Years have passed away since that time; the Major’s “sweet leddy” has gone to the rest of Paradise; he himself, in obedience to the call of the Master, has exchanged his rank in the army of Great Britain for the rank of a priest in the Church of God, and is devoting his life to mission work in a large and busy centre of the fishing industry--but in dear little Carronmouth, where he began his work for Christ, old men love to speak of “The Major.” XII. The Burnin’ o’ the Kirk “Weel, man, I suppose I ought to have been wringing my hands and tearing my hair over this business, but, somehow or other, I wasna; I never breathed a mair fervent thanksgiving than I did on Sunday when I saw the flames burstin’ through the auld gray slates o’ the kirk.” “Are you sure, doctor, that ye’ didna happen--by accident, of course--to let fa’ a burnin’ match among the rubbish in the disused chancel?” “Whisht, man, dinna speak o’ sic a thing, for though I didna actually do it, I wished it wi’ a’ my heart. If wishing had onything to do wi’t, then I doot I maun plead guilty. But, come awa’ and see what’s left, and I think ye’ll be able to understand how I feel.” The doctor was the minister of a Presbyterian parish a few miles from Drumscondie, and his church, which had been burnt down on the previous Sunday by an overheated stovepipe, was the most ancient ecclesiastical structure in the whole Howe o’ the Mearns. He and I had been friends ever since I came into the district, and my visit on the present occasion was for the purpose of condoling with him over his loss; but, from the conversation already narrated, it will be seen that condolence was hardly needed, in so far at least as the worthy doctor was concerned. He was in many respects a very remarkable man. Those who only knew him in a casual kind of way regarded him as an enigma. He was loyal to the vows he had taken as a minister of the Presbyterian Establishment; but he held opinions concerning doctrine and Church order that savored rather of those of the Scotch Episcopal Church as taught by men of the type of saintly Bishop Jolly, than of the current teaching of his Presbyterian brethren. He had been in the same parish for nearly forty years; and as he had never been over-burdened with parochial duties, he had been able to indulge his taste for Church history and ecclesiology to the fullest extent. For years he had been burrowing in local archives, and was able, to his own satisfaction, to reconstruct mentally his own parish church as it stood in the days of Archbishop David de Bernham, of St. Andrew’s, by whom it was consecrated in the fourteenth century. To me it was always a great treat to visit the old man. His scholarship was so accurate that one could not fail to be benefited by intercourse with him. No sooner were we standing inside the blackened walls than he began to wax eloquent over the beauties of the architecture that had been disclosed by the work of the flames.