"
"An' ran oot sarkless on the public, eh? I'm afeard there's mony a man else
that throws awa' the gude auld plaid o' Scots Puritanism, an' is unco fain
to cover his nakedness wi' ony cast popinjay's feathers he can forgather
wi'. Aweel, aweel--a puir priestless age it is, the noo. We'll e'en gang
hear him the nicht, Alton, laddie; ye ha' na darkened the kirk door this
mony a day--nor I neither, mair by token."
It was too true. I had utterly given up the whole problem of religion as
insoluble. I believed in poetry, science, and democracy--and they were
enough for me then; enough, at least, to leave a mighty hunger in my heart,
I knew not for what. And as for Mackaye, though brought up, as he told me,
a rigid Scotch Presbyterian, he had gradually ceased to attend the church
of his fathers.
"It was no the kirk o' his fathers--the auld God--trusting kirk that
Clavers dragoonit down by burns and muirsides. It was a' gane dead an' dry;
a piece of Auld-Bailey barristration anent soul-saving dodges. What did he
want wi' proofs o' the being o' God, an' o' the doctrine o' original sin?
He could see eneugh o' them ayont the shop-door, ony tide.
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