Page:A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland - Johnson (1775).djvu/294

 The want of churches is not the only impediment to piety: there is likewise a want of Ministers. A parish often contains more Islands than one; and each Island can have the Minister only in its own turn. At they had, I think, a right to service only every third Sunday. All the provision made by the present ecclesiastical constitution, for the inhabitants of about a hundred square miles, is a prayer and sermon in a little room, once in three weeks: and even this parsimonious distribution is at the mercy of the weather; and in those Islands where the Minister does not reside, it is impossible to tell how many weeks or months may pass without any publick exercise of religion.

After a short conversation with Mr., we went on to , a house and farm tenanted by Mr. , where I