This class of functionaries were very free in their remarks upon the preaching of strangers, who used occasionally to occupy the pulpit of their church--the city betherals speaking sometimes in a most condescending manner of clergy from the provincial parishes. As, for example, a betheral of one of the large churches in Glasgow, criticising the sermon of a minister from the country who had been preaching in the city church, characterised it as "gude coorse country wark." A betheral of one of the churches of St. Giles, Edinburgh, used to call on the family of Mr. Robert Stevenson, engineer, who was one of the elders. On one occasion they asked him what had been the text on such a night, when none of the family had been present. The man of office, confused at the question, and unwilling to show anything like ignorance, poured forth, "Weel, ye see, the text last day was just entirely, sirs--yes--the text, sirs--what was it again?--ou ay, just entirely, ye see it was, 'What profiteth a man if he lose the world, and gain his own soul?'" Most of such stories are usually of an old standing. A more recent one has been told me of a betheral of a royal burgh much decayed from former importance, and governed by a feeble municipality of old men, who continued in office, and in fact constituted rather the shadow than the substance of a corporation. A clergyman from a distance having come to officiate in the parish church, the betheral, knowing the terms on which it was usual for the minister officiating to pray for the efficiency of the local magistracy, quietly cautioned the clergyman before service that, in regard to the town-council there, it would be quite out of place for him to pray that they should be a "terror to evil-doers," because, as he said, "the puir auld bodies could be nae terror to onybody." A minister of Easter Anstruther, during the last century, used to say of the magistrates of Wester Anstruther, that "instead of being a terror to evil-doers, evil-doers were a terror to them." The "minister's man" was a functionary well known in many parishes, and who often evinced much Scottish humour and original character. These men were (like the betheral) great critics of sermons, and often severe upon strangers, sometimes with a sly hit at their own minister. One of these, David, a well-known character, complimenting a young minister who had preached, told him, "Your introduction, sir, is aye grand; its worth a' the rest o' the sermon--could ye no mak it a' introduction?"