which he probably meant Gillespie. Nearly opposite Balhousie, which has suggested this digression, across the Tay, peeps out the house of Springlands, which reminds me how Perth has been the cradle of a sect. The Sandemans of Springlands in my youth exhibited some marked religious leanings, but none of them, I think, followed the doctrine of their ancestor. The sect in question was founded in the days of early methodism by John Glass, a Scottish clergyman; but his son-in-law, Robert Sandeman, proved so much the Paul of the new faith by preaching it as far as America, that there, as in England, the body is known as Sandemanians, while in Scotland they still sometimes bear the original name Glassites. Their most famous member was Michael Faraday, who preached in the London meeting-house. Its doctrine had, like Plymouth Brethrenism, a strange attraction for old Indian officers, who, cut off from home influences, repelled by surrounding heathenism, and their brains perhaps a little addled by the sun, have often been led to read odd meanings into revelations and prophecies, studied late in life. There used to be a detachment of retired veterans encamped about Perth as headquarters of their Bethel, whose wives and children, in some cases, attended the Episcopal Chapel. A peculiarity of their belief was an absolute horror of being present at any alien worship, even family prayers, as I could show from some striking instances. This must have borne hard on soldier converts, who, in the army, are allowed a choice of only three forms of worship. “No fancy religions in the service,” growled the sergeant to a recruit who professed himself a Seventh Day Baptist: “fall in with the Roman Catholics!” Another note of the Sandemanians was an unwillingness to communicate their views, what even seemed a resentfulness of inquiry by outsiders. Disraeli excused a similar trait in the Jews by the dry remark, “The House of Lords does not seek converts.” I once in the innocent confidence of youth asked a Glassite leader to enlighten me as to their faith, and was snubbed with a short “The doors are open.” But I never heard of any stranger trusting himself within the doors of that meeting-house. Report gave out a love-feast as a main function, from which the sect got “kailites” as a nickname. The kiss of peace, it was understood, went round; and ribald jesters represented the presiding official as obliged to exhort, “Dinna pass over the auld wife!” This much one can truly say of the congregation, that they were kind and helpful to each other, a Glassite in distress being unknown in the Fair City, where they had adherents in all classes. As for their spiritual exclusiveness, against that reproach may be set the old story of the “burgher” lass who, having once attended an “anti-burgher” service with her lad, was rebuked by her own kirk-session for the sin of “promiscuous hearing.”