is it found wanting when viewed from the
standpoint of the wider interests and welfare of our common country?

The minister of Monzievaird and Strowan most likely to achieve
immortality is the Rev. William Robertson, the gifted versifier and
author of Hymns 3--"Thee God we praise, Thee Lord confess," the
Monzievaird _Te Deum_, and 311--"A little child the Saviour came," the
first baptismal hymn, in the Scottish Hymnal. To him the account now
given, incomplete as it is, owes more than to any other. He has also
cast into verse that seems worth preserving his parish musings in the
following lines:--

A shady knoll o'erlooks a dale
Where Earn meanders down the vale;
A knoll enwreathed in oak and fern,
The sweetest nook in all Strathearn.
The morn there breaks with earliest ray,
Here latest shines the lingering day,
There summer reigns supremely fair,
And winter ev'n is lovely there.
Its eastern prospect looks entire
Along the glades of Ochtertyre;
Its south, a mountain forest shade
By dark blue pine and larches made;
While lone Glenartney in the west
Lies cradled like a turtle's nest,
And huge Benvoirlich crown'd with snow
Defends the smiling glens below.
Dear shady knoll, whose varied view
Enfolds green field and mountain blue,
How oft at morn and eventide
I've strolled around thy stony side
And listened to the artless song
That swell'd the glorious vale along!
Mark'd where the sunbeams kindliest fell
On rocky ridge and heathery dell,
And yielded all my soul to share
The teachings of a scene so fair!
In storm or calm, thy grateful shade
My fond retreat was ever made.
There have I marked the thunder cloud
Invest all heaven with sable shroud;
There heard the peal arouse again
The echoes of the Turret glen,
While Auchingarroch from afar
Rolled back the elemental war;
There have I watched wing'd lightning play
Adown Glenartney's rugged way,
Or gild each flinty summit hoar
From Callander to far Ken More;
There seen the Ruchill deluge foam,
And o'er the strath in eddies roam,
Sweeping beyond the power to save
A golden harvest on its wave.

* * * * *

High on my left, unstained by storm,
An obelisk uprears its form;
Commemorates in fitting style
Heroic deeds upon the Nile,
When he who conquered in Mysore
To Afric's sands his legions bore,
And showed the trembling prince and slave