give alms of all I possess--in especial to the public charities; I make long prayers,--my very best friends often urge on me that my vast labours, weekly and daily, are undermining my strength; I fast often,--I have guaranteed the payment of three thousand pounds for the West Kirk, and three-fourths of my stipend have gone this year to the liquidation of self-imposed liabilities. True, I will be _eventually repaid_,--that is, if my people don't leave me; _but I have no other security beyond my confidence in the goodness of the cause, and the continued liberality of my countrymen_.' And in this style would the reverend gentleman have continued down to the bottom of the fifth page in his first Dialogue, had it not been for a singularly portentous and terrible interruption. The haunted Tomnahurich rose, as we have said, immediately behind us, leafy and green; and not one of its multitude of boughs trembled in the sunshine. Suddenly, however, the hill-side began to move. There was a low deep noise like distant thunder; and straightway the _débris_ of a landslip came rolling downwards, half obliterating in its course the circle of the conjurer. Turf, and clay, and stone lay in a mingled ruin at our feet; and wriggling in the midst, like a huge blue-bottle in an old cobweb, there was a reverend gentleman dressed in black. He gathered himself up, sprung deftly to his feet, and stood fronting the conjurer. Wonderful to relate, the man in black proved to be the veritable Mr. Clark of three years ago--Mr. Clark of 1840--Mr. Clark who published the great non-intrusion discourse, who wrote the _Rights of Members_, who spoke the long anti-patronage speeches, who led the debate in the Assembly anent the rights of the people, and who declared it clear as day that the Church had power to enact the Veto. The conjurer started backwards like a man who receives a mortal wound: the two little figures uttered a thin scrannel shriek apiece, and then slunk out of existence. 'Avoid ye,' exclaimed the conjurer, 'Avoid ye! _Conjuro te, conjuro te!_' He then went on to mutter, as if by way of exorcism, in low and very rapid tones, 'I have no anxiety to refute the charge of inconsistency, which some have endeavoured to fasten on me, from detached portions of what I have written or spoken, during several years, on what may be termed Church politics. In matters not essential to salvation, increased light or advanced experience may properly produce change of sentiment in the most enlightened and conscientious Christian. For a man to assert that he is subject to no change, is to lay claim to one of the perfections----' _Dialogue 1st_, p. 6. 'And so you won't go out,' said the true Mr. Clark, interrupting him.