As for the young man himself, who had still upon his mind the feeling that he was to be a Scotch minister, the lesson was the strangest possible; for, being Scotch, he could not help listening to the sermon according to the usage of his nation. The curate, after he had said those prayers which are all but divine in their comprehension of the wants of humanity, told his people how wonderfully their beloved Church had provided for all their wants; how sweet it was to recollect that this was the day which had been appointed the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity--and how it was their duty to meditate a fact so touching and so important. Colin thought of the Holy Loch, and the minister’s critics there, and laughed to himself, perhaps a little bitterly. He felt as if he had given up his own career--the natural life to which he was born; and at this distance the usual enchantments of nature began to work, and in his heart he asked himself what he was to gain by transferring his lot and hopes to this wealthy country, where so many things were fairer, and after which he had been hankering so long. The curate’s sermons struck him as a kind of comical climax to his disappointments--and the curate himself who looked at Colin much as he might have looked at a South-Sea Islander, and spoke of the Scotch whisky and Scotch Sabbaths. Poor curate! He knew a great deal more than Colin did about some things, and, if he did not understand how to preach, that was not the fault of his college; neither did they convey much information at that seat of learning about the northern half of the British island--no more than they did at Glasgow about the curious specimen of humanity which is known as a curate on the brighter side of the Tweed.