on the road, he said, "And so, John, I understand you have
become an Independent?" "'Deed, sir," replied John, "that's true." "Oh,
John," said the minister, "I'm sure you ken that a rowin' (rolling)
stane gathers nae fog" (moss). "Ay," said John, "that's true too; but
can ye tell me what guid the fog does to the stane?" Mr. Shireff himself
afterwards became a Baptist. The wit, however, was all in favour of the
minister in the following:--

Dr. Gilchrist, formerly of the East Parish of Greenock, and who died
minister of the Canongate, Edinburgh, received an intimation of one of
his hearers who had been exceedingly irregular in his attendance that he
had taken seats in an Episcopal chapel. One day soon after, he met his
former parishioner, who told him candidly that he had "changed his
religion." "Indeed," said the Doctor quietly; "how's that? I ne'er heard
ye had ony." It was this same Dr. Gilchrist who gave the well-known
quiet but forcible rebuke to a young minister whom he considered rather
conceited and fond of putting forward his own doings, and who was to
officiate in the Doctor's church. He explained to him the mode in which
he usually conducted the service, and stated that he always finished the
prayer before the sermon with the Lord's Prayer. The young minister
demurred at this, and asked if he "might not introduce any other short
prayer?" "Ou ay," was the Doctor's quiet reply, "gif ye can gie us
onything _better_."

There is a story current of a sharp hit at the pretensions of a minister
who required a little set down. The scene was on a Monday by a burn near
Inverness. A stranger is fishing by a burn-side one Monday morning, when
the parish minister accosts him from the other side of the stream
thus:--"Good sport?" "Not very." "I am also an angler," but, pompously,
"I am a _fisher of men_." "Are you always successful?" "Not very." "So I
guessed, as I keeked into your creel[180] yesterday."

At Banchory, on Deeside, some of the criticisms and remarks on sermons
were very quaint and characteristic. My cousin had asked the Leys grieve
what he thought of a young man's preaching, who had been more successful
in appropriating the words than the ideas of Dr. Chalmers. He drily
answered, "Ou, Sir Thomas, just a floorish o' the surface." But the same
hearer bore this unequivocal testimony to another preacher whom he
really admired. He was asked if he did not think the sermon long: "Na, I
should nae hae thocht it lang