want onything the day, Maister Auld; I wanted to tell you an awsome dream I hae had.  I dreamt I was deed.”  “Weel, what then?” said Dr. Auld.  “Ou, I was carried far, far, and up, up, up, till I cam to heeven’s yett, where I chappit, and chappit, and chappit, till at last an angel keekit out, and said ‘Wha are ye?’ ’A’m puir Rab Hamilton.’  ‘Whaur are ye frae?’ ‘Frae the wicked toun o’ Ayr.’  ‘I dinna ken ony sic place,’ said the angel.  ’Oh, but A’m juist frae there,’ Weel, the angel sends for the Apostle Peter, and Peter comes wi’ his key and opens the yett, and says to me, ’Honest man, do you come frae the auld toun o’ Ayr?’ ‘Deed do I,’ says I.  ‘Weel,’ says Peter, ’I ken the place, but naebody’s cam frae the toun o’ Ayr, no since the year’” so and so—­mentioning the year when Dr. Auld was inducted into the parish.  Dr. Auld could not resist giving him his answer, and telling him to go about his business.

The pathetic complaint of one of this class, residing at a farm-house, has often been narrated, and forms a good illustration of idiot life and feelings.  He was living in the greatest comfort, and every want provided.  But, like the rest of mankind, he had his own trials, and his own cause for anxiety and annoyance.  In this poor fellow’s case it was the great turkey-cock at the farm, of which he stood so terribly in awe that he was afraid to come within a great distance of his enemy.  Some of his friends, coming to visit him, reminded him how comfortable he was, and how grateful he ought to be for the great care taken of him.  He admitted the truth of the remark generally, but still, like others, he had his unknown grief which sorely beset his path in life.  There was a secret grievance which embittered his lot; and to his friend he thus opened his heart:—­“Ae, ae, but oh, I’m sair hadden doun wi’ the bubbly jock[171].”

I have received two anecdotes illustrative both of the occasional acutenesss of mind, and of the sensitiveness of feeling occasionally indicated by persons thus situated.  A well-known idiot, Jamie Fraser, belonging to the parish of Lunan, in Forfarshire, quite surprised people sometimes by his replies.  The congregation of his parish church had for some time distressed the minister by their habit of sleeping in church.  He had often endeavoured to impress them with a sense of the impropriety of such conduct, and one day Jamie was sitting in the front gallery, wide awake, when many were slumbering round him.  The clergyman endeavoured to draw the attention of his hearers to his discourse by stating the fact, saying, “You see even Jamie Fraser, the idiot, does not fall asleep, as so many of you are doing.”  Jamie, not liking, perhaps, to be thus designated, coolly replied, “An I hadna been an idiot, I micht ha’ been sleepin’ too.”  Another of these imbeciles, belonging to Peebles, had been sitting at church for some time listening attentively to a strong representation from the pulpit of the guilt