“You don’t make use of our Common Prayer in Scotland?” said the curate; “pardon me for referring to it. One cannot help being sorry for people who shut themselves out from such an inestimable advantage. How did it come about?”
“I don’t know,” said Colin. “I suppose because Laud was a fool, and King Charles a ----”
“Hush, for goodness sake,” said the curate, with a shiver. “What do you mean? such language is painful to listen to. The saints and martyrs should be spoken of in a different tone. You think that was the reason? Oh, no; it was your horrible Calvinism, and John Knox, and the mad influences of that unfortunate Reformation which has done us all so much harm; though I suppose you think differently in Scotland,” he said with a little sigh, steering his young companion, of whose morality he felt uncertain, past the alehouse door.
“Did you never hear of John Knox’s liturgy?” said the indignant Colin; “the saddest, passionate service! You always had time to say your prayers in England, but we had to snatch them as we could. And your prayers would not do for us now,” said the Scotch experimentalist; “I wish they could; but it would be impossible. A Scotch peasant would have thought _that_ an incantation you were reading. When you go to see a sick man, shouldn’t you like to say, God save him, God forgive him, straight out of your heart without a book?” said the eager lad; at which question the curate looked up with wonder in the young man’s face.
“I hope I do say it out of my heart,” said the English priest, and stopped short, with a gravity that had a great effect upon Colin;--“but in words more sound than any words of mine,” the curate added a moment after, which dispersed the reverential impression from the Scotch mind of the eager boy.
“I can’t see that,” said Colin, quickly, “in the church for common prayer, yes; at a bedside in a cottage, no. At least, I mean that’s how we feel in Scotland--though I suppose you don’t care much for our opinion,” he added with some heat, thinking he saw a smile on his companion’s face.
“Oh, yes, certainly; I have always understood that there is a great deal of intelligence in Scotland,” said the curate, courteous as to a South-Sea Islander. “But people who have never known this inestimable advantage--I believe preaching is considered the great thing in the North?” he said with a little curiosity. “I wish society were a little more impressed by it among ourselves; but mere _information_ even about spiritual matters is of so much less importance! though that, I daresay, is another point on which we don’t agree?” the curate continued, pleasantly. He was just opening the gate into his own garden, which was invisible in the darkness, but which enclosed and surrounded a homely house with some lights in the windows, which, it was a little comfort to Colin to perceive, was not much handsomer nor more imposing in appearance than the familiar manse on the borders of the Holy Loch.