156 . WHY DICK LEFT THE KIRK. CHAP, xn, 



walk it must have been on an early summer morning. 

 Dick got home by breakfast time, and then he prepared 

 to go to church. But one day he got a sermon which 

 made his ears tingle. It was upon the awful crime of 

 Sabbath-breaking upon going about on the Sabbath 

 day, and wandering in pursuit of "science, falsely so 

 called." 



Dick could not mistake the application of the sermon. 

 He felt that it was at him the minister was preaching. 

 If it was not intended for him as we have been assured 

 at -all events he put the cap on. " Well," he said, " I'll 

 never more be preached at. Eeligion is not The Kirk : 

 neither is it in the preaching of one minister or another. 

 I'll stay at home, and do my religious services myself." 



The person who gave us the above information was 

 one of Eobert Dick's intimate friends. He says Dick was 

 a thoroughly religious man, though he ceased to attend 

 the Established Church. He was invariably kind, 

 benevolent, and helpful. And perhaps he entertained 

 deeper thoughts about religion than anybody in the 

 parish, not even excepting the parish minister himself. 



Dick himself told the same story to Mr. Peach. He 

 said that having been shut up in the bakehouse during 

 the greater part of the week, he thought it was for the 

 benefit of his health that he should take an early 

 Sunday morning's walk ; and that it was an interference 

 with the liberty of the subject to preach at him in that 

 way. Mr. Peach further says that he always kept a 

 solitary service in his own house, reading the Bible, and 

 the somTinentaries thereon. 



