William Riddell passed the whole of his examinations, and was, as the students say, "ready for a church." Nor was he long in procuring one. Among the friends to whom his genius and character had recommended him was a nobleman, who had the gift of the very kirk to which William and his father had been accustomed to resort. The incumbent died; the nobleman presented the living to William. With the new duties which now devolved upon him, came a crowd of new feelings and springs of action. He gave up his engagement with the literary periodical, he retired from his social companions, and he devoted himself to grave and worthy study and contemplation. The struggle was severe; but he bore up against it under the excitement of the new responsibility which had fallen upon him. He went down to the country with some of the most distinguished members of the Scottish Church, who officiated at his ordination. A proud, a tumultuously happy day was it for old David Riddell, who, with wonder and awe, felt his horny hand grasped by the great men whose very names he had considered subservient to his happiness of old time, and beheld his son, little William, the boy whom he had taught the alphabet upon Scaurhope Hill, with the pebbles that lie there--beheld him holding high discourse with these same dignitaries, saw that his opinions were listened to with respect, and that his thoughts, according as they were solemn or ludicrous, were responded to by these great men with gravity or broad grins. A delightful day was it to the old shepherd, as he beheld the first man in the General Assembly--the greatest man in the Scottish Kirk--lay his hand upon the youthful head of his beloved son, and consecrate him to the care of the souls who dwelt in the very valley where he had been born and reared, in which his genius was known, and his family, though humble, respected. There was another, and an equally strong reason, for William's giving up his convivial habits and boisterous companions. He was in love.