f from
embarrassment with an accustomed flutter of hymn-books.

Going to church was somewhat interesting after all, thought Professor
Willits. Then, in common with the rest of the congregation, he detached
his eyes from the girl's exquisite profile and focused them upon
the minister.

Friends of the Rev. Angus Macnair asserted that he was a man in a
thousand. For that matter he was a man in any number of thousands; for
his was a personality, true to type, yet not likely to be duplicated.
Born of a Highland Scotch father and a Lowland Scotch mother, he
developed almost exclusively in his father's vein. Loyal in the extreme,
narrow to fanaticism, passionate, emotional, yet trained to the cold
control of a red Indian, he was a man of power, at once the victim and
the triumph of his creed.

Early in life he had come under a conviction of sin, had received
assurance of forgiveness and of election and, before he had left the
Public School, his Call had come. From that time forward he had burnt
with a fierce fire of godliness which, together with a natural
incapacity for seeing two sides to anything, had carried him safely
through the manifold temptations to unbelief and heresy which beset a
modern college education. Many wondered that a man so gifted should
remain in Coombe, but the explanation is simple. He suited Coombe; the
larger churches of the larger cities he did not suit. Lax opinions,
heretical doctrines, outlooks appallingly wide were creeping in
everywhere. It is safe to say that in most of the churches of his own
faith he would have seemed bravely but hopelessly behind the times. But
in Coombe he had found his place. Coombe was conservative. Coombe
Presbyterians were still content to do without frills in the matter of
doctrine. Coombe could still listen to hell fire and, if not unduly
disturbed, did not at least smile behind its hand.

Something of all this the Button-Moulder, student of men, felt as he
watched the sombre yet glowing face of the preacher.

The sermon that morning was one of a series dealing with the
Commandments and the text was, "Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbour." The speaker had the scholar's power of
concentration, the orator's power of delivery. He was both poignant and
personal. He seemed to do everything save mention names. Some sinners in
that congregation, thought Willits, had undoubtedly been bearing false
witness, and were now listening to a few plain words!