re were no
stores under the humble roof to demand the care of the master. It was
because that, at this comparatively recent period, the crime of theft
was unknown in the district. The philosophic Biot, when occupied in
measuring the time of the seconds pendulum, resided for several months
in one of the smaller Shetland islands; and, fresh from the troubles
of France,--his imagination bearing about, if we may so speak, the
stains of the guillotine,--the state of trustful security in which he
found the simple inhabitants filled him with astonishment. 'Here,' he
exclaimed, 'during the twenty-five years in which Europe has been
devouring herself, the door of the house I inhabit has remained open
day and night.' The whole interior of Sutherland was, at the time of
which we write, in a similar condition. It did not surprise us that
the old man, a person of deep piety, regularly assembled his household
night and morning for the purpose of family worship, and led in their
devotions: we had seen many such instances in the low country. But it
did somewhat surprise us to find the practice universal in the parish.
In every family had the worship of God been set up. One could not pass
an inhabited cottage in the evening, from which the voice of psalms
was not to be heard. On Sabbath morning, the whole population might be
seen wending their way, attired in their best, along the blind
half-green paths in the heath, to the parish church. The minister was
greatly beloved, and all attended his ministrations. We still remember
the intense joy which his visits used to impart to the household of
our relative. This worthy clergyman still lives, though the
infirmities of a stage of life very advanced have gathered round him;
and at the late disruption, choosing his side, and little heeding,
when duty called, that his strength had been wasted in the labour of
forty years, and that he could now do little more than testify and
suffer in behalf of his principles, he resigned his hold of the
temporalities as minister of Dornoch, and cast in his lot with his
brethren of the Free Church. And his venerable successor in Lairg, a
man equally beloved and exemplary, and now on the verge of his
eightieth year, has acted a similar part. Had such sacrifices been
made in such circumstances for other than the cause of Christ--had
they been made under some such romantic delusion as misled of old the
followers of the Stuarts--the world would have appreciated the