and he wrote that evening, like one inspired, on the same parable of nature Jesus loved, with its subtle interpretation of our sorrows, joys, trust, and hope. People told me that it was a "rael bonnie sermon," and that Netherton had forgotten his after-sermon snuff, although it was his turn to pass the box to Burnbrae. The minister returned to his study in a fine glow of body and soul, to find a severe figure standing motionless in the middle of the room. "Wass that what you call a sermon?" said Lachlan Campbell, without other greeting. John Carmichael was still so full of joy that he did not catch the tone, and explained with college pedantry that it was hardly a sermon, nor yet a lecture. "You may call it a meditation." "I will be calling it an essay without one bite of grass for starving sheep." Then the minister awoke from a pleasant dream, as if one had flung cold water on his naked body. "What was wrong?" with an anxious look at the stern little man who of a sudden had become his judge. "There wass nothing right, for I am not thinking that trees and leaves and stubble fields will save our souls, and I did not hear about sin and repentance and the work of Christ. It iss sound doctrine that we need, and a great peety you are not giving it." The minister had been made much of in college circles, and had a fair idea of himself. He was a kindly lad, but he did not see why he should be lectured by an old Highlandman who read nothing except Puritans, and was blind with prejudice. When they parted that Sabbath afternoon it was the younger man that had lost his temper, and the other did not offer to shake hands. Perhaps the minister would have understood Lachlan better if he had known that the old man could not touch food when he got home, and spent the evening in a fir wood praying for the lad he had begun to love. And Lachlan would have had a lighter heart if he had heard the minister questioning himself whether he had denied the Evangel or sinned against one of Christ's disciples. They argued together; they prayed apart. Lachlan was careful to say nothing, but the congregation felt that his hand was against the minister, and Burnbrae took him to task. "Ye maunna be ower hard on him, Maister Campbell, for he's but young, and comin' on fine. He hes a hearty word for ilka body on the road, and the sicht o' his fresh young face in the poopit is a sermon itsel'." "You are wrong, Burnbrae, if you will be thinking that my heart iss not warm to the minister, for it went out unto him from the day he preached his first sermon. But the Lord regardeth not the countenance of man." "Nae doot, nae doot, but I canna see onything wrang in his doctrine; it wudna be reasonable tae expect auld-fashioned sermons frae a young man, and I wud coont them barely honest. A'm no denying that he gaes far afield, and taks us tae strange lands when he's on his travels, but ye 'ill acknowledge that he gaithers mony treasures, and he aye comes back tae Christ."