Once there was no glory, because the minister, being still young,
expounded a new theory of the atonement of German manufacture, and
Donald's face was piteous to behold. It haunted the minister for
months, and brought to confusion a promising course of sermons on
the contribution of Hegel to Christian thought. Donald never laid
the blame of such calamities on the preacher, but accepted them as a
just judgment on his blindness of heart.

"We hef had the open vision," Donald explained to his friend Lachlan
Campbell, who distributed the responsibility in another fashion,
"and we would not see--so the veil hass fallen."

Donald sat before the pulpit and filled the hearts of nervous
probationers with dismay, not because his face was critical, but
because it seemed non-conducting, upon which their best passages
would break like spray against a rock. It was by nature the dullest
you ever saw, with hair descending low upon the forehead, and
preposterous whiskers dominating everything that remained, except a
heavy mouth and brown, lack-lustre eyes. For a while Donald crouched
in the corner of the pew, his head sunk on his breast, a very
picture of utter hopelessness. But as the Evangel began to play
round his heart, he would fix the preacher with rapid, wistful
glances, as of one who had awaked but hardly dared believe such
things could be true. Suddenly a sigh pervaded six pews, a kind of
gentle breath of penitence, faith, love, and hope mingled together
like the incense of the sanctuary, and Donald lifted up his head.
His eyes are now aflame, and those sullen lips are refining into
curves of tenderness. From the manse pew I watched keenly, for at
any moment a wonderful sight may be seen. A radiant smile will pass
from his lips to his eyes and spread over his face, as when the sun