"The only reason that I can find why St. Andrew is so closely connected with Scotland," replied Mr. Cruikshanks, whose speech was not a little infected with the dialect of southern Scotland, but is here rendered in modern English for the sake of the readers, "is found in most ancient history--it may be legendary. It is this: "Faithful to the farewell commission of his Master, whom he saw ascend from the brow of Olivet and received into heaven, Andrew spent his missionary life in Scythia and Achaia, and in Patræ, one of its principal cities, he founded a branch of the Church, the success of which brought down upon him the vengeance of the heathen governor, who caused him to be crucified. He was tied to a cross of olive wood in the form of the letter X. He endured the prolonged agonies of hunger and thirst and pain for many days, until at last the strong heart gave its last beat and his spirit fled to the side of the glorified Christ. "A woman of wealth and rank obtained possession of the body. The congregation with sorrowing hearts buried it in the little church. There it lay in undisturbed repose during the long stretch of three hundred years. "Wholesale massacres swept myriads of Christians into martyr graves until a Christian emperor came to the throne, who ordered a great and gorgeous temple to be erected in memory of the apostle in Constantinople. "Constantine commanded the presiding presbyter"---- "Bishop, you mean," interrupted the rector. "Presbyter, sir," said the Scotchman, firmly, "of the little church at Petræ to deliver up the body of the martyred apostle that it might rest till the glorious resurrection morn in the grandest mausoleum that Imperial hands could build for it. "Three days before the messengers arrived, Regulus, the presbyter, dreamed that a messenger from a greater than Constantine ordered him to open the tomb of the saint and to remove part of its contents and hide them in another place. This he did, and the remainder of the body was removed to Constantinople. "Some time afterwards Regulus had another dream, when the same messenger appeared to him and warned him to depart from Petrae, and to take with him the bones which he had concealed and to sail to a port to which God would safely guide him. "Regulus obeyed, and was accompanied by sixteen presbyters and three devout deaconesses, who set sail not knowing whither to steer their course. "Tossed up and down in Adria, driven by the wind through the dreaded pillars of Hercules, dashed hither and thither in the surging Bay of Biscay, whirled northward by furious hurricanes over the English Channel and the German Ocean, they found themselves shipwrecked in a bay, afterwards known as the Bay of St. Andrews, on the east of Scotland. All else but the precious relics lost, they with difficulty gained the shore.