great a burden on the lad, and that he could not be fit for such a
work. It wass not more than ten minutes before he will be trying to
tell us what he wass seeing, and will not hef the words. He had to
go down from the pulpit as a man that had been in the heavenly
places and wass stricken dumb.

"'It iss the Lord that has put me to shame this day,' he said to the
elders, 'and I will nefer show my face again in Auchindarroch, for I
ought not to have meddled with things too high for me.'

"'You will show your face here every Sabbath,' answered Angus Bain,
'for the Lord said unto me, "Wait for the man that trembles at the
Word, and iss not able to speak, and it will be a sign unto you,"'
and a fery goot minister he wass, and made the hypocrites in Zion to
be afraid."

Lachlan dealt tenderly with our young Free Kirk minister, for the
sake of his first day, and passed over some very shallow experience
without remark, but an autumn sermon roused him to a sense of duty.
For some days a storm of wind and rain had been stripping the leaves
from the trees and gathering them in sodden heaps upon the ground.
The minister looked out on the garden where many holy thoughts had
visited him, and his heart sank like lead, for it was desolate, and
of all its beauty there remained but one rose clinging to its stalk,
drenched and faded. It seemed as if youth, with its flower of
promise and hope, had been beaten down, and a sense of loneliness
fell on his soul. He had no heart for work, and crept to bed broken
and dispirited. During the night the rain ceased, and the north wind
began to blow, which cleanses nature in every pore, and braces each
true man for his battle. The morrow was one of those glorious days