that must be the truth. But what a pity it is that Mr
Whitefield did not find it out sooner!

"Well, Helen, and how did you like the great English preacher?" I said
to Flora's nurse.

"Atweel, Miss Cary, the discourse was no that ill for a Prelatist," was
the answer.

And that was as much admiration as I could get from Helen.

There was more talk about Mr Whitefield this morning at breakfast. I
cannot tell what has come to Angus. Going to hear Mr Whitefield preach
at Monks' Brae seems to have made him worse instead of better. Flora
and I both liked it so much; but Angus talks of it with a kind of bitter
hardness in his voice, and as if it pleased him to let us know all the
bad things which had been said about the preacher. He told us that they
said--(I wish they would give over saying!)--that Mr Whitefield had got
his money matters into some tangle, in the business of building his
Orphan House in Georgia; and "they said" he had acted fraudulently in
the matter. My Uncle Drummond put this down at once, with--

"My son, never repeat a calumny against a good man. You may not know
it, but you do Satan's very work for him."

Angus made a grimace behind his hand, which I fancy he did not mean his
father to see. Then, he went on, "`They say' that Mr Whitefield is so
fanatical and extravagant in preaching against worldliness, that he
counts it sinful to smell to a rose, or to eat anything relishing."

"Did he say so?" asked my Uncle: "or did `they' say it for him?"

"Well, Sir," answered Angus with a laugh, "I heard Mr Whitefield had
said that he would give his people leave to smell to a rose and a pink
also, so long as they would avoid the appearance of sin: and, quoth he,
`if you can find any diversion which you would be willing to be found at
by our Lord in His coming, I give you free licence to go to it and
welcome.'"

"Then we have disposed of that charge," saith my Uncle. "What next?"

"Well, they say he hath given infinite displeasure to the English gentry
by one of his favourite sayings--that `Man is half a beast and half a
devil.' He will not allow them to talk of `passing the time'--how dare
they waste the time, saith he, when they have the devil and the beast to
get out of their souls? Folks don't like, you see, to be painted in
those colours."

"No, we rarely admire a portrait that is exactly like us," saith my
Uncle Drummond.

"Pray, Sir, think you that is a likeness?" said Angus.

"More