A Reverend gentleman, who had a
guid gift o’ the gab, or, as the late James Bell of geographical and
antiquarian celebrity used to phrase it, "the art of communicating
naething," delivered a sermon in the neighbourhood of Glasgow for some
public purpose, which delighted the mob as a tub does a whale.
The declaimer dealt with high
Calvinistic points of doctrine to the almost exclusion of the practical
bearings of the subject, and to the no small gratification, if not
edification of his hearets, or of most of them. One bonneted abhorrer of
legal preaching, in returning home, was overheard giving vent to his
admiration thus:
"Man, John, wasna yon preachin’!
yon’s something for a body to come awa’ wi’—the way that he smashed down
his text into sae mony heads and particulars, just a’ to flinders. Nine
heads and twenty particulars in ilka head—and sic’ mouthfu’s o’ grand
words! an’ every ane o’ them In’ o’ meaning, nae doubt, if we but kent
them—bat we ha’e ill-improved our precious opportunities; man, if we
could just mind onything he said, it would be grand, and would do us
guid."
