to bring rough weather, so the addition of a few hundred parsons to
the population of Edinburgh is believed to induce rain,--or perhaps I
should say, more rain.

Of course, when one is in perfect bodily health one can more readily
resist the infection of disease. Similarly if Scottish skies were not
ready and longing to pour out rain, were not ignobly weak in holding
it back, they would not be so susceptible to the depressing influences
of visiting ministers. This is Francesca's theory as stated to the
Reverend Ronald, who was holding an umbrella over her ungrateful head
at the time; and she went on to boast of a convention she once
attended in San Francisco, where twenty-six thousand Christian
Endeavorers were unable to dim the California sunshine, though they
stayed ten days.

"Our first duty, both to ourselves and to the community," I continued
to Salemina, "is to learn how there can be three distinct kinds of
proper Presbyterianism. Perhaps it would be a graceful act on our part
if we should each espouse a different kind; then there would be no
feeling among our Edinburgh friends. And again, what is this 'union'
of which we hear murmurs? Is it religious or political? Is it an echo
of the 1707 Union you explained to us last week, or is it a new one?
What is Disestablishment? What is Disruption? Are they the same thing?
What is the Sustentation Fund? What was the Non-Intrusion Party? What
was the Dundas Despotism? What is the argument at present going on
about taking the Shorter Catechism out of the schools? What is the
Shorter Catechism, anyway,--or at least, what have they left out of
the Longer Catechism to make it shorter,--and is the length of the
Catechism one of the points of difference? Then when we have looked up
Chalmers and Candlish, we can ask the ex-Moderator and the Professor
of Biblical Criticism to tea; separately, of course, lest there should
be ecclesiastical quarrels."

Salemina and Francesca both incline to the Established Church, I lean
instinctively toward the Free; but that does not mean that we have any
knowledge of the differences that separate them. Salemina is a
conservative in all things; she loves law, order, historic
associations, old customs; and so when there is a regularly
established national church,--or, for that matter, a regularly
established anything,--she gravitates to it by the law of her being.
Francesca's religious convictions, when she is away from her own
minister and na