y, sirs--yes--the text,
sirs--what was it again?--ou ay, just entirely, ye see it was, 'What
profiteth a man if he lose the world, and gain his own soul?'" Most of
such stories are usually of an old standing. A more recent one has been
told me of a betheral of a royal burgh much decayed from former
importance, and governed by a feeble municipality of old men, who
continued in office, and in fact constituted rather the shadow than the
substance of a corporation. A clergyman from a distance having come to
officiate in the parish church, the betheral, knowing the terms on which
it was usual for the minister officiating to pray for the efficiency of
the local magistracy, quietly cautioned the clergyman before service
that, in regard to the town-council there, it would be quite out of
place for him to pray that they should be a "terror to evil-doers,"
because, as he said, "the puir auld bodies could be nae terror to
onybody." A minister of Easter Anstruther, during the last century, used
to say of the magistrates of Wester Anstruther, that "instead of being a
terror to evil-doers, evil-doers were a terror to them."

The "minister's man" was a functionary well known in many parishes, and
who often evinced much Scottish humour and original character. These men
were (like the betheral) great critics of sermons, and often severe upon
strangers, sometimes with a sly hit at their own minister. One of these,
David, a well-known character, complimenting a young minister who had
preached, told him, "Your introduction, sir, is aye grand; its worth a'
the rest o' the sermon--could ye no mak it a' introduction?"

David's criticisms of his master's sermons were sometimes sharp enough
and shrewd. On one occasion, driving the minister home from a
neighbouring church where he had been preaching, and who, as he thought,
had acquitted himself pretty well, inquired of David what _he_ thought
of it. The subject of discourse had been the escape of the Israelites
from Egypt. So David opened his criticism--"Thocht o't, sir? deed I
thocht nocht o't ava. It was a vara imperfect discourse in ma opinion;
ye did weel eneuch till ye took them through, but where did ye leave
them? just daunerin' o' the sea-shore without a place to gang till. Had
it no been for Pharaoh they had been better on the other side, where
they were comfortably encampit, than daunerin' where ye left them. It's
painful to hear a sermon stoppit afore it's richt ended, just as it is