It is the Shorter Catechism, minister; it is a hard book for
women and bairns, and I wonder why they don't teach them from the
Scriptures, which are easy and full of grace," the answer came
with a passionate fervor that was the protest for much besides the
catechism.

"David! David! You must say nothing against the Shorter Catechism.
It is the Magna Charta of Calvinism, and woe worth the day for
dear old Scotland when its silver trumpet shall no longer be heard
and listened to. Its rules and bonds and externals are all very
necessary. Believe me, David, few men would remain religious without
rules and bonds and externals."

"I am, as I said, minister, all at sea. I find nothing within my
soul, nothing within my life-experience, to give me any hope, and
I am going away a miserable man."

"David, your hope is not to be grounded on anything within yourself
or your life-experience. When you wish to steady your boat, do you
fix your anchor on anything within it, or do you cast your anchor
outside?"

"I cast it out."

"So the soul must cast out its anchor, and lay hold, not on anything
within itself, but on the hope set before it. The anchor of your
boat often drags, David, and you drift in spite of it, for there
is no sure bottom; but the soul that anchors on the truth of God, the
immutability of his counsels, the faithfulness of his promises, is
surely steadfast. For I will tell you a great thing, David: God has
given us this double guaranty--he has not only said, but sworn it."

Thus the two men talked the morning away. Then David remembered
that he had come specially to ask the minister to write out his
will and take charge of the money he would leave behind and the rents
accruing from the hire of his boat and lines. There was nothing
unusual in this request. Minister Campbell had already learned how
averse Shetlanders are to having dealings with a lawyer, and he was
quite willing to take the charge David desired to impose upon him.

"I may not come back to Shetland," David said. "My father went
away and never returned. I am bound for foreign seas, and I may go
down any day or night. All I have is Nanna's. If she is sick or
in trouble, you will see to her relief, minister. And if I come not
back in five years, sell the boat and lines and make over all to
Nanna Sinclair."

Then a writing was drawn up to this effect; and David brushed the
tears from his eyes with his right hand, and put it, wet with them,
into t