d by the minimum amount of
labour, and does not farm a bit better if his land is cheaper.

Every farmer in Scotland and England is laying down his land in grass,
and giving up tillage as fast as he can. It is notorious that Ireland is
more suitable for pasture than tillage, and yet the Government have
constituted a Board to break up the rich grazing lands in Ireland and
divide them into small tillage farms, on which the tenants could not get
a decent living even if they had it free of rent and taxes.

Old Bogue was a bachelor by profession, and his polygamistic tendencies
were duly concealed, though pretty generally known, as most things are
in the country. He had as housekeeper a woman so skinny that it made you
feel cold to look at her, and her disposition was on a par with her
appearance. Of course, it suited the national thrift, particularly
congenial to Bogue, to feed us meanly, but we did not relish her
parsimonious economies.

There was one thing none of us might shirk, and that was regular
attendance at kirk on Sunday. I have been a church-going man all my
life--in my late years in London I have especially appreciated the
beautiful services at St. Anne's, Soho--but the kirk has always been the
breaking of precious ointment over an unworthy head, so far as I am
concerned. The improvised prayer, that is always so carefully prepared,
and is often one delivered in regular rotation, always seems to me
rather humbugging for that reason, and the tremendously long sermons,
which have a minimum of three quarters of an hour, no matter what the
text or the ability of the preacher, are to me a vexation of spirit. I
have occasionally heard good sermons in kirk, but I think the standard
of Scottish preaching has always been overrated.

Moreover, I agree in the main with the American critic of sermons, who
said if a preacher can't strike ile in ten minutes he has got a bad
organ, or he is boring in the wrong place. It is always unfair to bore
in the pulpit, because the congregation have no means of retaliation
except by subsequently staying away, and in the country that is not
compatible with the public worship of their Maker.

We have all heard the traditional stories about the divines who, having
found the sand of the hour-glass exhausted, calmly reversed it and
continued for a second spell, to the complete satisfaction of the
congregations. But in my experience only one preacher could have done
that without unendurably