it's the will o' God. Ye're sittin' in a michty seat, moderator. It was
frae that chair that oor first minister spak' till us in far ither
days."

At this reference to the golden age, I saw a wave of tenderness break
over the faces of the older men.

"Ay, I mind weel the nicht Doctor Grant sat amang us for the first time,
as ye're sittin' noo."

This time it was Ronald M'Gregor who had spoken, the love-light on whose
face even sixty winters could not disguise.

"We'll never look upon his like again. Ye've mebbe watched the storm,
sir, when it beat upon the shore. His style o' delivery was like the
ragin' o' the waves. Ye see that buik, moderator, yir haun's restin' on
the tap o't. Weel, he dune for sax o' them the while he was oor
minister. We bocht the strongest bound o' them, but he banged them to
tatters amazin' fast. A page at a skite. Times it was like the driftin'
o' the leaves in the fall. He was graun' on the terrors o' the law. We
haena been what's to say clean uplifted wi' the michty truth o' the
punishment o' the lost sin' his mooth was closed in death," and Ronald
sighed the sigh of the hungry heart.

"Div ye no' mind the Doctor on the decrees, the simmer o' the
cholera--div ye no' mind yon, Ronald?" said Thomas Laidlaw, swept into
the seething tide of reminiscence; but here the session clerk rose to a
point of order.

"The members o' this court will address the moderator," he said sternly.
"Moreover, we are here for business, not for history. We might well
think shame of ourselves, glorifying the old when we should be
welcoming the new. We're no' to be aye dwellin' amang the tombs" (this
with a rise in feeling and a drop in language). "Besides, Doctor Grant
was no' a common man, and it's no becomin' to be comparin' common men
along wi' the likes o' him."

So this, thought I, is the Scottish mode of paying compliments. I had
always heard that their little tributes were more medicinal than
confectionery.

Then followed a painful calm, for Scottish calms are stormy things.

It was Michael Blake who first resumed.

"Let us forget the things which are behind," he said, "if we only can,"
and there was a wealth of agony in his words, "and let us press forth
unto those things which are before. We greet you, moderator, as the
messenger of peace, for we are all but sinful men and unworthy of the
trust we hold. I hope you will preach to us the grace of God, for we
have learned ourselves the terrors of the