"And now my faithful and well beloved flock, the time has come for me to bid you farewell," he added in conclusion. "In the ordinary course of nature I could not expect to minister to you for a much more lengthened space. As it is, the fiat has gone forth, not from the Eternal King, but from the poor despicable worm who sits upon an earthly throne that you and I, beloved, shall no more worship together within this place. Looking upon its walls to-day for the last time I know how unspeakably dear it is to me. It is peopled with rich and hallowed memories of the past. In this place I have baptised many of you as children, and here, my own children, now worshipping with you, were all consecrated and received into the Lord’s Church. Beloved, from Sabbath to Sabbath these many years I have broken the Bread of Life in your midst, and God be my witness that I have expounded the Word to you in accordance with the light vouchsafed to my own soul. I have also had sweet counsel with you in your own homes, in the ordinary course of pastoral visitation, and I call you to witness that in these visitations I have never failed to be faithful in my personal dealings, when I saw it to be for the glory of God, and for the good of souls. Beloved, all that has come to an end. Next Sabbath day neither you nor I will worship within these walls. When or how the doors will again be thrown open for public worship I cannot say. I tremble when I think upon our now desolate Kirk of Scotland, cast out from her heritage, and bidden make her habitation in the wilderness. It is not for me now, and in this place, to say what will be the reward of these sons of Belial, who have wrought this woe in our midst. ’Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’ Brethren, farewell. I would my tongue could utter what is in my heart this day. It is with no common sorrow I repeat the words; Brethren, farewell." The minister ceased, and looked with eyes of unutterable love upon the sobbing multitude. There was no dry eye in the assembly, save that of Andrew Gray the younger, and his seemed to burn with a strange and lurid fire. His hands beneath the book board were so firmly clenched together that the nails were sunk into the flesh. In the midst of these audible tokens of grief, the minister raised his trembling hands, and in slow, clear, solemn tones, breathed upon them his last benediction. Then he sank back in the pulpit, wholly overcome. The scene I have just described was no solitary instance; in its main features it was being enacted that day in almost every kirk and parish in Scotland.