Of a Durisdeer beadle it is told that having received from the minister—a comparative new-comer—the gift of a half-worn coat, he sidled to the door, and turning round gave him a lesson in the traditions of his office by explaining, “Mr. Smith used to gi’e me the waistcoat too.”
The greatly esteemed Principal Caird was minister of Errol before he was appointed Professor of Divinity in Glasgow. While there the Doctor discovered the acoustic properties of the church to be by no means of the best, and his congregation being scanty, he suggested to the beadle that an improvement might be effected by boarding up one of the side aisles. “That may do very weel for you,” replied the shrewd old Scotchman, “but what will we do for room if we should get a popular preacher to follow you?”
Robert Burns tells us that
“The fear o’ hell’s a hangman’s whip
To haud the wretch in order,”
and the asseveration of the bard received favourable commentary at the instance of a sage country beadle not very long ago. The minister had for some time previously been favouring the free and easy theology which excludes belief in eternal punishment. He had, indeed, told his people from the pulpit that such an arrangement was not, in his opinion, consistent with the character and being of the Creator of the universe. From this point there was a marked falling off in the attendance at church on the Sabbath, and the preacher was, naturally, concerned.
“John,” he said to the beadle one day between the preachings, “the people are not turning out to public worship nearly so well as they used to do.”
“I dinna blame them for’t,” was John’s dry reply.
“You what, John?”
“I dinna blame them for’t, I’m sayin’.”