongst ourselves, no doubt, one
circumstance tended greatly to call forth, and, as we may say, to
_develop_, the peculiar Scotch humour of which we speak--and that was
the familiarity of intercourse which took place between persons in
different positions of life. This extended even to an occasional
interchange of words between the minister and the members of his flock
during time of service. I have two anecdotes in illustration of this
fact, which I have reason to believe are quite authentic. In the church
of Banchory on Deeside, to which I have referred, a former minister
always preached without book, and being of an absent disposition, he
sometimes forgot the head of discourse on which he was engaged, and got
involved in confusion. On one occasion, being desirous of recalling to
his memory the division of his subject, he called out to one of his
elders, a farmer on the estate of Ley, "Bush (the name of his farm),
Bush, ye're sleeping." "Na, sir, I'm no sleeping--I'm listening." "Weel,
then, what had I begun to say?" "Oh, ye were saying so and so." This was
enough, and supplied the minister with the thread of his discourse; and
he went on. The other anecdote related to the parish of Cumbernauld, the
minister of which was at the time referred to noted for a very
disjointed and rambling style of preaching, without method or
connection. His principal heritor was the Lord Elphinstone of the time,
and unfortunately the minister and the peer were not on good terms, and
always ready to annoy each other by sharp sayings or otherwise. The
minister on one occasion had somewhat in this spirit called upon the
beadle to "wauken my Lord Elphinstone," upon which Lord Elphinsto