G--- has invited me to dinner, and I expect some amusement; for T---, who
is acquainted with him, says, that it is his fault to employ his mind too
much on all occasions; and that, in all probability, there will be
something, either in the fare or the company, that I shall remember as
long as I live. However, you shall hear all about it in my next.--Yours, ANDREW PRINGLE.
On the same Sunday on which Mr. Micklewham consulted Mr. Snodgrass as to
the propriety of reading the Doctor's letter to the elders, the following
epistle reached the post-office of Irvine, and was delivered by Saunders
Dickie himself, at the door of Mrs. Glibbans to her servan lassie, who,
as her mistress had gone to the Relief Church, told him, that he would
have to come for the postage the morn's morning. "Oh," said Saunders,
"there's naething to pay but my ain trouble, for it's frankit; but
aiblins the mistress will gie me a bit drappie, and so I'll come betimes
i' the morning."
LETTER XVIII
Mrs. Pringle to Mrs. Glibbans
LONDON.
MY DEAR MRS. GLIBBANS--The breking up of the old Parlament has been the
cause why I did not right you before, it having taken it out of my poor
to get a frank for my letter till yesterday; and I do ashure you, that I
was most extraordinar uneasy at the great delay, wishing much to let you
know the decayt state of the Gospel in thir perts, which is the pleasure
of your life to study by day, and meditate on in the watches of the
night.
There is no want of going to church, and, if that was a sign of grease
and peese in the kingdom of Christ, the toun of London might hold a high
head in the tabernacles of the faithful and true witnesses. But saving
Dr. Nichol of Swallo-Street, and Dr. Manuel of London-Wall, there is
nothing sound in the way of preaching here; and when I tell you that Mr.
John Gant, your friend, and some other flea-lugged fallows, have set up a
Heelon congregation, and got a young man to preach Erse to the English,
ye maun think in what a state sinful souls are left in London. But what
I have been the most consarned about is the state of the dead. I am no
meaning those who are dead in trespasses and sins, but the true dead. Ye
will hardly think, that they are buried in a popish-like manner, with
prayers, and white gowns, and ministers, and spadefuls of yerd cast upon
them, and laid in vauts, like kists of orangers in a grocery seller--and
I am told that, after a time, they are taken out when the vaut is
shurfeeted, and their bones brunt, if they are no made into lamp-black by
a secret wark--which is a clean proof to me that a right doctrine cannot
be established in this land--there being so little respec shone to the
dead.