About three thousand worshippers, careworn and devoured by the thirst for lucre, listened unmoved to the diatribes of the worthy pastor, and were preparing, by a day of rest, for the headlong race after wealth that they were going to resume on the morrow.
What a never-ending theme is the contempt for riches! What sermons in the desert, preached by bishops with princely pay, or poor curates who treat fortune as Master Reynard treated certain grapes that hung out of reach.
I was never more edified than on that Sunday in Glasgow, especially when the assembly struck up—
"O Paradise, O Paradise!
'Tis weary waiting here;
I long to be where Jesus is,
To feel, to see him near.
O Paradise, O Paradise!
I greatly long to see
The special place my dearest Lord
In love prepares for me!"
"Ah! my dear Caledonians," thought I, seeing them in such a hurry, "it is better to suffer, even in Glasgow, than to die!"
Mieux vaut souffrir que mourir
C'est la devise des hommes.
By the bye, dear reader, how do you like the expression special place? Did I exaggerate when I told you the Scotch expect to find places specially reserved for them in Heaven?
This is how I learned by experience never to enter into theological discussions with the Scotch.
I had been to morning service in an Edinburgh church with a Scotchman, and there again had heard a sermon on the worthlessness of riches. The minister had preached from the text, "And again I say unto you: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven."