MUCH has been said and written about the camp-meetings of America and England, but the sober Scotch have shewn by the recent Revivals, as they are called amongst them, that the same species of religious excitement can agitate them; and, indeed, they have had, from the earliest days of the Reformation, scenes of most picturesque religious exhibition amongst them,-of which, however, little is known in England. Their annual administration of the sacrament, which in the Highlands often occurs in the open air, is a most singular and novel sight.

Logan of Leith, better known to English readers as Logan the poet, in his sermons, describes in detail the ceremony. He tells us that "the people are prepared by their ministers in their respective parishes for this great occasion, with much seriousness, and that it generally occupies four days, including the Sunday fixed for this solemnity." On the Thursday and Saturday before it, and on the Monday after it, there is public worship, and sermons are preached upon subjects suitable to the occasion. The Thursday is particularly set apart for solemn fasting, and no labour is that day permitted in the parish. The greater part of persons of all ranks in the parish, who have arrived at the years of discretion, join in celebrating this ordinance, which, partly from this cause, and partly from its taking place but once or twice a year, is performed in a manner that is very solemn and devout.

"The service begins with the singing of a psalm, which the

choice of the psalms is in all cases at the minister's d

minister reads out immediately on ascending the pulpit. The

and, to give the sacrament service more completely, some portions, which are often sung on such occasions, are inserted here in their places. The music is entirely vocal. In a few congregations there is music in parts, but in general the whole congregation sing in unison. The psalm tunes are set to slow time; the melody is simple, grave, and often very affecting."

John Wesley, on his religious journeys into Scotland, was surprised to find that on the fast-day the people did not fast at all, but regularly cat their three meals. He also, in his Journal

of the date of Sunday the 17th, 1764, gives us this pretty accurate description of the ceremony, as celebrated in the West Kirk in Edinburgh. "After the usual morning service, the minister enumerated several sorts of sinners whom he forbade to approach. Two long tables were set on the sides of one aisle, covered with table-cloths. On each side of them a bench was placed for the people. Each table held four or five and thirty. Three ministers sate at the top, behind a cross table; one of whom made a long exhortation, closed with the words of our Lord, and then, breaking the bread, gave it to him who sate on each side of him. A piece of bread was then given to him who sate first on each side of the four benches. He broke

off a little piece and gave the bread to the next. So it went on, the deacons giving more when wanted. A cup was then given to the first person on each bench, and so by one to another. The minister continued his exhortation all the time they were receiving. Then four verses of the twenty-second psalm were sung, while new persons sate down at the tables. A second minister then prayed, consecrated, and exhorted. I was informed the service usually lasted till five in the evening. How much more simple, as well as more solemn," adds worthy John Wesley, "is the service of the Church of England." Solemn enough I think most English people, however, would consider it, and not a little impressive; but what English congregation could endure a service of four days, continuing each day from ten in the morning to five in the evening? And who would identify this serious ceremony with the Holy-Fair of Burns?

And yet it is no other. But, whatever John Wesley might think of the ceremony as seen in Edinburgh, or however it might be enacted in the west of Scotland, and have presented itself to the eyes of the random and waggish Robin Burns, nothing can be more striking, serious, and picturesque, than the same ceremony seen in the Highlands, in the open air, at the feet of the wild mountains, and amid a simple and uncorrupted population. It is there celebrated mostly in the finest season of their year, in the interval between the hay and corn harvests, as a time of the most general leisure during the summer. Two or three ministers of adjoining parishes commonly unite to assist each other, and administer the sacrament in each successively, which thus runs in the whole through as many

weeks.

As Logan states, in each parish the occasion occupies four days, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We thought ourselves fortunate, in August 1836, that we happened to fall in with the celebration of this annual ordinance in the Highlands. We were at Beauley, about a dozen miles west of Inverness, on a Sunday morning, and were inquiring of the landlady of our excellent inn how far it was to the celebrated falls of Kilmorac. "O!" said she, "it is a bare two miles, and you will just be there in the nick of time to see the sacrament administered to the Gaelic population in the open air. The English congregation will receive it in the kirk." This was brave news, and away we posted. It was a delicious morning. One of those clear, warm, yet not oppressive days, that August often presents

us.

The sky over head was studded with light and lofty little masses of what the German meteorologists so expressively call stachen clouds, that appear on the summer's morning amid the sunny azure in small lumps all round the horizon, and gradually grow, and stack, and pile themselves up into snowy mountains, and regions of cloud-land most lustrous and beautiful. A gentle breeze went puffing and frolicking amongst the hedgerows, wafting to us deliciously the odour of the sweetbriar, which abounds there; the level rich fields were full of corn already "white unto the harvest;" and from all quarters we saw the people streaming along the highways and the footpaths towards the hills that lay westward.

The roads were clad frae side to side

Wi' monie a wearie body,

In droves that day.

Not, however, exactly as Burns describes the folk of Ayreshire:

Here farmers gash in ridin graith

Gaed hoddin by their cotters;

There swankies young, in braw braid-claith,

Are springin o'er the gutters.

The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang,

In silks an' scarlet glitter;

Wi' sweet milk-cheese, in monie a whang,

An' farls bak'd wi' butter

Fu crump that day.

Most here were on foot; none were barefooted; on the week days we saw scarcely a woman with shoes or stockings on, but to-day none were without. With the exception that hardly one had a bonnet on, the young women were not much to be