We had no school chapel, and so most of the boarders attended the neighboring Church of St. Jude, under the charge of one of the masters. When it was my turn to perform this duty, I was at first delighted with the well-rendered musical service; but when that ceased to have the charm of novelty, I began to long for something to help me in my spiritual life, which I did not get there, either in the services or the sermons. The last named were, as a rule, nice little theological essays, couched in beautiful English, and delivered in the well-modulated tones characteristic of the typical young English cleric. I often wished these highly-respectable, well-bred people in the pews around me could have listened to one of the rugged bursts of whole-souled, impassioned eloquence to which the Glenconan folks were accustomed, Sunday after Sunday, from their saintly and devoted, if somewhat narrow-minded, pastor, in the “Auld Licht Kirk.” Do not imagine that I was captious, or oven-critical, or discontented; I was simply in that delicate condition when one needs all the spiritual nourishment that can be given, and I was only offered husks. Somehow or other I could not help feeling that a crisis was imminent, and yet I could not have diagnosed the symptoms. Everything around me was commonplace enough; still, crises often spring from the commonplace. One fine Saturday afternoon in autumn I was searching for fossils in a disused quarry, and I was so absorbed in my work that I was not aware of any one being near me till I heard a familiar voice addressing me: “Weel, Mr. Gray, and what do ye think you are doin’?” I turned, and saw Tom Laidlaw’s honest, pawky face looking down upon me from the bank overhead. “Why, Tom,” I said, “I was just trying my hand at practical geology. But, I’ve had enough for one day; let’s have a rest and a chat.” A few minutes, and we were seated together on a nice mossy knoll. “Is it not wonderful, Tom, how one can read the past history of life on the earth from the layers of dead matter buried beneath the surface?”