A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 157 



CHAPTER X. 



THE anchoring ground at Isle Ornsay was crowded with coast- 

 ing vessels and fishing boats ; and when the Sabbath caine 

 round, no inconsiderable portion of my friend's congregation 

 was composed of sailors and fishermen. His text was appro- 

 priate, " He bringeth them into their desired haven /' and 

 as his sea-craft and his theology were alike excellent, there 

 were no incongruities in his allegory, and no defects in his 

 mode of applying it, and the seamen were hugely delighted 

 John Stewart, though less a master of English than of many 

 other things, told me he was able to follow the minister from 

 beginning to end, a thing he had never done before at an 

 English preaching. The sea portion of the sermon, he said, 

 was very plain : it was about the helm, and the sails, and the 

 anchor, and the chart, and the pilot, about rocks, winds, 

 currents, and safe harbourage ; and by attending to this sim- 

 pler part of it, he was led into the parts that were less sim- 

 ple, and so succeeded in comprehending the whole. I would 

 fain see this unique discourse, preached by a sailor minister 

 to a sailor congregation, preserved in some permanent form, 

 with at least one other discourse, of which I found trace in 

 the island of Eigg, after the lapse of more than a twelve- 

 month, that had been preached about the time of the Dis- 

 ruption, full in sight of the Scuir, with its impregnable hill- 



