y,
especially when you can't see him?"

"'Deed no, sir. He wadna be sae sair upo' me as that."

"What would he say, do you think?"

"Gin Mr Bruce war to cast it up till me, he wad say: 'Lat alane the
lassie. She'll think aboot me the morn--time eneuch.'"

"Well, don't you think your Father in heaven would say the same?"

"Maybe he micht, sir. But ye see my father was my ain father, and wad
mak' the best o' me."

"And is not God kinder than your father?"

"He canna weel be that, sir. And there's the Scripter!"

"But he sent his only Son to die for us."

"Ay--for the eleck, sir," returned the little theologian.

Now this was more than Mr Cowie was well prepared to meet, for
certainly this terrible doctrine was perfectly developed in the creed
of the Scotch Church; the assembly of divines having sat upon the
Scripture egg till they had hatched it in their own likeness. Poor Mr
Cowie! There were the girl-eyes, blue, and hazy with tearful questions,
looking up at him hungrily.--O starving little brothers and sisters!
God does love you, and all shall be, and therefore is, well.--But the
minister could not say this, gladly as he would have said it if he
could; and the only result of his efforts to find a suitable reply was
that he lost his temper--not with Annie, but with the doctrine of
election.

"Gang ye hame, Annie, my bairn," said he, talking Scotch now, "and
dinna trouble yer heid about election, and a' that. It's no' a canny
doctrine. No mortal man could ever win at the boddom o' 't. I'm
thinkin' we haena muckle to do w' 't. Gang hame, dawtie, and say yer
prayers to be preserved frae the wiles o' Sawtan. There 's a sixpence
to ye."

His kind heart was sorely grieved that all it could give was money. She
had asked for bread, and he had but a stone, as he thought, to give
her. So he gave it her with shame. He might however have reversed the
words of St Peter, saying, "Spiritual aid I have none, but such as I
have give I thee;" and so offered her the sixpence. But, for my part, I
think the sixpence had more of bread in it than any theology he might
have been expected to have at hand; for, so given, it was the symbol
and the sign of love, which is the heart of the divine theology.

Annie, however, had a certain Scotchness in her which made her draw
back from the offer.

"Na, thank ye, sir," she said; "I dinna want it."

"Will ye no tak' it to please an auld man, bairn?"

"Deed will I, sir, I wad do a ha