r_."
Could any admission be more handsome or candid than that?

I have learned a great deal from Mr. Macdonald's cheery and broad-minded
volume. He is strong in history, and has had, it would seem, access to
information that is closed to the general eye. There is a glorious
simplicity in his views on Caledonian ethnology. A roguish prince,
Gathelus, son of the king of Greece, migrated to Egypt, and married
Scota, daughter of that Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites. The
various plagues "that o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung," terrified
Gathelus, and he flitted in hot haste to Spain, and called his followers
Scots, to please his wife. Later in life, he sent his son Hiber to
Ireland, where the lad settled, and named the island after his noble
self, Hibernia. Scots continued to pour into Ireland, _via_ the Bay of
Biscay, and finally, under Simon Brek, subdued the entire extent of the
Green Island. In 360 A.D., they came over to Argyllshire, and aided the
indigenous Picts (who were also Celts) against the legions of Rome. This
is so compact and clear an account, that I wish it were true. The way in
which sacred and profane history are blended strikes me as singularly
able.

Mr. Macdonald has an intimate knowledge of Celtic superstitions, and
always castigates the right thing. Certain diseases of the brain were,
till quite recently, believed to be curable if the afflicted man could
procure a suicide's skull and take a drink out of it. Mr. Macdonald
rightly dwells upon the absurdity of such a specific, but confesses that
one might as well try to "bale out the Atlantic" as eradicate the
foolish pagan notions that still linger in the glens.

Ministers have a great deal of captious criticism to stand, if we may
judge by Mr. Macdonald's anecdotes. They are blamed for terminating
their discourses _with a silver tail_ (_i.e._, intimating a special
collection). The sermon itself is not immune from cruel jests, as the
following report of a parishioner's criticism will show: "A minister is
like a joiner. The joiner takes a piece of wood and shapes it roughly
with the axe. Then he applies his rough plane, and smooths it down a
bit. After that, he takes his fine plane; and, lastly, he rubs it with
sandpaper, and finishes it with polish till he makes it appear like
glass. And so with the minister: he works his sermon, from sheet to
sheet, with pen and ink, till he makes it at last so smooth _that a
flea could not stand on it_.