ister,
followed by a lecture on some chapter of the Bible, generally lasting an
hour, after that another psalm was sung, followed by a prayer, a sermon
which lasted seldom less than an hour, and the whole ended with a psalm,
a short prayer and a benediction. Every one then went home to dinner and
returned afterwards for afternoon service, which lasted more than an
hour and a half. Friday was a day of rest, but I together with many
young people went at this time to the minister to receive a stamped
piece of lead as a token that we were sufficiently instructed to be
admitted to Christ's table. This ticket was given to the Elder on the
following Sunday. On Saturday there was a morning service, and on Sunday
such multitudes came to receive the sacrament that the devotions
continued till late in the evening. The ceremony was very strikingly and
solemnly conducted. The communicants sat on each side of long narrow
tables covered with white linen, in imitation of the last supper of
Christ, and the Elders handed the bread and wine. After a short
exhortation from one of the ministers the first set retired, and were
succeeded by others. When the weather was fine a sermon, prayers, and
psalm-singing took place either in the churchyard or on a grassy bank at
the Links for such as were waiting to communicate. On the Monday morning
there was the same long service as on the Thursday. It was too much for
me; I always came home with a headache, and took a dislike to sermons.

Our minister was a rigid Calvinist. His sermons were gloomy, and so long
that he occasionally would startle the congregation by calling out to
some culprit, "Sit up there, how daur ye sleep i' the kirk." Some
saw-mills in the neighbourhood were burnt down, so the following Sunday
we had a sermon on hell-fire. The kirk was very large and quaint; a
stair led to a gallery on each side of the pulpit, which was intended
for the tradespeople, and each division was marked with a suitable
device, and text from Scripture. On the bakers' portion a sheaf of wheat
was painted; a balance and weights on the grocers', and on the weavers',
which was opposite to our pew, there was a shuttle, and below it the
motto, "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent
without _hop job_." The artist was evidently no clerk.

My brother Sam, while attending the university in Edinburgh, came to us
on the Saturdays and returned to town on Monday. He of course went with
us to the k