He gave much watchful attention to the Sabbath schools--“Sunday” was a word he abhorred--and between the Collector and the younger people engaged in that work there was almost constant conflict, which extended to every detail, and came to a head over the matter of entertainments. It was their belief that once a year it was necessary for the success and well-being of a Sabbath school that the children should be gathered on an evening and fed with tea and buns, and afterwards elevated by magic slides representing various amusing situations in life and concluding with a vivid picture of rats disappearing into a gaping man's mouth, which opened to receive them with a jerk. The fact that this festivity was opened and closed with a hymn in no way sanctified it in the eyes of the Collector, who declared it to be without any Scripture warrant and injurious to true religion, as well as--and this was hardly less important--quite without sanction by the laws of the Kirk. By sheer force of will--the weight of a silent, obstinate uncompromising nature, he brought the “treats”--very modest, innocent, if not particularly refined efforts to give some brightness to the life of the poor children in Muirtown--to an end, and in place thereof he provided, at his own expense, views of the mission stations of the world, with a gratuitous distribution of missionary literature. This was endured for three years with much discontent and with sudden and disorderly demands for the rats in place of the interesting although somewhat monotonous faces of Chinese Christians, and then the rebellion was organized which had so unexpected and felicitous a result The party of the Juniors, some of them approaching forty years of age, took a covenant that they would stand by one another, and they made their plan that upon a certain evening in March they would gather together their corps of Muirtown Arabs and feed them with dainties even unto the extent of raisins and oranges. They were not unconscious that oranges, on account of their pronounced colour, would be an offence to the Collector, and that that estimable man had already referred to this fruit, as a refreshment at a religious meeting, in terms of deep contempt; and there would not only be a magic lantern with scenes of war and sport, to say nothing of amusement, but also a sacred cantata to be sung by the children. When the Collector heard of the programme, he grasped the situation at once, and knew that in the coming battle quarter could not be given--that the “Reds” would be completely reduced to subordination, or that a severely constitutional monarchy would be finally closed. This was indeed the general opinion; and when the Juniors appeared before the Session to present their ultimatum, nothing but a sense of decency prevented the Free North attending in a body, and Bailie MacCallum took a gloomy view of the issue.