Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXII

The sources of legends are not often found in old sermons; and yet it will be admitted that there are few remarkable events in man's history, which, if inquired into, will not be found to embrace the elements of very impressive pulpit discourses. Even in cases which seem to disprove a special, if not a general Providence, there will always be found in the account between earth and heaven some desperate debt, mayhap an accommodation bill, which justifies the ways of God to man. It may even be said that the fact of our being generally able to find that item is a proof of the wonderful adaptability of Christianity to the fortunes and hopes of our race. That ministers avoid the special topics of peculiar destinies, may easily be accounted for otherwise than by supposing that they cannot explain them so as to vindicate God's justice; but if ever there was a case where that difficulty would seem to the eye of mere reason to culminate in impossibility, it is that which I have gleaned from a veritable pulpit lecture