over," urged the Episcopalian brother.

"It's mair nor ever happened in yon kirk o' yours; an' it's mair nor
could happen to the Pope o' Rome, wha's a true freen o' yours, I'm
jalousin'," snorted my beadle back triumphantly; for William was
uncharitable, and despaired of all ritualists, the iron of covenanting
protest running hot within his blood.

Nor were these the only swords that flashed above our Margaret's cradle;
for a Methodist mother in Israel, hopeful of a sympathetic response from
Elsie M'Phatter (the non-churchgoing one), ventured the comment that
similar events in her own brilliant maternal record had provoked no
unseemly joy; to which Elsie responded tartly--

"I ken that fine, and it's very nat'ral, for ye've had mair nor maist;
but gin ye hadna had ane for a maitter o' seventy year or mair, like us,
wad ye no' hae been clean daft aboot it?" and the field thereafter was
Elsie's own.

* * * * *

The Sabbath morning after Margaret's dawn St. Cuthbert's was full to
overflowing, as seemed to be every heart, especially every aged heart,
finding its morning anew in the life of a little child. For the morning
and the evening are wondrously alike. In summer especially, the
sun-bathed mountains, the pendant dewdrop, the melodious silences--all
these belong so much to both alike that I find it hard to distinguish
the matins and the vespers of God's cathedral days.

My voice trembled just a little as I gave out the psalm--

"Such pity as a father hath
Unto his children dear,"

but we sang it to the tune of "Dunfermline," and soon I was borne out to
sea upon its far-flung billows; for of a truth these old Scottish tunes
have the swing of eternity in them, and seem to grandly overlap the
bourne of time and space. And when we prayed the only liturgy which
Presbyterians will own, I could not forbear to say "Our Father" twice,
and lo! a strange thing happened unto me. For a great light seemed to
shine upon the words, and that little helpless life at home within the
manse, and its thrice-blessed cry, and its yearning look of wonder, and
its hand whose only prowess was to lie in some stronger hand of
love--all these became a commentary, illustrating God, and in their
cordial light I beheld Him as mother, or professor, or minister had
never shown Him to me before, bending over the souls of men, otherwise
orphaned evermore. That vision has tarried with me ever since, and my