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122 countrymen than in Old Mortality. The Covenanters could only have existed in Scotland, where enthusiasm takes the shape of obstinacy, not of excitement. We read with wonder what men in those days endured for conscience sake—hardships, suffering, loss of worldly goods, and even death, yet we wonder more when we find on what small things this rigid conscience turned—some worthless ceremony, some question of surplice and cassock, and men have given up life and living, rather than allow the hundredth psalm to peal from an organ within the walls of their church; still this severe discipline may have led to good, for we believe that in no religious establishment are the pure doctrines of our faith more visible than in the church of Scotland.

 

nothing does Sir Walter Scott show his great skill in the delineation of human nature more than in the characters taken from low life. These had been generally confined to a valet, half knave, half fool; a lady's maid, who took her mistress's airs like cast-off dresses, a little the worse for the wear; and now and then a virtuous peasant. But his lower range of dramatis personæ are as varied and as striking as the most important performers—they are at once