A late minister of Crossmichael, in Galloway, did not disdain to illustrate his subjects with such images and allusions as were within the comprehension of his homely hearers. Accordingly, one Sabbath morning, he read a verse from the book of Exodus, as follows—“And the Lord said unto Moses—shut that door; I’m thinkin’ if ye had to sit beside the door yersel’ ye wadna be sae ready leavin’ it open; it was just beside that door that Yedam Tamson, the bellman, gat his death o’ cauld, an’ I’m sure, honest man, he didna let it stey muckle open.—And the Lord said unto Moses—put oot that dog; wha is’t that brings dogs to the kirk, yaff-yaffin’? Lat me never see ye bring yer dogs here ony mair, or I’ll put you an’ them baith oot.—And the Lord said unto Moses—I see a man aneath that wast laft wi’ his hat on; I’m sure ye’re clean oot o’ the souch o’ the door; keep aff yer bonnet, Tammas, an’ if yer bare pow be cauld, ye maun jist get a grey worset wig like mysel’; they’re no sae dear; plenty o’ them at Bob Gillespie’s for tenpence.” This said, he again began the verse, and at last made out the instructions to Moses in a manner more strictly in accordance with the text and with decency.
Another, remarkable for the simplicity and force of his style, was discoursing from the text, “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish,” and in order to impress upon his hearers the importance of attending to the solemn truth conveyed in the passage—“Yes, my freens,” he emphatically exclaimed, “unless ye repent ye shall all perish, just as surely as I’m gaun to ding the guts oot o’ that muckle blue flee that’s lichtit on my Bible.” Before the blow was struck the fly got away, upon which he struck the book with all his might and exclaimed at the top of his voice, “My freens, there’s a chance for ye yet!”
Dr. Paul, in his Past and Present of Aberdeenshire, tells of a minister who, while preaching on the subject of the wiles and crafts of Satan, suddenly paused, and then exclaimed—“See him sittin’ there in the crap o’ the wa’. What shall we do wi’ him, my brethren? He winna hang, for he’s licht as a feather; neither will he droon, my brethren, for he can soom like a cork; but we’ll shoot him wi’ the gun o’ the Gospel.” Then putting himself in the position of one aiming at an object, and imitating the noise of a shot, the minister called out exultingly, “He’s doon like a dead craw!”
This incident would have greatly delighted the man who thus described the kind of minister he was in search of—“Nane o’ your guid-warks men, or preachers o’ cauld morality for me! Gie me a speerit-rousin’ preacher that’ll haud the deil under the noses of the congregation and mak’ their flesh creep!”
It is related of a certain divine, whose matrimonial relations are supposed not to have been of the most agreeable kind, that one Sabbath morning, while reading to his congregation the parable of the Supper, in which occurs the passage—“And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore cannot come,” he suddenly paused at the end of this verse, drew off his spectacles, and, looking on his hearers, said with emphasis—“The fact is, my brethren, one woman can draw a man farther away from the kingdom of heaven than fifty yoke of oxen.”
They were hard nuts to crack, many of these old preachers.
A late Earl of Airlie, when Lord High Commissioner, had the retiring Moderator to dinner with him on the evening previous to the opening of the General Assembly. In a spirit of mischief, the Earl tried to unfit him for his duties on the following day. As often as the reverend gentleman would endeavour to retire, the Earl met him with the exclamation, “Another glass, and then!” In spite of his late potations, the minister was in his place on the following day, and preached from the words, “The wicked shall be punished, and that right early.” Notwithstanding the manifest impatience of the Commissioner, the sermon was spun out to an inordinate length, the minister repeating with meaning emphasis each time that the sand glass which showed the half-hours was turned, “Another glass, and then! The wicked shall be punished, and that right early.”
A certain divine—or perhaps we should say an un-certain divine—preaching a sermon from the parable of the prodigal son, took as his text the words, “And when he came to himself,” and gave a reading of the passage at once unique and original. “We have here, brethren,” said he, “an instance of the wonderful depth of meaning there is in Scripture. We see how low this unprincipled young man had fallen. ‘When he came to himself’—what does it mean? Well, look at home. What do we do when our money’s gone and we’ve no credit? What do we turn to? The pawnshop. So did he. First, his coat would go; he might live a week on that. Then his waistcoat; that wouldn’t serve him long. Lastly, his shirt would follow; and then—ah, then, my friends, he came to himself! He couldn’t pawn himself, and so he went home to his father.”
The older style of preaching was often wonderfully graphic as well as amusing. Preaching from that text in Ecclesiastes—“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour; so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour,” a north country divine illustrated his subject by this example:—“See John at the kirk, an’ he looks amon’ folk like a man o’ mense; but follow him to the peat-moss, an’ ye’ll hear him tellin’ coorse stories to the loons an’ queans, haudin’ them lauchin’ at sin. There’s a dead flee in John’s sowl.” Sometimes, in his endeavour to give a vivid description, this same preacher became delightfully grotesque. Referring to Jonah—“The whawl,” he said, “shoutherin’ awa’ the waves, got at last geyan near the shore, and cried Byock-up. But Jonah didna come. Then the whawl cried [speaking it louder, and imitating the whale retching], Byock-up! But na! Jonah aye stack. Then the whawl cried [speaking it very loud and slow], Byock-up! Noo, sirs, divna ye see Jonah rinnin’, dreepin’, up the beach.” Once he described the progress of a sinner in a course of vice to the last stage of his hopelessness, when there is nothing left for him but a cry of pain—“Sirs, oot owre yon knowe there’s a sheepie tether’t, an’ in o’ reach o’ its tether there’s a breem buss [broom bush], an’ it gangs roond the buss, an’ roond the buss, till it’s hankit at the head, an’ then, what does it dee? It cries, Bae! That’s just the sinner cryin’ oot in its meesery.” In the same sermon, looking down upon the old women who sat near the pulpit and on the pulpit stair for the purpose of better hearing, in their clean white mutches, he said—“Here ye’re a’ sittin’, wi’ yer auld wither’t faces, that’s bonnier to me than a lass in her teens, for I ken ye hae seen sixty or seventy years, ilka ane o’ ye, an’ yer auld faces just say to me, ‘We hae served our Maister threescore years thegither, an’ we’re no tired servin’ Him yet.’” It does not surprise one to be told that this reference to the old women put them in a state of visible emotion.
The quaint homeliness thus manifested in the lesson and in the sermon found a place now and again in the prayers; and a west country divine, in the course of a wet harvest, in praying for more suitable weather, expressed himself thus:—“O Lord, gie us nae mair watter for a season, but wind—plenty o’ wind, an’ yet, O Lord, nane o’ yer rantin’, tantin’, tearin’ winds, but an oughin’, soughin’, winnin’ wind.”