Peter McNabb saw the danger, and burst in with a not altogether irrelevant remark about there being thunder in the air; but he was too late; already Splinterin' Andra's stick had darted from its place like a sword from its scabbard. "Man!" he exclaimed, turning a face of righteous wrath upon the well-meaning young clergyman, "man! It's ma' opeenion, that wi' an instrument o' wund in the pulpit, we're no in great need o' anither in the congregation!" and sweeping a clattering shower of stones down the hill, he tramped away ahead, leaving consternation and dismay in his wake. Duncan Polite walked by his friend's side in silence. He sympathised deeply with Andrew's feelings, but this new disaster was like to break the old man's heart. But Andrew Johnstone was not done. "An organ!" He repeated the words with all the bitterness of his disappointed soul. "An organ! The Lord peety the kirk that has a fule for a meenister!" "Oh, you must not be saying that, Andra," said Duncan Polite. "The Lord will be a better judge than man----" But old Andrew interrupted him tempestuously. "Man, Duncan, Ah've kept it tae ma'sel for mony a day, but Ah jist canna bide it ony mair! Him an' his organ! Aye, he's after some bit balderdash a' the time. Ah tell ye the buddy's no got the root o' the matter in him! He can preach, aye, Ah'll no deny yon, but what's the gude o' what he's haverin' aboot? This mornin' he preached jist half an oor, aye, an' twenty meenits o' it taken up in provin' that Paul was a gude man, a thing that no the biggest fule in the Glen would gainsay, no, not even oor Andra'," he concluded sombrely. Duncan sighed. He had noticed that the sermons were steadily growing shorter. Indeed, from the first Sabbath of his pastorate the young minister had deliberately set himself to abbreviate the church service, commencing with the sermon. He had done it so gradually that he flattered himself it was unnoticed, but no one could depart one jot or one tittle from the ancient ways without the argus eye of the ruling elder spying out the offence. "Oh well, indeed," said Duncan Polite, "it would be a clever sermon, Andra, and I would be thinking he gave us some fine thoughts on Paul." "Paul!" cried the other with withering scorn. "Paul! and who sent out meenisters to preach Paul?" Duncan could not answer. John McAlpine Egerton was a clever speaker certainly, with much of his grandfather's fire, but to the brilliant discourses on the heroes of the Bible which had constituted his sermons lately Duncan had listened with a remote ache in his heart. For though Paul was a great apostle, and David the Lord's anointed King, who were they to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?