ame intellectual
strength in the second generation.

The Cairns family attended church at Stockbridge, a mile beyond
Cockburnspath and two miles from Dunglass, and the father was an elder
there from 1831 till his death. The United Secession--formerly the
Burgher--Church at Stockbridge occupied a site conveniently central
for the wide district which it served, but very solitary. It stood
amid cornfields, on the banks of a little stream, and looked across to
the fern-clad slopes of Ewieside, an outlying spur of the Lammermoors.
Except the manse, and the beadle's cottage which adjoined it, there
was no house within sight, nor any out of sight less than half a
mile away.

The minister at this time was the Rev. David M'Quater Inglis, a man of
rugged appearance and of original and vigorous mental powers. He was a
good scholar and a stimulating preacher, excelling more particularly
in his expository discourses, or "lectures" as they used to be called.
When he tackled some intricate passage in an Epistle, it was at times
a little hard to follow him, especially as his utterance tended to be
hesitating; but when he had finished, one saw that a broad clear road
had been cut through the thicket, and that the daylight had been let
in upon what before had been dim. "I have heard many preachers," said
Dr. Cairns, in preaching his funeral sermon nearly forty years later,
"but I have heard few whose sermons at their best were better than the
best of his; and his everyday ones had a strength, a simplicity, and
an unaffected earnestness which excited both thought and Christian
feeling." Nor was he merely a preacher. By his pastoral visitations
and "diets of examination" he always kept himself in close touch with
his people, and he made himself respected by rich and poor alike.

The shepherd's family occupied a pew at Stockbridge in front of the
pulpit and just under the gallery, which ran round three sides of the
church. That pew was rarely vacant on a Sunday. There was no herding
to be done on that day, and in the morning the father looked the sheep
in the parks himself that the herd-boy might have his full Sabbath
rest. He came back in time to conduct family worship, this being
the only morning in the week when it was possible for him to do so,
although in the evening it was never omitted, and on Sunday evening
was always preceded by a repetition of the Shorter Catechism. After
worship the family set out for church, where the service