At the usual hour Mr. Gray entered the church, but it seemed to those who so mournfully and affectionately watched him ascend the pulpit stair, that never had their minister looked so feeble and aged; never had his face seemed so worn and ill. As his sunken eye roamed over the sea of faces gathered round him, his tears suddenly overflowed, and departing from the usual routine of service, he folded his trembling hands, and said in broken and feeble tones, "Let us pray!" In the manse pew sat Jane Gray, who never since entering the church had once uplifted her face from her hands, and by her side her nephew Gavin, whose young face wore an expression of manly resolution, upon which many remarked. Adam Hepburn and his wile were also in their places, and there was none absent from the Hartrigge pew, at the head whereof sat Andrew Gray, erect and calm, with his arms folded across his breast, and a hard, stern expression on his face. And although his father’s prayer caused many a bursting sob to echo through the church, he sat unmoved, save when his lips convulsively twitched, telling of a storm of passion held in curb. The psalm was the eighty-fourth, the tune Dundee’s "wild wailing measure," fitting words, fitting music to express the tumultuous throbbings of the people’s heart. The minister then read the seventeenth chapter of John, slowly and with tremulous distinctness, and without remark or comment of any kind. Next they sang again a portion of the ninety-fourth psalm, then the minister gave out his text. "All these are the beginning of many sorrows." That sermon was never forgotten by any who heard it. It seemed as if the aged servant of God had risen above the frailty and feebleness of age, for as he proceeded his clear bell-like voice rang through the building with all the eloquence which had made such a stir among the dry bones in the earlier days of his ministry among them. He spoke passionately and prophetically of the sea of troubles upon which the Lord’s Zion was now launched, he forewarned them that the time was at hand when they would need to testify to their faithfulness with their blood, yet he bade them be of good cheer, because it was through great tribulation that the brightness of their eternal crown would be gained in joy.