himself in the end, and imputed it to the student, anxiety was reduced to
a minimum. Saunderson, indeed, was in the custom of passing all
candidates and reporting them as marvels of erudition, whose only fault
was a becoming modesty--which, however, had not concealed from his keen
eye hidden treasures of learning. Beyond this sphere the good man's
services were not used by a body of shrewd ecclesiastics, as the
inordinate length of an ordination sermon had ruined a dinner prepared
for the court by "one of our intelligent and large-hearted laymen," and
it is still pleasantly told how Saunderson was invited to a
congregational soirée--an ancient meeting, where the people ate oranges,
and the speaker rallied the minister on being still unmarried--and
discoursed, as a carefully chosen subject, on the Jewish feasts,--with
illustrations from the Talmud,--till some one burst a paper-bag and
allowed the feelings of the people to escape. When this history was
passed round Muirtown Market, Kilbogie thought still more highly of their
minister, and indicated their opinion of the other parish in severely
theological language.

Standing at his full height he might have been six feet, but, with much
poring over books and meditation, he had descended some two inches. His
hair was long, not because he made any conscious claim to genius, but
because he forgot to get it cut, and, with his flowing, untrimmed beard,
was now quite grey. Within his clothes he was the merest skeleton, being
so thin that his shoulder-blades stood out in sharp outline, and his
hands were almost transparent. The redeeming feature in Saunderson was
his eyes, which were large and eloquent, of a trustful, wistful hazel,
the beautiful eyes of a dumb animal. Whether he was expounding doctrines
charged with despair of humanity, or exalting, in rare moments, the
riches of a Divine love in which he did not expect to share, or humbly
beseeching his brethren to give him information on some point in