g that, Andra," said Duncan Polite. "The
Lord will be a better judge than man----"

But old Andrew interrupted him tempestuously.

"Man, Duncan, Ah've kept it tae ma'sel for mony a day, but Ah jist
canna bide it ony mair! Him an' his organ! Aye, he's after some bit
balderdash a' the time. Ah tell ye the buddy's no got the root o' the
matter in him! He can preach, aye, Ah'll no deny yon, but what's the
gude o' what he's haverin' aboot? This mornin' he preached jist half
an oor, aye, an' twenty meenits o' it taken up in provin' that Paul was
a gude man, a thing that no the biggest fule in the Glen would gainsay,
no, not even oor Andra'," he concluded sombrely.

Duncan sighed. He had noticed that the sermons were steadily growing
shorter. Indeed, from the first Sabbath of his pastorate the young
minister had deliberately set himself to abbreviate the church service,
commencing with the sermon. He had done it so gradually that he
flattered himself it was unnoticed, but no one could depart one jot or
one tittle from the ancient ways without the argus eye of the ruling
elder spying out the offence.

"Oh well, indeed," said Duncan Polite, "it would be a clever sermon,
Andra, and I would be thinking he gave us some fine thoughts on Paul."

"Paul!" cried the other with withering scorn. "Paul! and who sent out
meenisters to preach Paul?"

Duncan could not answer. John McAlpine Egerton was a clever speaker
certainly, with much of his grandfather's fire, but to the brilliant
discourses on the heroes of the Bible which had constituted his sermons
lately Duncan had listened with a remote ache in his heart. For though
Paul was a great apostle, and David the Lord's anointed King, who were
they to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

Old Andrew was still talking, his stick waving furiously. "It's
railin' agen this, and rowin' agen that: it's Socialism and Anarchism
and some other rubbishy ism every Sabbath. Man, why can the crater no
preach the Gospel? Aye, an' we had a half an oor o' havers aboot
infidelity last Sabbath. Tod! Naebody in the Glen kenned what
infidelity was till he cam' except mebby yon lad o' Silas Todd's, an'
the crater's no wise onyway!"

Duncan made a feeble attempt to stem the tide. "But these societies,
maybe they will be doing good, whatever."

This was only fuel to the fire. "His societies! Man, wi' his Y. P. S.
C. E. an' his Y. M. C. A. an' his X. Y. Z., fowk's heids are fair
turn