nce gallery of Eden
Valley Parish Kirk was filled with such a mixed assembly as had never
been seen there before. Smugglers, privateersmen, the sweepings of
ports, home and foreign, some who had blood on their hands--though with
the distinction that it had been shed in encounters with excisemen. But
the blessing had come upon some of them--others a new spirit had
touched, lighted at the fire of an almost apostolic enthusiasm.

It was the proudest moment in Israel Kinmont's life when he heard the
Doctor, in all the panoply of his gown and bands, hold up his hands and
ask for a blessing upon "the new shoot of Thy Vine, planted by an aged
servant of Thine in this parish. Make it strong for Thyself, that the
hills may be covered with the shadow of it, and that, like the goodly
cedar, many homeless and wayfaring men under it may rest and find
shelter."

And in the Spence gallery these sea- and wayfaring men nudged each
other, not perhaps finding the meaning so clear as they did at the
Tabernacle, but convinced, nevertheless, that "He means us--and our old
Israel!"

And so in faith, if not wholly in understanding, they listened to the
sermon in which the Doctor, all unprepared for such an invasion,
inculcated with much learning the doctrine of submission to the civil
magistrate with the leading cases of Saint Paul and Saint Augustine
illustrated by copious quotations from the original.

They sat with fixed attention, never flinching even when the Doctor,
doing his duty, as he said, both as a magistrate and as a Christian man,
gave the Free Traders many a word to make their ears sing. They were in
his place, and every man had the right to speak as he chose in his own
house. But when Israel led them back to the old Tabernacle, with its
pleasant smell of tar obscuring the more ancient bilge, and had told
them that they were all "a lot of hell-deserving sinners who, if they
missed eternal damnation, it would be with their rags badly singed,"
they sighed a blissful sigh and felt themselves once more at home,
sitting under a man who understood them and their needs.

Nevertheless, when Israel gave out the closing hymn it was one which, as
he explained, "prays for the Church of God visible upon the earth, as
well in the Parish Kirk as in their own little Tabernacle." "Now then,
men," he concluded, "let us have it with a will. Put all that you have
got between your beards and your shoulder-blades into it. If I see a man
hanging