so, Duncan," he said at last, as they turned in at
the church gate. "Maister Cameron's an' auld man noo an' he'll soon be
wantin' to retire, an' mebby----" He paused as though the sequel were
impossible, adding at last the rather ambiguous encouragement, "With
God, all things are possible, ye ken."

II

A MEMORABLE SABBATH

The Glenoro Presbyterian Church, which the two old men were entering,
was a bare, white structure, very grand in the eyes of the old folk who
remembered the little log building where Mr. McAlpine, their first
minister, used to preach. But to the rising generation it appeared
much inferior to the neat brick church on the slope of the northern
hill, where the Methodists worshipped.

It was certainly not a handsome edifice, but Nature had done much where
man had been most neglectful. It stood right by the water's edge; and
the Oro River, coming out from between its high wooded banks, made a
pretty sweep round the quiet graveyard with its white stones. A fringe
of willows hung over the water, mirrored in its green depths, and some
woodbine from the neighbouring forest had found its way up the church
walls and covered them with a drapery green and enduring. Verily,
beautiful for situation was the Zion of the Glenoro Presbyterians.

But inside, where man's taste had full control, everything was very
severe. The two rows of long, stiff, black pews, the high, box-like
pulpit, the little cage for the precentor, a few oil lamps in brackets
along the walls and the huge black stove with its weary length of pipes
stretching from end to end of the building, constituted the furniture.
As for decoration, there was absolutely none, unless the high arched
panel behind the pulpit, painted a dull grey and looking like a
gigantic tombstone, or the two shining tin pails hung at the elbows of
the stove-pipes to prevent the rain from dripping upon the worshippers
could be considered ornaments. But the floor and the walls were white
and spotless, the stove and stove-pipes shone with all the brilliancy
that polish could give them; and the big, rectangular, thirty-six paned
windows glittered like the waters of the Oro, whose music was now being
wafted through their open sashes.

And, indeed, to the two old men who were entering the church it
mattered little that man's hand had no part in adorning their Zion, for
to them the place was clothed in the beauty of holiness and filled with
the presence of Him wh