n, and reprobation for the
Portuguese?"

"I do not say that all Scotchmen, even in the Kirk, are of the elect."

"No," interposed Lady Mabel. "You misconstrue Moodie. He holds a
particular election within the Kirk, and a national reprobation
outside of it."

"I am afraid, my lady, it is not given to you to understand that high
doctrine. It is ordered that the blessing, and the comprehension of
it, go hand in hand."

"I must despair then, for I certainly do not comprehend it. In truth,
the tenor of your discourse calls up in my mind the involuntary doubt,
did this people first desert God, or God them? But I trample it down
as a snare laid by the evil one."

"We are in a land where the evil one bears full sway," said Moodie.

"Yet you have voluntarily put yourself in purgatory by coming to
travel in it," said Lady Mabel. "But you have your consolation, and
may give thankful utterance to the words of our Scotch poet:

'I bless and praise thy matchless might,
Whan thousands thou hast left in night,
That I am here afore thy sight,
For gifts an' grace,
A burning and a shining light,
To a' this place.'"

"I do not know that psalmist, if in truth he be a maker of spiritual
songs," said Moodie, with a doubtful air.

"He did dabble a little in psalmody," said Lady Mabel; "but I doubt
whether his attempts would satisfy you. How like you this sample:

'Orthodox, orthodox, who believe in John Knox,
Let me sound an alarm to your conscience;
There's a heretic blast has been blown in the Wast,
That what is not sense must be nonsense.

Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, load your spiritual guns,
Ammunition you never can need;
Your hearts are the stuff, will be powder enough,
And your skulls are store-houses o' lead.'"

"'Tis that profane, lewd fellow, Burns," exclaimed Moodie,
angrily. "He did worse than hide his ten talents in a napkin. I
wonder, my lady, you defile your mouth with his scurrilous words."

"I have done with him," said Lady Mabel, laughing. "He was a profane,
lewd fellow, far better at pointing out other men's errors than
amending his own."

Moodie now fell back among the servants; and L'Isle remarked, "your
old squire, Lady Mabel, holds an austere belief. I never met a man so
confident of his own salvation and of the damnation of others."

"He reminds me," Mrs. Shortridge said, "of a dissenting neighbor of
ours, when we lived in London, who was always say