Colin broke off suddenly, with a considerable show of heat and impatience. He was eighteen, and he was of the advanced party, the Young Scotland of his time. The dogmatic Old Scotland, which loved to bind, and limit, and make confessions, and sign the same, belonged to the past centuries. As for Colin’s set, they were “viewy” as the young men at Oxford used to be in the days of Froude and Newman. Colin’s own “views” were of a vague description enough, but of the most revolutionary tendency. He did not believe in Presbytery, nor in that rule of Church government which in Scotland is known as Lord Aberdeen’s Act; and his ideas respecting extempore worship and common prayer were much unsettled. But as neither Colin nor his set had any distinct model to fall back upon, nor any clear perception of what they wanted, the present result of their enlightenment was simply the unpleasant one of general discontent with existing things, and a restless contempt for the necessary accessories of their lot. “Plucked is no a word in use in Scotland,” said Lauderdale; “it smacks of the English universities, which are altogether a different matter. As for the Westminster Confession, I’m no clear that I could put my name to that myself as my act and deed--but you are but a callant, and don’t know your own mind as yet. Meaning no offence to you,” he continued, waving his hand to Colin, who showed signs of impatience, “I was once a laddie myself. Between eighteen and eight-and-twenty you’ll change your ways of thinking, and neither you nor me can prophesy what they’ll end in. As for the congregation of ploughmen, I would be very easy about you if that was the worst danger. Men that are about day and night in the fields when all’s still, cannot but have thoughts in their minds now and then. But it’s no what you are going to be, I’m thinking of,” said Colin’s counsellor, raising himself from the grass with a spark of unusual light in his eyes, “but what you _might_ be, laddie. It’s no a great preacher, far less what they call a popular minister, that would please me. What I’m thinking of is, the Man that is aye to be looked for, but never comes. I’m speaking like a woman, and thinking like a woman,” he said, with a smile; “they have a kind of privilege to keep their ideal. For my part, I ought to have more sense, if experience counted for anything; but I’ve no faith in experience. And, speaking of that,” said the philosopher, dropping back again softly on the greensward, “what a grand outlet for what I’m calling the ideal was that old promise of the Messias who was to come! It may still be so for anything I can tell, though I cannot say that I put much trust in the Jews. But aye to be able to hope that the next new soul might be the One that was above failure, must have been a wonderful solace to them that had failed and lost heart. To be sure, they missed Him when He came,” continued Lauderdale; “that was natural. Human nature is aye defective