For a man who has been rigidly good to be supremely tolerant, would require an amount of insight which seems to belong only to the greatest genius.

For we hardly sympathize with that which we have not in some measure experienced; and the great thing, after all, which makes us tolerant of the errors of other men, is the feeling that under like circumstances we should have ourselves erred in like manner; or, at all events, the being able to see the error in such a light as to feel that there is that within ourselves which enables us at least to understand how men should in such a way have erred.  The sins on which we are most severe are those concerning which our feeling is, that we cannot conceive how any man could possibly have done them.  And probably such would be the feeling of a rigidly good man concerning every sin.

So we part, for the present, from our Friends, not without the hope of again meeting them.  We have been listening to the conversation of living men; and, in parting, we feel the regret that we should feel in quitting a kind friend’s house after a pleasant visit, not, perhaps, to be renewed for many a day.  And this is a changing world.  We have been breathing the old atmosphere, and listening to the old voices talking in the old way.  We have had new thought and new truth, but presented in the fashion we have known and enjoyed for years.  Happily we can repeat our visit as often as we please, without the fear of worrying or wearying; for we may open the book at will.  And we shall hope for new visits likewise.  Milverton will be as earnest and more hopeful, Ellesmere will retain all that is good, and that which is provoking will now be softened down.  No doubt by this time they are married.  Where have they gone?  The continent is unsettled, and they have often already been there.  Perhaps they have gone to Scotland?  No doubt they have.  And perhaps before the leaves are sere we may find them out among the sea lochs of the beautiful Frith of Clyde, or under the shadow of Ben Nevis.

CHAPTER XII.

Concerning the pulpit in Scotland.

Nearly forty years since, Dr. Chalmers, one of the parish ministers of Glasgow, preached several times in London.  He was then in the zenith of his popularity as a pulpit orator.  Canning and Wilberforce went together to hear him upon one occasion; and after sitting spell-bound under his eloquence, Canning said to Wilberforce when the sermon was done, ’The tarlan beats us; we have no preaching like that in England.’

In October 1855, the Rev. John Caird, incumbent of the parish of Errol, in Perthshire, preached before the Queen and Court at the church of Crathie.  Her Majesty was so impressed by the discourse that she commanded its publication; and the Prince Consort, no mean authority, expressed his admiration of the ability of the preacher, saying that ’he had not heard a preacher like him for ssven years, and did not expect to enjoy a like pleasure for as long a period to come.’  So, at all events, says a paragraph in The Times of December 12th, 1855.