Penelope's Experiences in Scotland: Being Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton — John Shaqi
Penelope's Experiences in Scotland: Being Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope HamiltonWiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
General
Penelope's Experiences in Scotland: Being Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
Scotland -- Fiction
It is a matter of regret to us that the U.P.'s, the third branch of
Scottish Presbyterianism, could not be holding an Assembly during this
same week, so that we might the more easily decide in which flock we
really belong. 22 Breadalbane Terrace now represents all shades of
religious opinion within the bounds of Presbyterianism. We have an
Elder, a Professor of Biblical Criticism, a Majesty's Chaplain, and even
an ex-Moderator under our roof, and they are equally divided between the
Free and the Established bodies.
Mrs. M'Collop herself is a pillar of the Free Kirk, but she has no
prejudice in lodgers, and says so long as she 'mak's her rent she doesna
care aboot their releegious principles.' Miss Diggity-Dalgety is the
sole representative of United Presbyterianism in the household, and she
is somewhat gloomy in Assembly time. To belong to a dissenting body, and
yet to cook early and late for the purpose of fattening one's religious
rivals, is doubtless trying to the temper; and then she asserts that
'meenisters are aye tume [empty].'
“You must put away your Scottish ballads and histories now, Salemina,
and keep your Concordance and your umbrella constantly at hand.”
This I said as we stood on George IV. Bridge and saw the ministers
glooming down from the Mound in a dense Assembly fog. As the presence
of any considerable number of priests on an ocean steamer is supposed
to bring rough weather, so the addition of a few hundred parsons to the
population of Edinburgh is believed to induce rain,--or perhaps I should
say, more rain.
Of course, when one is in perfect bodily health one can more readily
resist the infection of disease. Similarly if Scottish skies were not
ready and longing to pour out rain, were not ignobly weak in holding it
back, they would not be so susceptible to the depressing influences of
visiting ministers. This is Francesca's theory as stated to the Reverend
Ronald, who was holding an umbrella over her ungrateful head at the
time; and she went on to boast of a convention she once attended in
California, where twenty-six thousand Christian Endeavourers were unable
to dim the American sunshine, though they stayed ten days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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