with social life is, that it has become more
diffused through all ranks and all characters. Before that period many
good sort of people were afraid of making their religious views very
prominent, and were always separated from those who did. Persons who
made a profession at all beyond the low standard generally adopted in
society were marked out as objects of fear or of distrust. The anecdote
at page 65 regarding the practice of family prayer fully proves this.
Now religious people and religion itself are not kept aloof from the
ordinary current of men's thoughts and actions. There is no such marked
line as used to be drawn round persons who make a decided profession of
religion. Christian men and women have stepped over the line, and,
without compromising their Christian principle, are not necessarily
either morose, uncharitable, or exclusive. The effects of the old
separation were injurious to men's minds. Religion was with many
associated with puritanism, with cant, and unfitness for the world. The
difference is marked also in the style of sermons prevalent at the two
periods. There were sermons of two descriptions--viz., sermons by
"_moderate_" clergy, of a purely moral or practical character; and
sermons purely doctrinal, from those who were known as "evangelical"
ministers. Hence arose an impression, and not unnaturally, on many
minds, that an almost exclusive reference to doctrinal subjects, and a
dread of upholding the law, and of enforcing its more minute details,
were not favourable to the cause of moral rectitude and practical
holiness of life. This was hinted in a sly way by a young member of the
kirk to his father, a minister of the severe and high Calvinistic
school. Old Dr. Lockhart of Glasgow was lamenting one day, in the
presence of his son John, the fate of a man who had been found guilty of
immoral practices, and the more so that he was one of his own elders.
"Well, father," remarked his son, "you see what you've driven him to."
In our best Scottish preaching at the present day no such distinction
is visible.

The same feeling came forth with much point and humour on an occasion
referred to in "Carlyle's Memoirs." In a company where John Home and
David Hume were present, much wonder was expressed what _could_ have
induced a clerk belonging to Sir William Forbes' bank to abscond, and
embezzle L900. "I know what it was," said Home to the historian; "for
when he was taken there was found in his pocket a