A Law of Nature
Principal Hill once encountered a fierce onslaught from the Rev. James Burn in the General Assembly. When Mr. Burn had concluded his attack, the professor rose, and said with a smile: "Moderator, we all know that it is most natural that Burns should run down Hills."
The laugh was effectually raised against his opponent, whose arguments and assertions he then proceeded to demolish at his leisure.
Ingenious Remedy for Ignorance
When a former Prince of Wales was married, a Highland minister at Greenock was praying for the happiness and welfare of the royal couple. He was somewhat embarrassed as to how he should join the two names, but at length he got over it thus:
"Lord bless her royal highness the Prince of Wales, and his royal highness the she prince!"
Highland "Warldliness"
At a breakfast there was abundance of Highland cheer, towering dishes of scones, oatcakes, an enormous cheese, fish eggs and a monstrous grey-beard of whiskey ready, if required; fumes of tobacco were floating in the air, and the whole seemed an embodiment of the Highlander's grace, "Oh, gie us rivers of whiskey, chau'ders o' snuff, and tons o' tobacco, pread an' a cheese as pig as the great hill of Ben Nevis, and may our childer's childer be lords and lairds to the latest sheneration." On repeating this grace to an old hillsman of eighty, leaning on his stick, he thoughtfully answered: "Weel, it's a goot grace—a very goot grace—but it's a warldly thing!"
A Paradox