An old woman who had got sadly rusty in her Catechism was asked,
‘What is a sacrament?’ to which she gave the following rather mixed
answer, ‘A sacrament is--an act of saving grace, whereby--a sinner
out of a true knowledge of his sins--doth rest in his grave till the
resurrection.’
Dr. Hanna used to tell of a shoemaker who lamented to his minister that
he was spiritually in a bad way because he was not very sure of his
title to the kingdom of heaven, and that he was physically bad because
‘that sweep, his landlord, had given him notice to quit and he would
have nowhere to lay his head.’ The minister could only advise him to
lay his case before the Lord. A week later the minister returned and
found the shoemaker busy and merry. ‘That was gran’ advice ye gied me,
minister,’ said the man, ‘I laid my case before the Lord, as ye tell’t
me--an’ noo the sweep’s deid.’
[Sidenote: BOBBIE FLOCKHART]
In connection with the regular clergy, reference may be made to the
free-lances who, as street-preachers, have long taken their place among
the influences at work for rousing the lower classes in our large
towns to a sense of their duties. These men have often displayed a
single-hearted devotion and persistence, in spite of the most callous
indifference or even active hostility on the part of their auditors.
The very homeliness of their language, which repels most educated
people, gives them a hold on those who come to listen to them, while
now and then their vehement enthusiasm rises into true eloquence.
The most remarkable of these men I have ever listened to was a noted
character in Edinburgh during the later years of the first half of last
century, named Bobbie Flockhart. He was diminutive in stature, but for
this disadvantage he endeavoured to compensate by taking care that
The apparel on his back,
Though coarse, was reverend, and though bare, was black.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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