to bring rough weather, so the addition of a few hundred parsons to the
population of Edinburgh is believed to induce rain,--or perhaps I should
say, more rain.

Of course, when one is in perfect bodily health one can more readily
resist the infection of disease. Similarly if Scottish skies were not
ready and longing to pour out rain, were not ignobly weak in holding it
back, they would not be so susceptible to the depressing influences of
visiting ministers. This is Francesca's theory as stated to the Reverend
Ronald, who was holding an umbrella over her ungrateful head at the
time; and she went on to boast of a convention she once attended in
California, where twenty-six thousand Christian Endeavourers were unable
to dim the American sunshine, though they stayed ten days.

"Our first duty, both to ourselves and to the community," I continued to
Salemina, "is to learn how there can be three distinct kinds of proper
Presbyterianism. Perhaps it would be a graceful act on our part if we
should each espouse a different kind; then there would be no feeling
among our Edinburgh friends. And again what is this 'union' of which we
hear murmurs? Is it religious or political? Is it an echo of the
1707 Union you explained to us last week, or is it a new one? What is
Disestablishment? What is Disruption? Are they the same thing? What is
the Sustentation Fund? What was the Non-Intrusion party? What was the
Dundas Despotism? What is the argument at present going on about taking
the Shorter Catechism out of the schools? What is the Shorter Catechism,
any way,--or at least what have they left out of the Longer Catechism to
make it shorter,--and is the length of the Catechism one of the points
of difference? then when we have looked up Chalmers and Candlish, we
can ask the ex-Moderator and the Professor of Biblical Criticism to tea;
separately, of course, lest there should be ecclesiastical quarrels."

Salemina and Francesca both incline to the Established church, I lean
instinctively toward the Free; but that does not mean that we have
any knowledge of the differences that separate them. Salemina is a
conservative in all things; she loves law, order, historic associations,
old customs; and so when there is a regularly established national
church,--or, for that matter, a regularly established anything,
she gravitates to it by the law of her being. Francesca's religious
convictions, when she is away from her own minister and native lan