name. The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned
nothing of the kind. They belonged to the best society, and were of
those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom Canon Kingsley described as
"the sitters in pews."

In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to opera
and theatre. On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George's Church; on
fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and eaten their
dinner at Richmond. Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy, but there
were none of David's companions to whom these things were sins in the
same degree as they were to David.

To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to
him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of
wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven.
Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames
and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could
recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping
crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many thousand
hearthstones:

O God of Bethel, by whose hand
Thy people still are led.

He alone, as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the
witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the tearful
tenderness of "Communion."

To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of
course, as a part of their daily life and education. David had been