Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/112

98 insight into technical church matters, although we seldom agree with her "opeenions" after we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life, often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly indigestible "stane." She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the "meenistry" creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is truth itself.

"Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?" suggests Mrs. M'Collop, spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. "Wha did ye hear the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon—off an' on!" with an emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the times when he is "off" outnumber those when he is "on." … "Ye have na heard auld Dr. B yet?" (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) "He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B, forbye he's growin'