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 a poor woman if she ever attended there for divine service—­“Ou ay,” she replied; “there’s a man ca’d Chalmers preaches there, and I whiles gang in and hear him, just to encourage him, puir body!”

From the religious opinions of a people, the transition is natural to their political partialities.  One great political change has passed over Scotland, which none now living can be said to have actually witnessed; but they remember those who were contemporaries of the anxious scenes of ’45, and many of us have known determined and thorough Jacobites.  The poetry of that political period still remains, but we hear only as pleasant songs those words and melodies which stirred the hearts and excited the deep enthusiasm of a past generation.  Jacobite anecdotes also are fading from our knowledge.  To many young persons