in!—­it was about two hours long, and one might well feel as if he had performed a work of long-suffering to sit through it.  The singing was strictly congregational.  Congregational singing is good (for those who like it) when the congregation can sing.  This congregation could not sing, but it could grind the Psalms of David powerfully.  They sing nothing else but the old Scotch version of the Psalms, in a patient and faithful long meter.  And this is regarded, and with considerable plausibility, as an act of worship.  It certainly has small element of pleasure in it.  Here is a stanza from Psalm xlv., which the congregation, without any instrumental nonsense, went through in a dragging, drawling manner, and with perfect individual independence as to time: 

“Thine arrows sharply pierce the heart of th’ enemies of the king, And under thy sub-jec-shi-on the people down do bring.”

The sermon was extempore, and in English with Scotch pronunciation; and it filled a solid hour of time.  I am not a good judge of sermons, and this one was mere chips to me; but my companion, who knows a sermon when he hears it, said that this was strictly theological, and Scotch theology at that, and not at all expository.  It was doubtless my fault that I got no idea whatever from it.  But the adults of the congregation appeared to be perfectly satisfied with it; at least they sat bolt upright and nodded assent continually.  The children all went to sleep under it, without any hypocritical show of attention.  To be sure, the day was warm and the house was unventilated.  If the windows had been opened so as to admit the fresh air from the Bras d’Or, I presume the hard-working farmers and their wives would have resented such an interference with their ordained Sunday naps, and the preacher’s sermon would have seemed more musty than it appeared to be in that congenial and drowsy air.  Considering that only half of the congregation could understand the preacher, its behavior was exemplary.

After the sermon, a collection was taken up for the minister; and I noticed that nothing but pennies rattled into the boxes,—­a melancholy sound for the pastor.  This might appear niggardly on the part of these Scotch Presbyterians, but it is on principle that they put only a penny into the box; they say that they want a free gospel, and so far as they are concerned they have it.  Although the farmers about the Bras d’Or are well-to-do they do not give their minister enough to keep his soul in his Gaelic body, and his poor support is eked out by the contributions of a missionary society.  It was gratifying to learn that this was not from stinginess on the part of the people, but was due to their religious principle.  It seemed to us that everybody ought to be good in a country where it costs next to nothing.