so, John, I understand you have become an Independent?” “’Deed, sir,” replied John, “that’s true.”  “Oh, John,” said the minister, “I’m sure you ken that a rowin’ (rolling) stane gathers nae fog” (moss).  “Ay,” said John, “that’s true too; but can ye tell me what guid the fog does to the stane?” Mr. Shireff himself afterwards became a Baptist.  The wit, however, was all in favour of the minister in the following:—­

Dr. Gilchrist, formerly of the East Parish of Greenock, and who died minister of the Canongate, Edinburgh, received an intimation of one of his hearers who had been exceedingly irregular in his attendance that he had taken seats in an Episcopal chapel.  One day soon after, he met his former parishioner, who told him candidly that he had “changed his religion.”  “Indeed,” said the Doctor quietly; “how’s that?  I ne’er heard ye had ony.”  It was this same Dr. Gilchrist who gave the well-known quiet but forcible rebuke to a young minister whom he considered rather conceited and fond of putting forward his own doings, and who was to officiate in the Doctor’s church.  He explained to him the mode in which he usually conducted the service, and stated that he always finished the prayer before the sermon with the Lord’s Prayer.  The young minister demurred at this, and asked if he “might not introduce any other short prayer?” “Ou ay,” was the Doctor’s quiet reply, “gif ye can gie us onything better.”

There is a story current of a sharp hit at the pretensions of a minister who required a little set down.  The scene was on a Monday by a burn near Inverness.  A stranger is fishing by a burn-side one Monday morning, when the parish minister accosts him from the other side of the stream thus:—­“Good sport?” “Not very.”  “I am also an angler,” but, pompously, “I am a fisher of men.”  “Are you always successful?” “Not very.”  “So I guessed, as I keeked into your creel[180] yesterday.”

At Banchory, on Deeside, some of the criticisms and remarks on sermons were very quaint and characteristic.  My cousin had asked the Leys grieve what he thought of a young man’s preaching, who had been more successful in appropriating the words than the ideas of Dr. Chalmers.  He drily answered, “Ou, Sir Thomas, just a floorish o’ the surface.”  But the same hearer bore this unequivocal testimony to another preacher whom he really admired.  He was asked if he did not think the sermon long:  “Na, I should nae hae thocht it lang an’ I’d been sitting on thorns.”

I think the following is about as good a sample of what we call Scotch “pawky” as any I know:—­A countryman had lost his wife and a favourite cow on the same day.  His friends consoled him for the loss of the wife; and being highly respectable, several hints and offers were made towards getting another for him.  “Ou ay,” he at length replied; “you’re a’ keen aneuch to get me anither wife, but no yin o’ ye offers to gie me anither coo.”