uncommon.  One saying of the professor, however, out of the pulpit, is too good to be omitted, and may be recorded without violation of propriety.  He happened to meet at the house of a lawyer, whom he considered rather a man of sharp practice, and for whom he had no great favour, two of his own parishioners.  The lawyer jocularly and ungraciously put the question; “Doctor, these are members of your flock; may I ask, do you look upon them as white sheep or as black sheep?” “I don’t know,” answered the professor drily, “whether they are black or white sheep, but I know that if they are long here they are pretty sure to be fleeced.”

It was a pungent answer given by a Free Kirk member who had deserted his colours and returned to the old faith.  A short time after the Disruption, the Free Church minister chanced to meet him who had then left him and returned to the Established Church.  The minister bluntly accosted him—­“Ay, man, John, an’ ye’ve left us; what micht be your reason for that?  Did ye think it wasna a guid road we was gaun?” “Ou, I daursay it was a guid eneuch road and a braw road; but, O minister, the tolls were unco high.”

The following story I received from a member of the Penicuik family:—­Dr. Ritchie, who died minister of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, was, when a young man, tutor to Sir G. Clerk and his brothers.  Whilst with them, the clergyman of the parish became unable, from infirmity and illness, to do his duty, and Mr. Ritchie was appointed interim assistant.  He was an active young man, and during his residence in the country had become fond of fishing, and was a good shot.  When the grouse-shooting came round, his pupils happened to be laid up with a fever, so Mr. Ritchie had all the shooting to himself.  One day he walked over the moor so far that he became quite weary and footsore.  On returning home he went into a cottage, where the good woman received him kindly, gave him water for his feet, and refreshment.  In the course of conversation, he told her he was acting as assistant minister of the parish, and he explained how far he had travelled in pursuit of game, how weary he was, and how completely knocked up he was.  “Weel, sir, I dinna doubt ye maun be sair travelled and tired wi’ your walk.”  And then she added, with sly reference to his profession, “’Deed, sir, I’m thinkin’ ye micht hae travelled frae Genesis to Revelation and no been sae forfauchten[182].”

Scotch people in general are, like this old woman, very jealous, as might be expected, of ministers joining the sportsman to their pastoral character.  A proposal for the appointment of a minister to a particular parish, who was known in the country as a capital shot, called forth a rather neat Scottish pun, from an old woman of the parish, who significantly observed, “’Deed, Kilpaatrick would hae been a mair appropriate place for him.” Paatrick is Scotch for partridge.

I cannot do better in regard to the three following anecdotes of the late Professor Gillespie of St. Andrews, than give them to my readers in the words with which Dr. Lindsay Alexander kindly communicated them to me.