The Lindsays, Volume I by John K. Leys

At the end of the appointed week the two young men returned to Glasgow, and braced themselves up for the remaining four months of work. At the northern Universities the academic year ends (except for a few supplementary medical classes) with the 1st of May. Alec Lindsay had a great deal of leeway to make up, as he had never had a proper grounding in either Latin or Greek; but he did his best, and felt pretty sure of being able to take at least one prize.

Of course he found his way back to the Church of England chapel at which he had seen Miss Mowbray; and on more than one occasion he was gratified by a sight of her. As to the Anglican form of worship, he regarded it with very mixed feelings. He was pleased by the stately simplicity of the collects, and by the rhythm of the chants. The service was free from the monotony of the Presbyterian form, and it was more ‘congregational' than anything to which he had been accustomed. But it was some time before he could divest himself of the idea that he was witnessing a kind of religious entertainment, ingeniously devised and interesting, but by no means tending to edification. He felt like his countrywoman, who when taken to a service at Westminster Abbey said afterwards: ‘It was very fine -- but eh! that was an awfu' way o' spending the Sabbath! ' The voice of conscience is as loud when it condemns the infraction of a rule founded only in prejudice as when it protests against a breach of the moral law itself; and for several Sunday evenings Alec Lindsay left the chapel with the feeling that he had been guilty of a misdemeanour -- he had been playing at worship. The unexpressed idea in his mind (a result of his Presbyterian training) was that collects, and chants, and ceremonial observances in general, were too interesting, too pleasing to the natural man, to be acceptable to the Almighty. But by degrees this feeling wore off; and when he became familiar with the Prayer-book, he found that it was an aid rather than a hindrance to devotion.