reason is that we are less endowed with humility than our fathers
in the Faith.

Bell had other anecdotes of a like kind.

"If ony o' the bairns wes restless or trifling-kind, during the
preachin', Mr. McGillivray would stop his discoorse an' ca' them up to
the rail an' reprove them severely. I mind him summoning a grown man
from the choir aince, and mak' him own his fault. Hey! He wer a
graund priest, an' nae mistak'--wer Mr. McGillivray!"

On stormy days, when it was difficult for the aged pastor to wade
through the deep snow down to the chapel, Mass was said in his own
house. The people crowded in at the door of his little living-room,
and would fill the kitchen. When he grew old and infirm it was
impossible for the greater number to hear anything of the sermon; yet
he never omitted to preach.

"An' I mind," naively added Bell, "that there wes aye a collection
made."

People went to Confession in the house at such times; otherwise the
priest heard them in the chapel on Saturdays or Sundays, and on the
eves of feasts.

It can not be denied that Mr. McGillivray was a militant churchman,
whenever the interests of his flock or of the Catholic Church were at
stake. Bell had more than one anecdote to prove it.

A poor woman who was at the point of death had been induced by two good
old Catholic spinsters who lived near her to send for the priest to
reconcile her to the Church. She was the offspring of a mixed
marriage; her mother--the Catholic party--had died when the child was
quite young, and the father had at once taken the girl to kirk with
him. She had once been to Confession, but had received no other
Sacrament except Baptism. When she had grown to womanhood, she married
a Presbyterian, and all her family had been brought up in that
religion. Yet the grace of her Baptism seemed to cling to her. After
her husband's death she would now and again attend at Mass, driven the
six miles by her Protestant son; but she was not known to the priest,
and so she remained outside the pale. Her intimacy with Jeannie and
Katie Ann McGruer was the means of keeping her in touch with Catholic
matters, and eventually resulted in her reconciliation.

This was not accomplished, however, without a stiff skirmish between
the old priest and the members of her family--not to mention the
minister of their particular kirk.

In compliance with the summons conveyed by one of the McGruers (Bell
spoke of them as "guid Catho