e
irrelevant for me to enlarge here upon the merits of those articles. No
one could study them attentively without being impressed with the
ability and power displayed in them by the authors, their grasp of the
subjects, and their fair impartial judgment upon the various questions
which come under their notice.

From these able disquisitions, and from other prognostics, it is quite
evident that sounder principles of political economy and accurate
experience of human life show that much of the old Scottish hospital
system was quite wrong and must be changed. Changes are certainly going
on, which seem to indicate that the very hard Presbyterian views of some
points connected with Church matters are in transition. I have elsewhere
spoken of a past sabbatarian strictness, and I have lately received an
account of a strictness in observing the national fast-day, or day
appointed for preparation in celebrating Holy Communion, which has in
some measure passed away. The anecdote adduced the example of two
drovers who were going on very quietly together. They had to pass
through a district whereof one was a parishioner, and during their
progress through it the one whistled with all his might, the other
screwed up his mouth without emitting a single sound. When they came to
a burn, the silent one, on then crossing the stream, gave a skip, and
began whistling with all his might, exclaiming with great triumph to his
companion, "I'm beyond the parish of Forfar now, and I'll whistle as
muckle as I like." It happened to be the Forfar parish fast-day. But a
still stricter observance was shown by a native of Kirkcaldy, who, when
asked by his companion drover in the south of Scotland "why he didna
whistle," quietly answered, "I canna, man; it's our fast-day in
Kirkcaldy." I have an instance of a very grim assertion of extreme
sabbatarian zeal. A maid-servant had come to a new place, and on her
mistress quietly asking her on Sunday evening to wash up some dishes,
she indignantly replied, "Mem, I hae dune mony sins, and hae mony sins
to answer for; but, thank God, I hae never been sae far left to mysell
as to wash up dishes on the Sabbath day."

I hope it will not for a moment be supposed we would willingly throw any
ridicule or discouragement on the Scottish national tendencies on the
subject, or that we are not proud of Scotland's example of a sacred
observance of the fourth commandment in the letter and the spirit. We
refer now to inju