Strange Reason for Not Increasing a Minister's Stipend
A relative of mine going to church with a Forfarshire farmer, one of the old school, asked him the amount of the minister's stipend.
He said, "Od, it's a gude ane—the maist part of £300 a year."
"Well," said my relative, "many of these Scotch ministers are but poorly off."
"They've eneuch, sir; they have eneuch; if they'd mair, it would want a' their time to the spending o't." [[7]]
Pulpit Eloquence
An old clerical friend upon Speyside, a confirmed old bachelor, on going up to the pulpit one Sunday to preach, found, after giving out the psalm, that he had forgotten his sermon. I do not know what his objections were to his leaving the pulpit and going to the manse for his sermon, but he preferred sending his old confidential housekeeper for it. He accordingly stood up in the pulpit, stopped the singing, when it had commenced, and thus accosted his faithful domestic: "Annie, I say, Annie, we've committed a mistake the day. Ye maun jist gang your waa's hame, and ye'll get my sermon out o' my breek pouch, an' we'll sing to the praise o' the Lord till ye come back again." [[7]]
Maunderings, by a Scotchman
The following is said by Chambers' Journal to have been written by a Scotchman. If so, the humorous way in which he is taking off a certain tendency of the Scotch mind, is delicious; if by an Englishman, the humor will be less keen, though not less fair.
I am far frae being clear that Nature hersel', though a kindly auld carline, has been a'thegither just to Scotland seeing that she has sae contrived that some o' our greatest men, that ought by richt to hae been Scotchmen, were born in England and other countries, and sae have been kenned as Englishers, or else something not quite sae guid.