I never again took any such books to school, but I continued to read the Waverley Novels--very often aloud for the benefit of others. In the long winter evenings we would sit around a blazing peat fire, in our stone-flagged kitchen, and listen while father and Mr. Lindsay discussed current topics of the day. An old college friend used regularly to send his copy of the Edinburgh “Courant” to the dominie, and the news it contained formed the subject of many a warm discussion. One matter which at this time was causing considerable disturbance, in certain circles, was the movement for the final extinction of the disabilities against Episcopalians. On this the two took opposite sides. Mr. Lindsay, although not actually an Anglican, was fully in sympathy with the movement; my father, on the other hand, had been brought up a rigid Presbyterian and knew nothing of any other faith. He saw no need, he said, for the existence of the “English Kirk” in Scotland. The Reformers had abolished prelacy and all that appertained thereto, root and branch. The voice of Scotland for over three hundred years had been in favor of the Presbyterian faith and the Presbyterian form of worship. Why could not everybody be content to worship as the godly followers of the Covenant had done, without all the outward show and ceremony, and read prayers, that were considered necessary in England? Like many of his fellow-countrymen, my father held in the greatest abhorrence any cringing to English customs. To imitate the people of the south seemed to him a giving up of the independence that Scotland had striven so hard to maintain. In our home I never dared to join in the discussion of my elders, but, when Mr. Lindsay and I were in his study one evening, I broached this subject and asked him to tell me how and when the “English Kirk” came to Scotland. “Well, you see, Alan,” said he, “what you call the ‘English’ Church is not the English Church at all; the Episcopalians are really and truly the representatives of the Christians of long ago who first brought the gospel into this country. You’ve read in your school history about St. Columba coming over from the north of Ireland in his ‘curragh’ and settling with his followers on the island of Iona, haven’t you?” “Oh, yes, Mr. Lindsay, but the maister told us that he was exactly like oor ain ministers, and that he had nae bishops in his kirk, and nane o’ the forms and ceremonies that the Papists and Prelatists hae nooadays.”