"You are all wrong. The boys would be on the water or climbing the mountains. They were in God's holiest temple. I hope you don't even the Church of the Disciples with it!"
"This, or that, Jessy, Donald ought to have been in the Kirk."
"Maybe he was at Matthew's Kirk. Dr. Ward is preaching there now, and both Matthew and Donald think a deal of him."
"I dare say. Donald's father is always last. He would rather hear any one preach than his father."
"There's a reason for that. He does not see the others in their daily life. They don't thwart his wishes and scorn his hopes and set him to work that he hates. He sees them only in the pulpit, where they have pulpit grace and pulpit manners."
"I have always treated Donald with loving kindness."
"To be sure, when Donald walked the narrow chalk line you made for him. You had your own will. You wanted to be a minister and no one hindered you."
"How do you know, Jessy, that I wanted to be a minister?"
"Because you could not be happy unless you had power, and spiritual power was all you could lay your hands on. Donald was willing to go either to the sea or the army. What for wouldn't you give him his desire?"
"I have told you his life is all the Macraes have to build upon."