CHAPTER V.
Arouse thee, youth!--it is no human call-- God's church is leaguer'd--haste to man the wall; Haste where the Redcross banners wave on high, Signal of honour'd death, or victory! James Duff.
Morton and his companion had attained some distance from the town before either of them addressed the other.

There was something, as we have observed, repulsive in the manner of the stranger, which prevented Morton from opening the conversation, and he himself seemed to have no desire to talk, until, on a sudden, he abruptly demanded, "What has your father's son to do with such profane mummeries as I find you this day engaged in ?" "I do my duty as a subject, and pursue my harmless recreations according to my own pleasure," replied Morton, somewhat offended.
"Is it your duty, think you, or that of any Christian young man, to bear arms in their cause who have poured out the blood of God's saints in the wilderness as if it had been water?
or is it a lawful recreation to waste time in shooting at a bunch of feathers, and close your evening with winebibbing in public-houses and market-towns, when He that is mighty is come into the land with his fan in his hand, to purge the wheat from the chaff ?" "I suppose from your style of conversation," said Morton, "that you are one of those who have thought proper to stand out against the government.
I must remind you that you are unnecessarily using dangerous language in the presence of a mere stranger, and that the times do not render it safe for me to listen to it." "Thou canst not help it, Henry Morton," said his companion; "thy Master has his uses for thee, and when he calls, thou must obey.

Well wot I thou hast not heard the call of a true preacher, or thou hadst ere now been what thou wilt assuredly one day become." "We are of the presbyterian persuasion, like yourself," said Morton; for his uncle's family attended the ministry of one of those numerous presbyterian clergymen, who, complying with certain regulations, were licensed to preach without interruption from the government.

This indulgence, as it was called, made a great schism among the presbyterians, and those who accepted of it were severely censured by the more rigid sectaries, who refused the proffered terms.

The stranger, therefore, answered with great disdain to Morton's profession of faith.
"That is but an equivocation--a poor equivocation.