FOOTNOTES:
[4] Caddled, worried.
[5] Wosbird, bird of woe, of evil omen.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Most Interesting Building in the World.
London, October 2, 1902.
The Birthplace of the Shorter Catechism.
Some months ago, when the kind urgency of my friends made it plain to me that I should go abroad for a while, and when it was decided that certain young students of the Shorter Catechism in my family should go with me, I promised them a visit to the birthplace of that marvellous compendium of biblical doctrine, which for two hundred and fifty years has been such a weariness to the flesh of Presbyterian children throughout the English-speaking world, especially on Sunday afternoons, and which is such a priceless possession of their adult years when once thoroughly acquired in youth; but I told them that the condition on which alone I could take them with a clear conscience to the spot where that matchless little book was written, was that they should memorize it perfectly beforehand, and I had the satisfaction before leaving home of hearing them all recite it without a mistake; and, in order to retain with ease what was thus acquired with toil, they have continued to recite it regularly from beginning to end every Sunday afternoon. This is, of course, nothing more than hundreds of other children have done, and I do not mention it as anything remarkable, but only as suggesting one reason for the eager interest with which we were looking forward to our visit to a certain part of Westminster Abbey. And so, on the very first morning after our first arrival in London, as soon as we had finished breakfast, we hurried down to the gray old minster, where, in the midst of the roaring city, so many of the restless makers of the world's history, literature and art are now quietly sleeping; for we intended, after seeing where the Westminster Assembly sat, to give a full morning to the other historical memorials of the Abbey.