I'm glad you never went back, and that the deevil was in the dumps; for they say that some nichts in thae Hells, when Satan and Sin sit thegither on ae chair, he wi' his arm roun' the neck o' that Destruction his Daughter, a horrible temptation invades men's hearts and souls, drivin' and draggin' them on to the doom o' everlasting death. NORTH. Strong language, James--many good and great men have shook the elbow. SHEPHERD. Come, come now, Mr. North, and dinna allow paradox to darken or obscure the bright licht o' your great natural and acquired understandin'. 'Good and great' are lofty epithets to bestow on ony man that is born o' a woman--and if ony such there have been who delivered themselves up to sin, and shame, and sorrow, at the ggeming-table; let their biographers justify them--it will gie me pleasure to see them do't--but such examples shall never confound my judgment o' right or wrang. 'Shake the elbow indeed!' What mair does a parricide do but 'shake his elbow,' when he cuts his father's throat? The gamester shakes his elbow, and down go the glorious oak trees planted two hundred years ago, by some ancestor who loved the fresh smell o' the woods--away go--if entail does no forbid--thousands o' bonny braid acres, ance a' ae princely estate, but now shivered down into beggarly parshels, while the Auld House seems broken-hearted, and hangs down its head, when the infatuated laird dies or shoots himself. Oh, man! is nae it a sad thocht to think that my leddy, aye sae gracious to the puir, should hae to lay down her carriage in her auld age, and disappear frae the Ha' into some far-aff town or village, perhaps no in Scotland ava'; while he, that should hae been the heir, is apprenticed to a writer to the signet, and becomes a money-scrivener i' his soul, and aiblins a Whig routin' at a public meetin' about Queens, and Slavery, and Borough Reform, and Cautholic Emancipation." St. Francis Xavier, though disapproving of all games of chance, yet did not absolutely condemn them as forbidden by the word of God; but endeavoured to reclaim, by gentle means, those who were addicted to play. "That he might banish Games of Chance," says his biographer, "which almost always occasion quarrels and swearing, he proposed some little innocent diversions, capable of entertaining the mind, without stirring up the passions. But seeing that in spight of his endeavours they were bent on Cards and Dice, he thought it not convenient to absent himself, but became a looker-on, that he might somewhat awe them by his presence; and when they were breaking out into any extravagance, he reclaimed them by gentle and soft reproofs. He showed concernment in their gains, or in their losses, and offered sometimes to hold their cards.