But I was yet to learn, and to learn by heart (the great medium of all real character), that many a fragrant flower may bloom in secret clefts of rock-bound hills, frowning and forbidding though they be. For God loves to surprise us, especially in happy ways; and His is a sanguine sun.
It should now be stated that I began my ministry in St. Cuthbert's with the handicap of an Irish ancestry. How then was I to wear the hodden gray? Or how was I to commingle myself with that historic tide which I well knew the Scottish heart regarded as fed more than any other from the river that makes glad the city of God?
My every vein was already full to overflowing with Irish blood. My father was from Ballymena and my mother was from Cork, a solution which no chemistry could cure. I was inclined by nature and confirmed by practice towards a reasonable pride in my ancestral land. But odds were against me. Even the mistress of my manse, whose judgment was wont to take counsel of her kindly heart, even she remonstrated when she first discovered my nativity, and has never since been altogether thankful, though she strives hard to be resigned.
"Why do you always flaunt your Irish origin?" she reasoned once. "If it is good stock, be modest about it; and if it is not, the less said the better."
Then she remarked that she was no doubt prejudiced, for she had once witnessed the noble procession in New York on St. Patrick's Day; and she added that they all seemed to have mouths like the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky and complexions like an asphalt pavement under repairs. My wife's power of detecting analogies was uncommonly acute.
When the session had been duly constituted, the minutes of the last meeting were read by the session clerk. It is probably quite within the mark to say that all ecclesiastical officialdom can produce no other dignitary with the same stern grandeur as pertains to the clerk of a Scottish session. I have witnessed archbishops in their robes and with their mitres, and have marvelled at the gravity with which they clothed the most ponderous frivolities, at their stately genuflections, at the swift shedding and donning of their bewildering millineries. I have seen General Booth resplendent in his flaming clericals. I have even looked on the bespangled Dowie, dazzling and bedazzled—but none of these has the majesty of poise, the aroma of responsibility, or the inexorable air of authority which mark the true-bred session clerk.
The minutes having been read and hermetically sealed, I addressed the elders briefly, referring to my great duties and my poor abilities, after which I invited them to a general deliberation, and begged them to acquaint me with the mind and temper of the congregation, asking such advice as might be useful in entering upon my labours.
"We bid ye welcome, moderator," began the senior elder, by name Sandy Grant, "an' we'll do what in us lies to haud up yir hands; ye're no' oor servant, but oor minister, and we're a' ready to do yir biddin', gin it's the will o' God. Ye're sittin' in a michty seat, moderator. It was frae that chair that oor first minister spak' till us in far ither days."
At this reference to the golden age, I saw a wave of tenderness break over the faces of the older men.
