his day: under
his unworthy ministry three beadles had been converted to
Christianity," and this experience was so final that the conference
immediately closed.

Times there were, however, when the Presbytery rose to its height, and
was invested with an undeniable spiritual dignity. Its members, taken
one by one, consisted of farmers, shepherds, tradesmen, and one or two
professional men, with some twenty ministers, only two or three of whom
were known beyond their parishes. Yet those men had no doubt that as
soon as they were constituted in the name of Christ, they held their
authority from the Son of God and Saviour of the world, and they bore
themselves in spiritual matters as His servants. No kindly feeling of
neighbourliness or any fear of man could hinder them from inquiring
into the religious condition of a parish or dealing faithfully with an
erring minister. They had power to ordain, and laid hands on the bent
head of some young probationer with much solemnity; they had also power
to take away the orders they had given, and he had been hardened indeed
beyond hope who could be present and not tremble when the Moderator,
standing in his place, with the Presbytery around, and speaking in the
name of the Head of the Church, deposed an unworthy brother from the
holy ministry. MacWheep was a "cratur," and much given to twaddle, but
when it was his duty once to rebuke a fellow-minister for quarrelling
with his people, he was delivered from himself, and spake with such
grave wisdom as he has never shown before or since.

When the Presbytery assembled to receive a statement from Doctor
Saunderson "_re_ error in doctrine by a brother Presbyter," even a
stranger might have noticed that its members were weighted with a sense
of responsibility, and although a discussion arose on the attempt of a
desultory member to introduce a deputy charged with the subject of the
lost ten tribes, yet it was promptly squelched by the clerk, who
intimated, with much gravity, that the court had met _in hunc
effectum_, viz. to hear Doctor Saunderson, and that the court could
not, in consistence with law, take up any other business, not
even--here Carmichael professed to detect a flicker of the clerkly
eyelids--the disappearance of the ten tribes.

It was the last time that the Rabbi ever spoke in public, and it is now
agreed that the deliverance was a fit memorial of the most learned
scholar that has been ever known in those parts.