y his business
instinct, in everything but theology, where perhaps his business
instinct also operated the other way, in favour of the sure thing. The
Christmas Day service soon became one of those "special" occasions so
dear to his heart, which made a demand upon him out of the ordinary way.
He rose to these on the wing of the eagle, and his congregation never
lacked the lesson that could be most dramatically drawn from them. His
Christmas Day discourse gathered everything into it that could emphasize
the anniversary, including a vigorous attack upon the saints' days and
ceremonies of the Church of England calculated to correct the concession
of the service, and pull up sharply any who thought that Presbyterianism
was giving way to the spurious attractions of sentimentality or ritual.
The special Easter service, with every appropriate feature of hymn and
invocation, was apt to be marked by an unsparing denunciation of
the pageants and practices of the Church of Rome. Balance was thus
preserved, and principle relentlessly indicated.

Dr Drummond loved, as I have said, all that asked for notable comment;
the poet and the tragedian in him caught at the opportunity, and
revelled in it. Public events carried him far, especially if they were
disastrous, but what he most profited by was the dealing of Providence
with members of his own congregation. Of all the occasions that inspired
him, the funeral sermon was his happiest opportunity, nor was it, in his
hands, by any means unstinted eulogy. Candid was his summing-up, behind
the decent veil, the accepted apology of death; he was not afraid to
refer to the follies of youth or the weaknesses of age in terms as
unmistakable as they were kindly.

"Grace," he said once, of an estimable plain spinster who had passed
away, "did more for her than ever nature had done." He repeated it, too.
"She was far more indebted, I say, to grace, than to nature," and before
his sharp earnestness none were seen to smile. Nor could you forget
the note in his voice when the loss he deplored was that of a youth of
virtue and promise, or that of a personal friend. His very text would be
a blow upon the heart; the eyes filled from the beginning. People would
often say that they were "sorry for the family," sitting through Dr
Drummond's celebration of their bereavement; and the sympathy was
probably well founded. But how fine he was when he paid the last tribute
to that upright man, his elder and offi