“No, the auld kirk likes to make death as gloomy as possible. In fact they look on death as if he were always an enemy. Now the Episcopalians teach that if a man is seeking first the Kingdom of Christ he has nae need to fear at death. To hear some Presbyterians speak you would think that death meant an end o’ a’ thing; whereas the English Prayer Book teaches that it is only the beginning of another stage of life. In a book I have here, by a great man called Tertullian, who lived in the fourth century, it is said that the Christian Church of the first days turned the gloom of the funeral into a triumph, and that between the death and the burial their religious exercises were expressive of peace and hope. They felt that death could not and did not separate them from the love of their heavenly Father or from the fellowship of the saints; and so they made use of palms and flowers to give expression to their hope and trust.” “Now I hope I understand better the meanin’ o’ what I saw to-day. But, there wis ae day nae long ago I heard auld Willie Scott the mason--and ye ken he’s great on religious matters--say to a man in Jamie Reith’s smiddy that there wis only a tissue paper wall between the English Kirk and Roman Catholics. He said that their white gowns, an’ organs, an’ chantin’ an’ hymns, were a’ relics of popery. It wis jist a kirk for the ‘gentle persuasion,’ he said; they dinna want ony poor folk there.” “Dinna ye heed ony o’ auld Willie’s havers; he’s only a poor narrow-minded body, an’ disna think anybody will be saved except the ‘Auld light’ folk. The white gowns were used in the oldest and purest ages of the Church, more than a thousand years before the black Geneva gown was heard of, an’ as to organs, weel, King David himsel’ played on a harp, an’ I’m thinking if the Almighty was pleased wi’ that, he wouldna hae ony objection to a grand instrument like the organ. As for the chantin’ there was plenty o’ that in the temple when the Maister Himsel’ was worshipping there, and gin He had thocht there wis onything wrang He wad sune hae let them hear aboot it. If Willie thinks the English version o’ the Psalms is inspired, he’s awfu’ sair mista’en. Some of the metre Psalms are perfect doggerel.” “But I’ll tell you Alan, he spak’ a true word when he said that the Episcopalian kirk was the kirk o’ the gentle persuasion; for there is something in it, as a system, that helps to make a man gentle, and kind, and unselfish. No doubt there may be many imperfect characters among them, but the teaching of their Church, the use of their Prayer Book, their ordinances and Sacraments, all help to make them o’ ‘the gentle persuasion.’ Why, laddie, the very service ye heard the day is a proof o’ the perfect democracy of her system. It is the same burial service that she uses for the poorest of her people as for the most exalted in rank. So you see in the way Willie meant she’s not the kirk o’ ‘the gentle persuasion’.”