t for both you and me that we
should separate. I have tried only to look to the good of the church in
my decisions, and I will still endeavour to keep that end before my
eyes."

"Have you accepted the call?" asked Mr. Elder.

"No, I have but just received it!"

"Have you positively determined that you will not remain with us?"

"I should not like to say positively."

"Very well. Now, let me say that the desire to have you remain is
general, and that the few who have the management of the church
affairs, and not the many who make up the congregation, are to blame
for previously existing wrongs and errors. From the many comes a strong
desire to have you stay. They say that your ministrations have been of
great spiritual benefit to them, and that if you go away, they will
suffer loss. Under these circumstances, Mr. Malcolm, are you willing to
break your present connection?"

"Give me a few hours to reflect," replied the minister, a good deal
affected by this unlooked-for appeal. "I wish to do right; and in doing
it, am ready to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye. As
Heaven is my witness, I set before me no earthly reward. If I do
consent to remain, I will not receive more than your first offer of
eight hundred dollars, for on that I can live comfortably."

When the committee again waited on Mr. Malcolm, to receive his answer,
it was in the affirmative; but he was decided in his resolution not to
receive more than eight hundred dollars. But the congregation was just
as much decided on the other side, and although only two hundred
dollars a quarter were paid to their minister by the treasurer, more
than fifty dollars flowed in to him during the same period in presents
of one useful thing and another, from friends known and unknown.

The parish of C-- had quite reformed its mode of paying the minister.

HAD I BEEN CONSULTED.

"HE'S too independent for me," said Matthew Page. "Too independent by
half. Had I been consulted he would have done things very differently.
But as it is, he will drive his head against the wall before he knows
where he is."

"Why don't you advise him to act differently?"

"Advise him, indeed! Oh, no--let him go on in his own way, as he's so
fond of it. Young men now-a-days think they know every thing. The
experience of men like me goes for nothing with them. Advise him! He
may go to the dogs; but he'll get no advice from me unasked."

"You really think he will rui