exalting, in rare moments, the riches of a divine love in which he did
not expect to share, or humbly beseeching his brethren to give him
information on some point in scholarship no one knew anything about
except himself, or stroking the hair of some little child sitting upon
his knee, those eyes were ever simple, honest, and most pathetic.
Young ministers coming to the Presbytery full of self-conceit and new
views were arrested by their light shining through the glasses, and
came in a year or two to have a profound regard for Saunderson,
curiously compounded of amusement at his ways, which for strangeness
were quite beyond imagination, admiration for his knowledge, which was
amazing for its accuracy and comprehensiveness, respect for his
honesty, which feared no conclusion, however repellent to flesh and
blood, but chiefly of love for the unaffected and shining goodness of a
man in whose virgin soul neither self nor this world had any part. For
years the youngsters of the Presbytery knew not how to address the
minister of Kilbogie, since any one who had dared to call him
Saunderson, as they said "Carmichael" and even "MacWheep," though he
was elderly, would have been deposed, without delay, from the
ministry--so much reverence at least was in the lads--and "Mister"
attached to this personality would be like a silk hat on the head of an
Eastern sage. Jenkins of Pitrodie always considered that he was
inspired when he one day called Saunderson "Rabbi," and unto the day of
his death Kilbogie was so called. He made protest against the title as
being forbidden in the Gospels, but the lads insisted that it must be
understood in the sense of scholar, whereupon Saunderson disowned it on
the ground of his slender attainments. The lads saw the force of this
objection, and admitted that the honourable word belonged by rights to
MacWheep, but it was their fancy to assign it to Saunderson--whereat
Saunderson yielded, only exacting a pledge that he should never be so
called in public, lest all concerned be condemned for foolishness.
When it was announced that the University of Edinburgh had resolved to
confer the degree of D. D. on him for his distinguished learning and
great services to theological scholarship, Saunderson, who was
delighted when Dowbiggin of Muirtown got the honour for being an
ecclesiastic, would have refused it for himself had not his boys gone
out in a body and compelled him to accept. They also purchased a