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As soon as the orders were placed before them, O'Malley leaned forward. "Sure, an' I saw the strangest sight today," he began. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it." "What was it?" "I was flittin' along over the tops o' trees an' the spires o' kirks when I zoom out over a wooded slope with a big cleared field in the middle o' the woods.
"Is there anything I can do?" but the figure simply waved its hand and resumed: "A'm comin' tae that, but a' thocht ye wud be wantin' ma opeenion o' London. "Weel, ye see, the first thing a' did, of coorse, after settlin' doon, was tae gae roond the kirks and hear what kin' o' ministers they hae up here.
She was the "merchandise," and Lethington and Lord James wished to make Elizabeth acknowledge the Scottish Queen as her successor, the alternative being to seek her price as a wife for an European prince. An "union of hearts" with England might conceivably mean Mary's acceptance of the Anglican faith. In his eyes Anglicanism was "a bastard religion," "a mingle-mangle now commanded in your kirks."
"And this court censures you, ordains you to make public confession at both English and Gaelic kirks before the congregations, thereafter to be excommunicate and banished furth and from this parish of Inneraora and Glenaora." The girl never winced. Her father cried again. "She can't leave me," said he, and he looked to the Marquis, who all the time sat on the hard deal forms, like a plain man.
The nature of the service was exactly similar, though sometimes the congregation stood at prayers, and sat when it sang; sometimes stood when it sang and knelt at prayer. Not one of the Kirks used a prescribed liturgy. I have been in a Free Kirk which had no pulpit; the pastor stood on a kind of raised platform, like a lecturer in a lecture-room, but that practice is unessential.
He was an elder in one of the largest Edinburgh kirks and the favourite chairman in missionary meetings, but because I did not go to kirk, what was business in him was sin in me. "As to the gambling houses, I had nothing to do with them but to collect lawful money, due the McLeod estate; and as far as I can see, men who gamble for money are quite respectable if they get what they gamble for.
But since that time, not only begin the Papists within the realm to lift up their heads, but also our Scottish Papists that were outside the realm swarm home from all places like locusts, and have taken such hardihood unto them that not only have they access to the French court, but also in the king's palace, in the particular sessions of our kirks, and general assemblies thereof, durst plainly avow their Papistry, and impugn the truth, both against the laws of the realm and discipline of the Church, contrary to all practice that we have had before."
It had amaist a douncome lang syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun the kirks of St. Andrews and Perth, and thereawa', to cleanse them o' Papery, and idolatry, and image worship, and surplices, and sic like rags o' the muckle hure that sitteth on seven hills, as if ane wasna braid eneugh for her auld hinder end.
Forbye, pictur's are pairfectly ridic'lus," he continued; "what for, will you want the image o' a thing, when you hae the thing itsel'? John Knox kent weel what he was doing when he dinged doon a' the pictur's and images in thae auld kirks. He kent men were aye mair pleased to worship their ain handywark, than the Creator's."
How many kirks he thought of, sitting there what cathedrals, chapels; what rude, earnest places; what temples, mosques, caves, ancient groves; what fanes; what worshiped gods! One, one! Temple and image, worshiped and worshiper. Self helping self. "O my Self, daily and deeply help myself!"
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