way, but he kept his
shoulder to the Rabbi, and at that moment the sound of wheels passing
the corner of the manse gave him an ungracious way of escape.

"That is Burnbrae's dog-cart . . . Doctor Saunderson, and I think he
will not wish to keep his horse standing in the snow, so unless you
will stay all night, as it's going to drift. . . . Then perhaps it
would be better. . . . Can I assist you in packing?" How formal it
all sounded, and he allowed the Rabbi to go upstairs alone, with the
result that various things of the old man's are in Carmichael's house
unto this day.

Another chance was given the lad when the Rabbi would have bidden him
good-bye at the door, beseeching that he should not come out into the
drift, and still another when Burnbrae, being concerned about his
passenger's appearance, who seemed ill-fitted to face a storm, wrapt
him in a plaid; and he had one more when the old man leant out of the
dog-cart and took Carmichael's hand in both of his, but only said, "God
bless you for all you 've been to me, and forgive me for all wherein I
have failed you." And they did not meet again till that
never-to-be-forgotten sederunt of the Free Kirk Presbytery of Muirtown,
when the minister of Kilbogie accused the minister of Drumtochty of
teaching the Linlathen heresy of the Fatherhood of God in a sermon
before the Sacrament.

Among all the institutions of the North a Presbytery is the most
characteristic, and affords a standing illustration of the
contradictions of a superbly logical people. It is so anti-clerical a
court that for every clergyman there must be a layman--country
ministers promising to bring in their elder for great occasions, and
instructing him audibly how to vote--and so fiercely clerical that if
the most pious and intelligent elder dared to administer a sacrament he
would be at once tried and censured for sacrilege. So careful is a
Presbytery to prevent the beginnings of Papacy that it insists upon
each of its members occupying the chair in turn, and dismisses him
again into private life as soon as he has mastered his duties, but so
imbued is it with the idea of authority that whatever decision may be
given by some lad of twenty-five in the chair--duly instructed,
however, by the clerk below--will be rigidly obeyed. When a Presbytery
has nothing else to do, it dearly loves to pass a general condemnation
on sacerdotalism, in which the tyranny of prelates, and the foolishness
of vestme