SCOTCH SERMONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sta,—In the course of a recent visit to Scotland I was, pleased to find that the vein of unconscious humour which so often enlivened Scotch sermons of former time, and has supplied Dean Ramsay with so many edifying stories, has not been quite exhausted. I heard not long since a sermon on the subject of Naaman, and I was much tickled by the delicate touch with which the preacher succeeded in glossing over the repulsive foulness of leprosy. After enumerating the brilliant qualities of Naaman as a soldier and a states- man, and dwelling in some detail on the high position they had enabled him to attain at the Court of his master, the sermon proceeded: "But there was one drawback to Naa.man's prosperity ; he enjoyed very endefferent health." Another preacher whom I heard chose for the subject of his discourse that incident in the life of Elijah when he took refuge in the wilderness from Jezebel's menaces. The deep and overwhelming depression which seized on the prophet as he- cast himself down under a juniper-tree, and asked that his life might be taken away, met with a somewhat novel inter- pretation. We were told that much which was generally considered to be due to moral or spiritual causes was really the effect of physical causes only, and that this was strikingly exemplified by the treatment which in the present instance was applied to Elijah. "In the first place he was prescribed food ; he found at his bead a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water. And in the next place be was prescribed exer- cise; he went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights." I am afraid that English commentators on the Bible, in their matter-of-fact simplicity, have missed the point which thus commended itself to theperfervidtan ingenium of our friends across the Border.—I am, Sir, &a., MAITRE.
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