have been in his
way a kind of Higher Critic judging from a remark he made on the Ark:
"How did you manage," he said, as if addressing Noah in person, "how did
you manage to keep the first plank of your boat from getting rotten
before the last was nailed on, if you actually took 120 years to put the
whole thing together?"

SOME ANECDOTES FROM GIGHA.

The late minister of Gigha, a small island community of 360 souls off
the coast of Kintyre was a cleric of great humour and full of stories.
His church was the only one in the island, a fact of which he was proud.
At a communion service, a minister from the mainland, struck off a
monumental phrase in one of his prayers. He said "Thou hast shown, O
Lord, Thy confidence in Thy servant, the devout minister of Gigha, for
lo! out of the plentitude of Thy great mercy Thou has seen fit _to give
him an island all to himself_." I have heard and do in part believe it,
that the effect of such a supplication in Gaelic is overpoweringly
strong.

This same minister "of the island," whose digestion I may say, was so
perfect that he could triumphantly absorb strong tea and poached eggs as
a regular midnight meal, told me one night over this collation, the
story of a fisherman in one of the Western Islands, whose prayer before
going to sea was of a singular character. He invariably addressed the
Deity as _Sibshe_ (You) instead of the ordinary _Thusa_ (Thou). On one
occasion, when the weather was squally and danger was anticipated, he
prayed thus: "O Lord God, my Beloved, if You would be so good as to take
the care of Mary and Jessie, my daughters; but that She-Devil, my wife,
the daughter of Peter Macpherson, I am indifferent about her: she will
have another husband before I am eaten by the crabs!"

Here follows another well-known story from the same authority. A
Lowlander, taking a week's sail on one of Macbrayne's cargo-boats
stepped ashore, on Sunday morning, at a remote insular port, to attend
church, as was fit and proper. The text was the well-known verse "Can
the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The minister,
strange to say, preached a long and painfully vivid sermon on _leprosy_.
The tourist waited, after sermon, in order to talk with the minister and
quietly remonstrate with him. He said: "You gave us an excellent
discourse to-day, but do you think it followed quite appropriately from
the text: surely you are aware that a _leopard_ and a _leper_ are two
d