"A fery nice speaker, and well pleased with himself. But I would be
thinking, when he wass giving his images. Oh yes, I would be
thinking. There was a laddie feeshing in the burn before my house,
and a fery pretty laddie he wass. He had a rod and a string, and he
threw his line peautiful. It wass a great peety he had no hook, for
it iss a want, and you do not catch many fish without a hook. But I
shall be glad that you are pleased, sir, and all the elders."
These were only passing incidents, and left no trace, but the rebuke
Donald gave to Burnbrae will be told while an elder lives. One of
the last of the old mystical school, which trace their descent from
Samuel Rutherford, had described the great mystery of our Faith with
such insight and pathos, that Donald had stood by the table weeping
gently, and found himself afterwards in the manse, he knew not how.
The silence was more than could be borne, and his former
responsibility fell on Burnbrae.
"It wes wonnerful, and I canna mind hearing the like o' yon at the
tables; but I wes sorry to see the Doctor sae failed. He wes bent
twa fad; a' doot it's a titch o' rheumatism, or maybe lumbago."
Johannine men are subject to sudden flashes of anger, and Donald
blazed.
"Bent down with rheumatism, iss that what you say? Oh yes, it will
be rheumatism. Hass the sight of your eyes left you, and hef you no
discernment? Did ye not see that he was bowed to the very table with
the power of the Word? for it was a fire in his bones, and he was
baptised with the Holy Ghost."
When the elders gathered in the vestry, the minister asked what time
the preacher might have for his evening sermon, and Donald again
burst forth:
"I am told that in towns the Gospel goes by minutes, like the trains
at the stations; but there iss no time-table here, for we shall wait
till the sun goes down to hear all things God will be sending by His
servant."
Good memories differ about the text that Sacrament evening, and the
length of the sermon, but all hold as a treasure for ever what
happened when the book was closed. The people were hushed into a
quiet that might be felt, and the old man, swayed by the spirit of
the Prophets, began to repeat the blessings and curses in the Bible
between Genesis and Revelation, and after each pair he cried with
heart-piercing voice, "Choose this day which ye will take," till
Donald could contain himself no longer.
"Here iss the man who hass deserved all the curses, and here iss the
man who chooses all the blessings."
Our fathers had no turn for sensation, but they had an unerring
sense of a spiritual situation. The preacher paused for five
seconds, while no man could breathe, and then lifting up his hand to
Heaven he said, with an indescribable authority and tenderness, "The
Lord fulfil the desire of your heart both in this world and in that
which is to come."
Then the congregation sang, after the ancient custom of our parts,
"Now blessed be the Lord our God,
The God of Israel,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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