Note 98 — BOOK XII.

The meeting-houses were not in common very costly fabricks. Like the temple at Jerusalem, no mason’s iron was heard in their building, being generally framed of rough unhewn stones, covered with turf; and the people were thankful when the government did not interfere with their cheap church-extension scheme. Stately cathedrals they asked not, they cheerfully left them to the Romanists and the renegade prelatical conformists, their brethren. Consecrated walls were words unknown in their vocabulary, all they asked was shelter from the weather and very humble accomodation for their wearied limbs. Nor did they always ask even these; for their ministers, following the example of Him whose servants they professed to be, oftener had the mountain for their pulpit and the heavens for their sounding-board, than the crimson-covered desk with velvet cushion and gilded canopy; while they themselves were satisfied, if they could hear the gospel faithfully preached, although on the mountain side, or in “divot theikit beilds.”