“Na: naething like it, woman.”
“Hoots, Janet, ye think there’s naebody good enough for heaven but yersel’, and the minister.”
“Deed,” replied Janet, “I hae sometimes very grave doots aboot the minister.”
Here was a more generous spirit. The late Dr. Wilberforce, while paying a visit at Taymouth Castle during the lifetime of the last Marquis of Breadalbane, a devoted adherent of the Free Church, was taken by Lady Breadalbane (nee Baillie of Jerviswoode) into one of the cottages on the estate occupied by an old Highland woman—a “true blue” Presbyterian—who was greatly pleased by the Bishop’s frank and friendly manner. A few days afterwards the Bishop left the castle, and Lady Breadalbane paid another visit to her old friend, when the following conversation took place:—“Do you know who that was, Mary, that came to see you last week?” “No, my lady,” was the reply. “The famous Bishop of Oxford,” said her ladyship. On which the denizen of the mountains quietly remarked, “Aweel, my lady, he’s a rale fine man; and a’ I can say is, that I trust and pray he’ll gang to heaven—Bishop though he be!”
“I hope you have made due preparation, and are in a fit state to have the Sacrament of Baptism administered to your child, John,” said a minister to one of his parishioners, a ploughman, who had called at the manse in connection with a recent event in his domestic circle.
“Weel,” said the ploughman, “I haena been ower extravagant in the way o’ preparation, maybe. I’m a man o’ sma’ means, ye ken; but I’ve gotten in a bottle o’ whisky and the best hauf o’ a kebbuck o’ cheese.”
“Tuts, tuts!” interrupted the minister, “I do not mean preparation of the things that perish. Is your mind and heart in proper condition?”
“Do you mean that I’m no soond in the head?” queried the ploughman.
“No, I do not mean that at all,” said the divine. “You do not appear to have an intelligent idea of the matter that has brought you here.”
Then, after a minute’s reflection, he continued—“How many Commandments are there, John?”