! How quickly they
take the scent of any path, virgin though it be, if that path hath been
touched by the very feet of love, tracing its devious course with
passionate inerrancy.

I thought the news trifling, when I told my wife that Angus and our
Margaret had appeared before St. Cuthbert's session to present a certain
prayer. My mind was taken up exclusively with the request they
proffered. But Margaret's mother was unconcerned with their plea. Of the
pleaders she thought alone. Divers questions she flung forth at me,
furtive all, their author in ambush all the while.

"Did they seem interested in each other?" was the burden of them all;
for, though she avoided plainness of speech, I could yet detect her
hidden fear.

But I must turn from this and tell of the enterprise in whose interest
Margaret and Angus bearded the lions of St. Cuthbert's in their den.
They represented the Young People's Guild, and presented the startling
request that the old kirk should henceforth employ an organ to aid the
service of praise on the Sabbath day. And they further asked for the
introduction of the hymns. This implied a revolution, for St.
Cuthbert's, up to this time, had resolutely resisted all attempts to
hallow such profanities.

For the youthful pair of revolutionists I felt a decided sympathy, such
as pervades every generous heart when it beholds the dauntless approach
of David towards Goliath. Such citadels of orthodoxy, such Gibraltars of
conservatism as Archie was, were almost all the elders of St.
Cuthbert's. And against them all united did Angus and Margaret dare to
turn their poor artillery of persuasion.

The session received them cordially, having all goodwill towards them
personally, hating the sin but loving the sinners, to employ a good old
theological phrase. Angus began, adroitly enough, with a eulogy of the
psalms and paraphrases, defining them as the mountain peaks of song in
all ages and in every tongue.

"In far-distant Scotland my mother is singing them to-night," he said,
"and I catch the glow and the sweetness of the heather when the kirk
rings with their high refrain ilka Sabbath day. But we feel that the
hymns, even if they be inferior, will add richness and variety to the
service of our beloved kirk."

As for the organ, he contended that it was only a means towards an end,
man-made though it was; for these stern men were rigid in their
distinction between things made with hands and things inspired.