44 KIRK AND MANSE. 



Such felicity of site has often led to the sarcastic 

 observation, that the Church is too wise not to have 

 the best things to herself. But so far as the accu- 

 sation of a selfish wisdom is limited to a predilec- 

 tion for the murmuring stream and the shade of 

 trees, without implying the guilt of aggrandise- 

 ment, it may be easily borne. But even this, if 

 the charge were grave, might be answered by the 

 fact, that the sweet attractions of the river have 

 first moved the flocks to feed on its green pastures, 

 and that thither the shepherds have but followed 

 them. It is true that the church, in consequence 

 of this attraction, is but rarely central to the 

 parish. In some districts may be counted nearly 

 a score of churches ranged along the winding 

 valley, whose stream serves to each in succession 

 as the parochial boundary; and hence the area of 

 the parish is very unequally disposed around its 

 place of worship. Nevertheless the site of the 

 kirk and manse is chosen on a far juster principle. 

 For obvious reasons, the population is crowded on 

 the valleys, and thinly scattered on the moors : 

 and the most perfect adjustment of every claim is 

 to suppose the people, with their respective dis- 

 tances, to form a coherent substance, of which 

 substance the centre of gravity is the proper site 

 of the church. This principle, as just in morals 

 as in mechanics, may serve to appease the remote 

 inhabitants who complain that they must travel all 

 the breadth or all the length of the parish before 

 they reach the place of worship. From the above 



