THE MEN OF ST. KILDA CANNOT FORGET GOD

. NATURE has an unconscious influence on the mind of man. This is illustrated in the following facts which Dr. Macleod related at a meeting, held in reference to the establishment of schools in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland:—A friend of mine happened to be in a boat, by which a poor, simple-hearted man, from the island of St. Kilda was advancing, for the first time in his life, from his native rock to visit the world; and as he advanced towards the island of Mull—a world in itself in the estimation of the poor St. Kilda man—the boatmen commenced telling him the wonders he was so soon to see. They asked him about St. Kilda; they questioned him regarding all the peculiarities of that wonderful place; and rallied him not a little on his ignorance of all those great and magnificent things which were to be seen in Mull. He parried them off with great coolness and good humour. At length a person in the boat asked him if he ever heard of God in St. Kilda. Immediately he became grave and collected. “To what land do you belong?” said he; “describe it to me.” “I,” said the other, “come from a place very different from your barren rock; I come from the land of flood and field, the land of wheat and barley, where Nature spreads her beauty in abundance and luxuriance before us.” “Is that,” said the St. Kilda man, “the kind of land you come from? Ah, then, you may forget God, but a St. Kilda man never can. Elevated on his rock, suspended over a precipice, tossed on the wild ocean, he never can forget his God—he hangs continually on his arm.” All were silent in the boat, and not a word more was asked him regarding his religion. They felt that he had a depth of religion, and a sublimer faith than they possessed. God had spoken to his soul in the tempest and the flood, and made known his love and power in the ocean-girt home where he and his people dwelt.