or perhaps I should say, more rain.

Of course, when one is in perfect bodily health one can more readily
resist the infection of disease. Similarly if Scottish skies were
not ready and longing to pour out rain, were not ignobly weak in
holding it back, they would not be so susceptible to the depressing
influences of visiting ministers. This is Francesca's theory as
stated to the Reverend Ronald, who was holding an umbrella over her
ungrateful head at the time; and she went on to boast of a
convention she once attended in California, where twenty-six
thousand Christian Endeavourers were unable to dim the American
sunshine, though they stayed ten days.

"Our first duty, both to ourselves and to the community," I
continued to Salemina, "is to learn how there can be three distinct
kinds of proper Presbyterianism. Perhaps it would be a graceful act
on our part if we should each espouse a different kind; then there
would be no feeling among our Edinburgh friends. And again what is
this `union' of which we hear murmurs? Is it religious or
political? Is it an echo of the 1707 Union you explained to us last
week, or is it a new one? What is Disestablishment? What is
Disruption? Are they the same thing? What is the Sustentation
Fund? What was the Non-Intrusion party? What was the Dundas
Despotism? What is the argument at present going on about taking
the Shorter Catechism out of the schools? What is the Shorter
Catechism, any way,--or at least what have they left out of the
Longer Catechism to make it shorter,--and is the length of the
Catechism one of the points of difference? then when we have looked
up Chalmers and Candlish, we can ask the ex-Moderator and the
Professor of Biblical Criticism to tea; separately, of course, lest