So it came to pass that it was to this unlikely man Carmichael told his new-born love, and he was amazed at the understanding of the Rabbi, as well as his sympathy and toleration. "A maid of spirit--and that is an excellent thing; and any excess will be tamed by life. Only see to it that ye agree in that which lieth beneath all churches and maketh souls one in God. May He prosper you in your wooing as He did the patriarch Jacob, and far more abundantly." Very early in the morning Carmichael awoke, and being tempted by the sunrise, arose and went downstairs. As he came near the study door he heard a voice in prayer, and knew that the Rabbi had been all night in intercession. "Thou hast denied me wife and child; deny me not Thyself. . . . A stranger Thou hast made me among men; refuse me not a place in the City. . . . Deal graciously with this lad who has been to me as a son in the Gospel. . . . He has not despised an old man; put not his heart to confusion. . . ." Carmichael crept upstairs again, but not to sleep, and at breakfast he pledged the Rabbi to come up some day and see Kate Carnegie. CHAPTER XIII. PREPARING FOR THE SACRAMENT. English folk have various festivals in the religious year, as becometh a generous country, but in our austere and thrifty Glen there was only one high day, and that was Sacrament Sabbath. It is rumoured--but one prefers not to believe scandals--that the Scottish Kirk nowadays is encouraging a monthly Sacrament, after which nothing remains in the way of historical declension except for people to remain for the Sacrament as it may occur to them, and for men like Drumsheugh to get up at meetings to give their religious experiences, when every one that has any understanding will know that the reserve has gone out of Scottish character, and the reverence from Scottish faith. Dr. Davidson's successor, a boisterous young man of bourgeois manners, elected by popular vote, has got guilds, where Hillocks' granddaughter reads papers on Emerson and refers to the Free Kirk people as Dissenters, but things were different in the old days before the Revolution. The Doctor had such unquestioning confidence in himself that he considered his very presence a sufficient defence for the Kirk, and was of such perfect breeding that he regarded other Kirks with unbroken charity. He was not the man to weary the parish with fussy little schemes, and he knew better than level down the Sacrament. It was the summit of the year to which the days climbed, from which they fell away, and it was held in the middle of August. Then nature was at her height in the Glen, and had given us of her fulness. The barley was golden, and, rustling in the gentle wind, wearied for the scythe; the oats were changing daily, and had only so much greenness as would keep the feathery heads firm for the handling; the potatoes having received the last touch of the plough, were well banked up and flowering pleasantly;