When I spoke to him, saying something
about the cathedral, he joyfully responded in broadest Scotch.
It was, he said, the first English cathedral he had ever seen
and he had never seen anything made by man to equal it in
beauty. He had come, he told me, straight from his home and
birthplace, a small village in the north of Scotland, shut
out from the world by great hills where the heather grew
knee-deep. He had never been in England before, and had come
directly to Salisbury on a visit to a relation.
"Well," I said, "now you have looked at it outside come in
with me and see the interior."
But he refused: it was enough for one day to see the outside
of such a building: he wanted no more just then. To-morrow
would be soon enough to see it inside; it would be the Sabbath
and he would go and worship there.
"Are you an Anglican?" I asked.
He replied that there were no Anglicans in his village. They
had two Churches--the Church of Scotland and the Free Church.
"And what," said I, "will your minister say to your going to
worship in a cathedral? We have all denominations here in
Salisbury, and you will perhaps find a Presbyterian place to
worship in."
"Now it's strange your saying that!" he returned, with a dry
little laugh. "I've just had a letter from him the morning
and he writes on this varra subject. 'Let me advise you,' he
tells me in the letter, 'to attend the service in Salisbury
Cathedral.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239