No question of a more serious character could have been submitted to ordinary Scottish parents.

My mother was clear on the subject, that in the circumstances I should be allowed to skate as long as I liked.

My father said he believed it was right I should go down and skate, but he hoped I would be back in time to go with him to church.
I suppose this decision would be arrived at to-day by nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand homes in America, and probably also in the majority of homes in England, though not in Scotland.

But those who hold to-day that the Sabbath in its fullest sense was made for man, and who would open picture galleries and museums to the public, and make the day somewhat of a day of enjoyment for the masses instead of pressing upon them the duty of mourning over sins largely imaginary, are not more advanced than were my parents forty years ago.
They were beyond the orthodox of the period when it was scarcely permissible, at least among the Scotch, to take a walk for pleasure or read any but religious books on the Sabbath..