Here he describes an incident of open-air preaching. A friend was speaking, and Elmslie was managing the audience. "EDINBURGH, _Jan. 23rd, 1872_. "During this the man I had heard swearing at F———— came up to S————, who was standing a few yards off, and spoke to him. I went up just in time to hear him say, 'That fellow cannot even talk grammar.' I replied, 'We don't come here to teach grammar.' He was rather taken aback, but replied, 'Well, _I_ could have said all your man said in half the time.' 'Then wait till he is done, and you shall have the next turn.' 'No, no, I don't want that; if I spoke I should oppose you.' 'I am ready for that; will you do it?' I said; 'We don't come here to argue.' 'No; you are wise to decline to argue with me.' I answered, 'Pooh! are you so conceited as to suppose that our arguing would make any difference to Christianity? Why, it has been argued hundreds of times over by men a deal wiser than you or me, and you see Christianity has not gone to the wall.' By that time I saw I was going to win, and got very cool and at my ease, while he got excited and put out; then he started on a new tack by saying, 'And what good do you expect to do to humanity by preaching here, and disturbing us?' I said, 'Well, perhaps, for one thing, we will get some drunken characters like those' (pointing to some) 'to give up the drink, and be decent, and keep their wives and children from starving.' 'Well, that may be, but speaking like yours will never do it.' I answered, 'No, you are quite right, but we are young, you see, and some of us have not much voice, and some have not much sense; but we are just trying to find out who of us can do the thing, and so, you see, we are just doing as well as we can.' He looked rather amazed at my frankness, and said, 'Well, I'm sure I have not any ill-will to you, but I don't believe in religion, and there are such a lot of hypocrites.' I said, 'Yes, there are a great lot, but that's just a reason why you should believe in the goodness of religion.' 'How do you make that out?' 'Why, you never heard of people making imitation of the stones and stuff like that' (pointing to the gutter), 'but it is sovereigns and things like that they make counterfeits of.' 'Ay, but I hate hypocrites, and say, Down with them.' 'So do I; and if you could down with all the religious hypocrites you would do more for Christianity than we can by preaching here.' 'Ah!' he said, 'if that's your opinion you should not take to street preaching; they are all hypocrites.' 'Oh, nonsense!' I replied. He exclaimed, very bitterly, 'Look at ————' (mentioning a recent scandal); 'what good has that man done?' I answered, 'More than ever you or I have.' 'I would like to hear how.' he sneered. 'Why, you know, for one thing, he did manage, whether his preaching was sense or nonsense, to persuade a lot of drunken working men to give up drink and go to the kirk, and not