There is no merit in an empire as such. Extension in space does not necessarily mean spiritual advancement. The small community is easier to govern, … - John Buchan

Doubtless. But only if the first be truly won — if the Kirk attend to the work of salvation and does not expend her toil in barren fields. Her sovereign must be King Jesus. Take heed that instead it be not King Covenant.

He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.

We were at Glenaicill — six of us — for the duck-shooting, when Leithen told us this story. Since five in the morning we had been out on the skerries, and had been blown home by a wind which threatened to root the house and its wind-blown woods from their precarious lodgment on the hill. A vast nondescript meal, luncheon and dinner in one, had occupied us till the last daylight departed, and we settled ourselves in the smoking room for a sleepy evening of talk and tobacco.