o is the brightness of His Father's glory.

They stepped in quietly and reverently, each passing at once to his own
place, Andrew to his prominent pew at the side of the pulpit, Duncan to
his modest seat behind the stove. They never addressed each other
after entering the sanctuary, but sat with bowed heads in meditation
and prayer until the commencement of the service. They generally had a
long time to wait, too, for no matter at what unseasonable hour in the
morning the other worshippers might start for church, it was well nigh
impossible to get there before the elders.

Some time passed before anyone else arrived, but at last the big door
swung slowly open and Peter McNabb, elder and precentor, who was always
a good second in the stately and pious race for church, entered, and
went silently forward to his place in front of the pulpit. The custom
of having a precentor to "raise the tune" instead of a choir and organ
was considered extremely old-fashioned by the more juvenile members of
the congregation, but the old people held tenaciously to this
time-honoured custom, in spite of much agitation for a change. And,
indeed, had the young advocates of progress but paused to consider,
they must have been forced to confess that Peter McNabb was a much
better musical instrument than any that could ever be produced by man.
He was the village blacksmith and he put the same energy into his
singing on the Sabbath as he did into the mighty swing of his sledge on
week days. He knew very little about musical technique; his voice may
not have been very highly cultivated; but he had an appreciation of the
psalms which only a godly man can have, and a pure, silvery voice which
could pour out floods of melody, or soften itself to the most
heart-breaking pathos as the words demanded. For, when he sang to the
wail of _Martyrdom_,

"Lord, from the depths to Thee I cry,"

he melted many a heart to tears. And sometimes Duncan's musical soul
was so stirred that he found himself clutching the seat in a very
ecstasy, almost expecting the grey panel behind the minister's saintly
head to burst into inconceivable glory of cherubim and seraphim as,
with a rapturous shout, the precentor swept the congregation into the
glory of the old psalm,

"Ye gates lift up your heads on high,
Ye doors that last for aye,
Be lifted up that so the King
Of glory enter may!"

To the aged minister behind him, Peter's singing was a pillar of