to his associates by a text of Scripture, he must
have had a good ear for Holy Writ. "His father was one day repairing a
dyke. Angus tried to assist him and broke the spade. His father's temper
was roused, and he ran after his son to punish him. Angus ran away
calling out, 'Oh, Lord, avenge me of mine adversary.'" On one occasion,
when asked why he had refused to pray in public, he replied that it was
out of his power to do so at the time. "Why," said his interlocutor,
"Jonah was able to pray even in the whale's belly." "Yes, yes," said
Angus, "but I was in a worse state than Jonah: for the whale was in my
belly."

It may not be unnecessary to state that the word Men in the title of the
book is to be understood as meaning "men of exceptional piety." The word
is a technical one in that sense. All the _men_ I have read about were
fervid Frees, many of them being elders and catechists in that body.
After the Disruption, there was a wonderful crop of these men produced
in the Highlands, and through their means, _religion became a very real
and forcible affair_. Their attitude to life and general outlook on the
world are quite unlike anything to be found among the luke-warm
believers of the Laodicean South. We read of one zealot devoting a whole
winter to the task of combating shinty and tobacco. It is impossible to
withhold some measure of admiration from Christians so staunch, logical,
and uncompromising. _Logical?_ Well, here at least is a gem of
ratiocination. What, for example, was the cause that forced so many
Skyemen to emigrate to the Canadian plains and the Australian bush? The
fathers of Skye believed that the crofters, having insufficiently
appreciated the unique opportunities of divine worship at home, were
driven by a wrathful deity over the water to a land where there were
_few or no Presbyterian Churches_.

THE AULDEST KIRK.

There are some parts of Scotland that the Reformation seems never to
have reached. I have been told that up till this day no Protestant
minister ever preached in Morar (the delightful spot, with lake of same
name, near Mallaig), and that in consequence Catholics call it "Blessed
Morar" (_Morar Bheanaichte_). There is a Catholic strip of country,
extending right through the heart of Scotland, along the Caledonian
Canal; aristocrats, chiefs, and crofters there boast that their
ecclesiastical history goes back, uncontaminated by schisms and private
judgment, right to the time of Ninian