The sacredness of the Sabbath, by a natural transition, came to be also attributed to the Fast Day, which heralded the half-yearly Communion-Sunday. A Fife shepherd, who was in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh on a week-day, found that his dog had strayed to some distance, and was making off in a wrong direction. He begged an acquaintance whom he had met to whistle for the animal. ‘Whustle on your ain dowg,’ was the indignant reply. ‘Na, na, man,’ said the perturbed drover. ‘I canna dae that, for you see it’s our Fast Day in Kirkcaldy.’ Nobody has satirised the Scottish perversion of the day of rest with more effective sarcasm than Lord Neaves in his _Lyric for Saturday Night_: We zealots made up of stiff clay, The sour-looking children of sorrow, While not over-jolly to-day, Resolve to be wretched to-morrow. We can’t for a certainty tell What mirth may molest us on Monday; But at least to begin the week well, Let us all be unhappy on Sunday. What though a good precept we strain Till hateful and hurtful we make it! What though, in thus pulling the rein, We may draw it so tight as to break it! Abroad we forbid folks to roam, For fear they get social or frisky; But of course they can sit still at home, And get dismally drunk upon whisky. A habit which has been followed for generations to the sound of the ‘drum ecclesiastic’ is not easily thrown off. The Sabbath look of funereal sadness may still be seen on many a sturdy Presbyterian face. But happily the gloomy intolerance is passing away. In no respect is the freer air of the modern spirit more marked than in the relaxation of the old discipline in regard to the keeping of the Sabbath in lowland Scotland. A country walk on that day is no longer always proclaimed to be a violation of one of the ten commandments, innocent laughter is not everywhere denounced as a sin, nor does it appear that the growth of Sunday cheerfulness leads to any depravation of character, or to a less keen feeling for whatsoever is of good report. There is now, however, a tendency for the pendulum to swing perhaps too far on the other side. Welcome though the disappearance of the old gloom may be, there would be a questionable gain if what should be a day of quiet rest and refreshment were turned into one of frivolous gaiety and dissipation. [Sidenote: SINFULNESS OF DANCING]