the triangular route of Dundee. It was quite impossible for Kilbogie to
conceal their pride in electing such a miracle of learning, and their
bearing in Muirtown was distinctly changed; but indeed they did not boast
vainly about Jeremiah Saunderson, for his career was throughout on the
level of that monumental sermon. When the Presbytery in the gaiety of
their heart examined Saunderson to ascertain whether he was fully
equipped for the work of the ministry, he professed the whole Old
Testament in Hebrew, and MacWheep of Pitscowrie, who always asked the
candidate to read the twenty-third Psalm, was beguiled by Jeremiah into
the Book of Job, and reduced to the necessity of asking questions by
indicating verbs with his finger. His Greek examination led to an
argument between Jeremiah and Dr. Dowbiggin on the use of the aorist,
from which the minister-elect of Kilbogie came out an easy first; and his
sermons were heard to within measurable distance of the second head by an
exact quorum of the exhausted court, who were kept by the clerk sitting
at the door, and preventing MacWheep escaping. His position in the court
was assured from the beginning, and fulfilled the function of an
Encyclopaedia, with occasional amazing results, as when information was
asked about some Eastern sect for whose necessities the Presbytery were
asked to collect, and to whose warm piety affecting allusion was made,
and Jeremiah showed clearly, with the reporters present, that the
Cappadocians were guilty of a heresy beside which Morisonianism was an
unsullied whiteness. His work as examiner-in-general for the court was a
merciful failure, and encouraged the students of the district to return
to their district court, who, on the mere rumour of him, had transferred
themselves in a body to a Highland Presbytery, where the standard
question in Philosophy used to be, "How many horns has a dilemma, and
distinguish the one from the other." No man knew what the minister of
Kilbogie might not ask--the student was only perfectly certain that it
would be beyond his knowledge; but as Saunderson always gave the answer