n she
descanted at length on that superfluity of naughtiness and Biblical
pedantry which, she asserted, made Scottish ministers preach from
out-of-the-way texts.

"I've never been able to find my place in the Bible since I arrived,"
she complained to Salemina, when she was quite sure that Mr. Macdonald
was listening to her; and this he generally was, in my opinion, no
matter who chanced to be talking. "What with their skipping and
hopping about from Haggai to Philemon, Habakkuk to Jude, and Micah to
Titus, in their readings, and then settling on seventh Nahum, sixth
Zephaniah or second Calathumpians for the sermon, I do nothing but
search the Scriptures in the Edinburgh churches,--search, search,
search, until some Christian by my side or in the pew behind me
notices my hapless plight, and hands me a Bible opened at the text.
Last Sunday it was Obadiah first, fifteenth, 'For the day of the Lord
is near upon all the heathen.' It chanced to be a returned missionary
who was preaching on that occasion; but the Bible is full of heathen,
and why need he have chosen a text from Obadiah, poor little Obadiah
one page long, slipped in between Amos and Jonah, where nobody but an
elder could find him?" If Francesca had not seen with wicked delight
the Reverend Ronald's expression of anxiety, she would never have
spoken of second Calathumpians; but of course he has no means of
knowing how unlike herself she is when in his company.

To go back to our first Sunday worship in Edinburgh. The church
officer closed the door of the pulpit on the Reverend Ronald, and I
thought I heard the clicking of a lock; at all events, he returned at
the close of the services to liberate him and escort him back to the
vestry; for the entrances and exits of this beadle, or "minister's
man," as the church officer is called in the country districts, form
an impressive part of the ceremonies. If he did lock the minister into
the pulpit, it is probably only another national custom, like the
occasional locking in of the passengers in a railway train, and may be
positively necessary in the case of such magnetic and popular
preachers as Mr. Macdonald or the Friar.

I have never seen such attention, such concentration, as in these
great congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can
judge, it is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a
tribute paid to eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is
yielded loyally to insufferabl