256 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VI. 



to the opening of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Eailway, and the 

 excitement it caused in the minds of many from a fear of Sun- 

 day trains. It will be remembered how petitions were circu- 

 lated by which the subscribers bound themselves never to 

 travel by this line, and how conscientious people continued to 

 take instead the canal boat the ^y-boat as it was called 

 which was seven hours on the way : 



" 5th February 1841. 



" I suppose the Glasgow people are as much distracted about 

 the Sunday travelling question as we are here, where beggars, 

 petition in hand, wander from door to door, craving your signa- 

 ture to a promise which no conscientious man can hope to fulfil. 

 The following anecdote, which I had at secondhand, will con- 

 vey to you an opinion entertained on this serious subject by no 

 inconsiderable portion of Her Majesty's subjects. The Eev. T. 

 Guthrie was lately entertained by his Sunday-school teachers 

 to a soiree, at which the reverend gentleman unbended himself 

 most graciously, and, among other sayings, uttered the follow- 

 ing : On a recent Sunday some juvenile desecrators fell to 

 making a slide before the minister's door. At sight of which, 

 anxious to save both the Sunday and his legs from being broken, 

 he despatched the servant with a dish of salt, and followed him- 

 self, as the most formidable inmate, to scare away the sliders. 

 To his harangue on the wickedness of their conduct, the little 

 boys, to his great wonder and amusement, gravely and sorrow- 

 fully replied, ' Eh man ! it would be far better to gie us the 

 saut for our parridge, than gang and spile our gude slide wi't.' 

 There was eloquence from the ' great fire bosom' of nature 

 herself ! 



" I have another thing to tell you, which I read with very 

 great pleasure some time ago, and have always resolved but 

 forgotten to communicate. You remember, in relation to A I r. 

 Moffat and his Bechuanas, we both believed, I from a mere 

 ' theopathetic' instinct, you from a clearly-perceived and ana- 

 lysed necessity of thinking, that no people or tribe could be 

 found altogether destitute of the idea of a God. Well ! it has 

 been again and again declared that the New Hollanders have no 



