The minister of Kilspindie resolved not to be outdone either in generosity or pungent humour. The pastor of Errol, though withal a sober and exemplary man, was known to enjoy a glass of toddy with his friends. So his clerical brother retaliated on him with the present of a hot-water jug, bearing on the lid this couplet—
“Dr. Duff to Dr. Dow,
Fou! Fou! Fou!”
Shortly after the disruption of the Church of Scotland, two clergymen—father and son—were discussing the comparative merits of the Churches to which they belonged. The father, an upholder of Erastianism, had remained faithful to the Church in which he had been ordained; the son had joined the Non-intrusion party, and attached himself to the Free Church. The son expatiated at great length on the superiority of his Church over that of his father; of the advantages of its freedom from State control; of the privilege of its members to elect their own ministers; of its activity and zeal for the diffusion of religion, etc.; and while he did so, did not hesitate to pick holes large and many in the discipline and government of the Church with which his father had been so long connected, and from which he himself had so recently seceded. In his estimation the Auld Kirk had faults innumerable, the Free Church none. After hearing him for a while, the father closed the conversation by saying—
“When your Kirk’s lum, Andrew, has been as lang reekin’ as mine, I’m thinkin’ ye’ll find, lad, it will then need sweepin’ too.”
The Rev. Dr. Gillan, of Inchinnan, was a ready wit, of whom a number of capital stories are told, among them being the following:—One day a young elder, making his first appearance in the Glasgow Presbytery, modestly sat down on the very edge of a bench near the door. By and by the minister who had been sitting at the other end rose, and the young elder was just falling off when the door opened and Dr. Gillan entered, who, catching him in his arms, with his usual readiness exclaimed, “Sir, when you come to this place you must try and stick to the forms of the Church.”
Among the preachers who occupied the pulpits in Scotland in the days of other years, these fitful glances tend to reveal, were men not less famous for their eloquence and earnest preaching than for their wit and humour and popular eccentricities of character; and they were certainly not the less effective as pastors and preachers that they now and again gave reign to their fancies, and were moved to laughter like ordinary men. How much have the keen humorous sensibilities of Spurgeon, and Moody, and M’Neill, and others that might be named, contributed to the effectiveness of their pulpit ministrations? Indeed, there have been few great preachers, in any time or place, who have not had a lively sense of humour; although the converse, of course, does not obtain. The great Dr. Guthrie; the grand Dr. Norman Macleod; the erudite Dr. Anderson, of Glasgow; and the eloquent Gilfillan, of Dundee, were all humourists of the first water.
Referring to the fact that each successive generation considers itself a vast improvement on its predecessor, Dr. Guthrie once said, “I thocht that my father really didna ken very muckle, but my laddies seem to think I’m a born idiot.”
Dr. Norman Macleod’s faculty of humour was well known everywhere, for it manifested itself in various ways—most effectively, perhaps, in lyrical measures such as “The Waggin’ o’ oor Dog’s Tail,” “Captain Frazer’s Nose,” etc., but always to the order of uproarious fun. It is told of Norman that when walking down Buchanan Street, Glasgow, arm-in-arm with a merchant friend of the West, one day, the two were passed, first by the Most Rev. Bishop Irvine, of Argyll, then by the Bishop’s valet, following a few steps behind him; the one short and slim and the other long and thin, but both dressed clerically and seeming much alike. They each saluted the popular minister of the Barony as they passed, whereupon his merchant friend turned to him and enquired, “Who was the man with the choker on, walking behind the Bishop, who saluted you just now, Doctor?”