ith occasional amazing results, as when
information was asked about some Eastern sect for whose necessities the
Presbytery were asked to collect, and to whose warm piety affecting
allusion was made, and Jeremiah showed clearly, with the reporters
present, that the Cappadocians were guilty of a heresy beside
which Morisonianism was an unsullied whiteness. His work as
examiner-in-general for the court was a merciful failure, and
encouraged the students of the district to return to their district
court, who on the rumour of him had transferred themselves in a body to
a Highland Presbytery, where the standard question in Philosophy used
to be, "How many horns has a dilemma, and distinguish the one from the
other." No man knew what the minister of Kilbogie might not ask--he
was only perfectly certain that it would be beyond his knowledge; but
as Saunderson always gave the answer himself in the end, and imputed it
to the student, anxiety was reduced to a minimum. Saunderson, indeed,
was in the custom of passing all candidates and reporting them as
marvels of erudition, whose only fault was a becoming modesty--which,
however, had not concealed from his keen eye hidden treasures of
learning. Beyond this sphere the good man's services were not used by
a body of shrewd ecclesiastics, as the inordinate length of an
ordination sermon had ruined a dinner prepared for the court by "one of
our intelligent and large-hearted laymen," and it is still pleasantly
told how Saunderson was invited to a congregational _soiree_--an
ancient meeting where the people ate oranges and the speaker rallied
the minister on being still unmarried--and discoursed---as a carefully
chosen subject--on the Jewish feasts, with illustrations from the
Talmud, till some one burst a paper bag and allowed the feelings of the
people to escape. When this history was passed round Muirtown Market,
Kilbogie thought still more highly of their minister, and indicated
their opinion of the other parish in severely theological language.

Saunderson's reputation for unfathomable learning and saintly
simplicity was built up out of many incidents, and grew with the lapse
of years to a solitary height in the big strath, so that no man would
have dared to smile had the Free Kirk minister of Kilbogie appeared in
Muirtown in his shirt sleeves, and Kilbogie would only have been a
trifle more conceited. Truly he was an amazing man, and, now that he
is dead and gone, the last of