I plead guilty to having been entirely carried away by what I heard. There was so much which was true, so much more which seemed true, so much which it would have been convenient to believe true, and all put so eloquently and originally, as I then considered, that, in short, I was in raptures, and so was poor dear Crossthwaite; and as we walked home, we dinned Mr. Windrush's praises one into each of Mackaye's ears. The old man, however, paced on silent and meditative. At last—
"A hunder sects or so in the land o' Gret Britain; an' a hunder or so single preachers, each man a sect of his ain! an' this the last fashion! Last, indeed! The moon of Calvinism's far gone in the fourth quarter, when it's come to the like o' that. Truly, the soul-saving business is a'thegither fa'n to a low ebb, as Master Tummas says somewhere!"
"Well, but," asked Crossthwaite, "was not that man, at least, splendid?"
"An' hoo much o' thae gran' objectives an' subjectives did ye comprehen', then, Johnnie, my man?"
"Quite enough for me," answered John, in a somewhat nettled tone.
"An' sae did I."
"But you ought to hear him often. You can't judge of his system from one sermon, in this way."
"Seestem! and what's that like?"
"Why, he has a plan for uniting all sects and parties, on the one broad fundamental ground of the unity of God as revealed by science—"
"Verra like uniting o' men by just pu'ing aff their claes, and telling 'em, 'There, ye're a' brithers noo, on the one broad fundamental principle o' want o' breeks.'"