“Willie” Anderson’s well-known “three-a-penny” story is perhaps the very best one which rumour persistently attaches to his name. The Doctor had been walking towards John Street Church one Sunday evening, when it suddenly commenced to rain, very much to the discomfiture of three well-dressed young men, who had come out to air their clothes and to see and be seen, who occupied the pavement immediately in front of the popular preacher. “What’s to be done?” exclaimed one; “we canna walk the streets in a nicht like this.” “We’re just comin’ on to John Street Kirk,” remarked another, “we’ll go an’ hear Willie Anderson preachin’.” The mention of his name caused the minister to play the part of eavesdropper for a moment, during which the young gentlemen made the discovery that two halfpennies formed the sum total of their united small cash. This fact, however, was not to be allowed to bar their entrance to the place of worship, “for,” said one, addressing the other two, “I’ll drap in a bawbee, an’ he’ll drap in a bawbee, an’ ye’ll mairch past the plate atween the twa o’s, an’ the thing’ll never be noticed.” Immediately this was agreed to, the erratic divine shot past the objects of his temporary attention. When they reached the church door he was standing beside the elder at the plate, and as they marched past a second later, and the “twa bawbees” were noisily dropped in, “There they go,” exclaimed the Doctor, “three-a-penny—three-a-penny!”
Dr. Anderson was a man of very fine musical taste, and one Sabbath, in John Street, after the first psalm had been sung, and sung badly, he addressed the congregation thus—“Are ye not ashamed of yourselves for offering up to God such abominable sounds? If you had to offer up a service of praise before Queen Victoria in her presence, then you would have met every night, if necessary, for weeks on end, but as God is unseen you evidently think anything is good enough for Him. I am ashamed of you.” Then, taking a pinch of snuff out of his waistcoat pocket, he said solemnly, “Let us pray.”
Gilfillan of Dundee was distinguished for his largeness of heart and generosity as well as for his erudition and oratorical powers. No deserving—seldom an undeserving—beggar went from his door unaided. To the poor of his own flock he was a true friend and faithful pastor. On a melancholy occasion, a member of School Wynd Church called at the manse in Paradise Road to invite the Rev. George to come and officiate in his clerical capacity at the funeral. After the usual condolence, the preacher remarked to the bereaved, “By the by, I have missed you from the church for some time. What is wrong?”
“Well, to be plain with you, Mr. Gilfillan,” said the man, “my coat is so bare, I’m ashamed to come.”
The big man immediately disrobed himself of his coat, and handing it to the distressed member of his congregation, said, “There, my man, let me see that coat every Sabbath until it becomes bare, and then call back.”
After so delivering himself, the divine returned to his study in his shirt-sleeves, and being observed by his worthy spouse, she approached and asked what he had done with his coat. His answer was, “I have just given it to God, my dear.”
To correct the popular but erroneous idea that the child receives its name at baptism from the minister, Gilfillan’s practice on occasions of the kind was not to mention the child’s name at all. Once, however, when the sacrament was asked to be administered, the parents insisted beforehand that the child’s name should be announced. “Very well,” was the reply. Accordingly, when the little one had been with all due solemnity received into the Church visible, the minister, looking abroad over the congregation, raised his voice and exclaimed, “The parents of this child wish the congregation to know that its name is John.”
George was never again asked to announce the name in a case of baptism.
Kindly and generous in the main, that Gilfillan could be severe too when he liked, is well known. Speaking of the county town of Forfarshire, which has no very high character for morality, he said, “When Satan was showing our Lord all the kingdoms of the earth, we may be sure he kept his thumb on Forfar.”