Outlaws -- Fiction; Rob Roy, 1671-1734 -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- 1689-1745 -- Fiction
Conceive, Tresham, an extensive range of low-browed, dark, and twilight
vaults, such as are used for sepulchres in other countries, and had long
been dedicated to the same purpose in this, a portion of which was seated
with pews, and used as a church. The part of the vaults thus occupied,
though capable of containing a congregation of many hundreds, bore a
small proportion to the darker and more extensive caverns which yawned
around what may be termed the inhabited space. In those waste regions of
oblivion, dusky banners and tattered escutcheons indicated the graves of
those who were once, doubtless, "princes in Israel." Inscriptions, which
could only be read by the painful antiquary, in language as obsolete as
the act of devotional charity which they employed, invited the passengers
to pray for the souls of those whose bodies rested beneath. Surrounded by
these receptacles of the last remains of mortality, I found a numerous
congregation engaged in the act of prayer. The Scotch perform this duty
in a standing instead of a kneeling posture--more, perhaps, to take as
broad a distinction as possible from the ritual of Rome than for any
better reason; since I have observed, that in their family worship, as
doubtless in their private devotions, they adopt, in their immediate
address to the Deity, that posture which other Christians use as the
humblest and most reverential. Standing, therefore, the men being
uncovered, a crowd of several hundreds of both sexes, and all ages,
listened with great reverence and attention to the extempore, at least
the unwritten, prayer of an aged clergyman,* who was very popular in the
city.
* I have in vain laboured to discover this gentleman's name, and the
period of his incumbency. I do not, however, despair to see these points,
with some others which may elude my sagacity, satisfactorily elucidated
by one or other of the periodical publications which have devoted their
pages to explanatory commentaries on my former volumes; and whose
research and ingenuity claim my peculiar gratitude, for having discovered
many persons and circumstances connected with my narratives, of which I
myself never so much as dreamed.
Educated in the same religious persuasion, I seriously bent my mind to
join in the devotion of the day; and it was not till the congregation
resumed their seats, that my attention was diverted to the consideration
of the appearance of all around me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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