Of better blood boast not, Vain child of the sod; We are all from that Adam First fashioned by God, We are all from that Adam, In him our life lay; And all have to carry These bodies of clay. In this clay, soul-fashioned, We march to the tomb, Leaving loved ones behind us When entering its gloom. How much, then, thou takest Of all this world’s good? Some few yards of linen, Some few deals of wood. There are eight lines of a little poem called “An Samhla,” or _The Comparison_, which reminds us of the generally subjective state of mind which the Highland men were wont to cultivate so assiduously. In Morrison of Harris and in Macrae of Petty we see the extreme spiritual self-analysis which they carried on. I also give a rendering of a few verses of a fair poem on those given to riches. It has the same preaching ring that we find in the one on the state of the world:— THE COMPARISON. I’m like a barrel sealed, Whose stores the others cannot see; The gazer scans in vain; Good wine or poison it may be: But strike thou in some spot Where all the staves are not so sound, Soon thou shalt see the stuff Outpouring on the ground. THE TRUE RICHES. I mourn for you that follow ill, Ye who misspend the days of youth; The cup of sin you daily fill, And grieve afar the God of Truth: He keeps you while you fast advance In fleshly pleasures’ passing train; But yours will be inheritance With heirs of everlasting pain. If thou wouldst follow Him each day, Be meek and mild—extinguish pride; To sinful lusts do not give way, And all dark habits cast aside. Though great thy faith be and thy pray’r, They cannot ease thy grievous load, Unless thine be a covenant share In the soul-sealing work of God. Behold her of Samaria: Deep in her soul the poison flowed; But when the face of Christ she saw Her heart turned from the guilty road. A drink before that spring supernal She sought with lips all parched and sore; He gave her of the life eternal, Which slaked her thirst for evermore. Though MacLauchlan has not left much to prove that he possessed the gift of satire, yet it seems that some of his poems helped his preaching considerably in extirpating the habit of card-playing once so universal in the Highlands—it used to be carried on at baptisms, weddings, and even late wakes. Highlanders have had a terrible dread of being satirised by the bards. To have come under the satiric tongue of the poet acted like a social excommunication; and bards frequently availed themselves of this power to accomplish ends different from that to which MacLauchlan had set himself in the following verses:— CARD-PLAYING.