"presbytery was no religion for a gentleman." It is not, therefore,
wonderful, that, in the first year of his restoration, he formally
reestablished prelacy in Scotland; but it is surprising, that, with his
father's example before his eyes, he should not have been satisfied
to leave at freedom the consciences of those who could not reconcile
themselves to the new system. The religious opinions of sectaries have a
tendency like the water of some springs, to become soft and mild, when
freely exposed to the open day. Who can recognise in the decent and
industrious quakers, and ana-baptists the wild and ferocious tenets
which distinguished their sects, while they were yet honoured with the
distinction of the scourge and the pillory? Had the system of coercion
against the presbyterians been continued until our day, Blair and
Robertson would have preached in the wilderness, and only discovered
their powers of eloquence and composition, by rolling along a deeper
torrent of gloomy fanaticism.

[Footnote A: Among other ridiculous occurrences, it is said, that some
of Charles's gallantries were discovered by a prying neighbour. A wily
old minister was deputed, by his brethren, to rebuke the king for this
heinous scandal. Being introduced into the royal presence he limited
his commission to a serious admonition, that, upon such occasions,
his majesty should always shut the windows.--The king is said to have
recompensed this unexpected lenity after the Restoration. He probably
remembered the joke, though he might have forgotten the service.]

The western counties distinguished themselves by their opposition to the
prelatic system. Three hundred and fifty ministers, ejected from their
churches and livings, wandered through the mountains, sowing the seeds
of covenanted doctrine, while multitudes of fanatical followers pursued
them, to reap the forbidden crop. These conventicles as they were