It is the right of every Scot--secured to him by the Treaty of Union and confirmed by the Disruption--to criticise his minister with much freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he is not compelled to condemnation. "There wes naething wrang wi' the text," affords an excellent way of escape, and it is open to suggest efficiency in another department than the pulpit. "Mister MacWheep michtna be a special preacher, but there 's nae doot he wes a graund veesitor." Before Carmichael left the West Kirk, Edinburgh, where he served his apprenticeship as an assistant, a worthy elder called to bid him good-bye, and spoke faithfully, to the lad's great delight. "You have been very acceptable, wonderfully so for a young man, and we shall follow your career with much interest. It is right, however, to add, and you will accept this in a right spirit, that it was not by preaching that you commended yourself to our people, but by your visiting. Your sermons are what I might call . . . hazy--you will get a hold of the truth by-and-by, no doubt--but you have a gift for visitation." The exact quality and popularity of this gift was excellently stated by the wife of a working man, who referred with enthusiasm to the edifying character of the assistant's conversation. "Tammas misses Maister Carmichael juist terrible, for he wud come in on a forenicht an' sit, an' smoke, an' haver wi' the gude man by the 'oor. He wes the maist divertin' minister a' ever saw in the West Kirk."