Having heard of no boarding-school for ladies nearer than Inverness, I suppose their education is generally domestick.  The elder daughters of the higher families are sent into the world, and may contribute by their acquisitions to the improvement of the rest.

Women must here study to be either pleasing or useful.  Their deficiencies are seldom supplied by very liberal fortunes.  A hundred pounds is a portion beyond the hope of any but the Laird’s daughter.  They do not indeed often give money with their daughters; the question is, How many cows a young lady will bring her husband.  A rich maiden has from ten to forty; but two cows are a decent fortune for one who pretends to no distinction.

The religion of the Islands is that of the Kirk of Scotland.  The gentlemen with whom I conversed are all inclined to the English liturgy; but they are obliged to maintain the established Minister, and the country is too poor to afford payment to another, who must live wholly on the contribution of his audience.

They therefore all attend the worship of the Kirk, as often as a visit from their Minister, or the practicability of travelling gives them opportunity; nor have they any reason to complain of insufficient pastors; for I saw not one in the Islands, whom I had reason to think either deficient in learning, or irregular in life:  but found several with whom I could not converse without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been Presbyterians.

The ancient rigour of puritanism is now very much relaxed, though all are not yet equally enlightened.  I sometimes met with prejudices sufficiently malignant, but they were prejudices of ignorance.  The Ministers in the Islands had attained such knowledge as may justly be admired in men, who have no motive to study, but generous curiosity, or, what is still better, desire of usefulness; with such politeness as so narrow a circle of converse could not have supplied, but to minds naturally disposed to elegance.

Reason and truth will prevail at last.  The most learned of the Scottish Doctors would now gladly admit a form of prayer, if the people would endure it.  The zeal or rage of congregations has its different degrees.  In some parishes the Lord’s Prayer is suffered:  in others it is still rejected as a form; and he that should make it part of his supplication would be suspected of heretical pravity.

The principle upon which extemporary prayer was originally introduced, is no longer admitted.  The Minister formerly, in the effusion of his prayer, expected immediate, and perhaps perceptible inspiration, and therefore thought it his duty not to think before what he should say.  It is now universally confessed, that men pray as they speak on other occasions, according to the general measure of their abilities and attainments.  Whatever each may think of a form prescribed by another, he cannot but believe that he can himself compose by study and meditation a better prayer than will rise in his mind at a sudden call; and if he has any hope of supernatural help, why may he not as well receive it when he writes as when he speaks?