“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 like, my son, than you and I think. Some of us have more of the one, and some of the other: but in truth I cannot contradict Mr Whitefield. ’Tis a just portrait of what man is by nature.”
“But, Sir!” cried Angus, “do you allow nothing for a man’s natural virtues?”
“What are they?” asked my Uncle. “I allow that ‘there is none that doeth good, no, not one.’ You were not taught, Angus, that a man had virtues natural to him, except as the Spirit of God implanted them in him.”
“No, Sir; but when I go forth into the world, I cannot help seeing that it is so.”
“I wish I could see it!” said my Uncle. “It would be a much more agreeable sight than many things I do see.”