The herald., 1897-10-31

COLLEGE DAYS.

1t was while we continued to sojourn
| in Edinburgh for the protection of Tile
convention, that first 1 began to turn
my mind to the stated ministry of the
Kirk. For I saw we'll that this soldier
ing work must ere long come to an end.
And yet all my heart went out toward
something better than the hewing of
peats upon the moor and the foddering
of oxen in stall.
Yet for long could not see how the
matter was to be accomplished, for the
Cameronian Hill-Folk had never had
minister since James Renwick bade
his farewell to sun and moon, down in
the Edinburgh Grassmarket. There
was none in Scotland capable of or
daining a Cameronian minister; L knew
how impossible it was that l could go
to Holland. as Renwick and Inning
and Shields had done, at the expense
of the Societies. For the way of some
| of these men had even now begun to
sour and disgust Elders of the So
| cieties.
So, since no better might be, I turned
my mind to the ministry of the Re-
formed Kirk as it had been established
by law, and resolved to spend my need
full seasons as a student of the theolo-
gies in the town of Edinburgh. l spoke
to my father of my decision, and he
was willing that I should try the work.
Il will gladly be at your college
charges, Quintin,' he said; "but mind,
lad, it will depend how ] sell my sheep,
whether ye get muckle to put in your
belly. Yet perchance, as the auld saw
hath it, hungry dogs hunt best. So
mayhap that may likewise hold true
of the getting of learning
So in the autumn of that year of the
convention, and some months after our
return, I made me ready to go to col
lege. and to my infinite surprise Hob
my brother, declared that he would
come also.
"For" said he, my father needs me
not now at home. at least till the spring
and the lambing time"
My father demurred a little. But
Hob got his way because he had, as
we'll saw my mother behind him. Now
Hob was (and is) the best of brothers,
slow, placid, self-contained, with little
humor in him, but filled with a great,
quiet faithfulness. And he has abode
with me through many tears and stern
trials.
So in due time to Edinburgh we went,
and while l trudged it back and forth
to the college, Hob bought with his
savings a pedler's pack and travelled
town and country with swatches Of
cloth, taches for the hair, pins for the
dresses of women-folk, and for the
men, chap-books and Testaments But
the strange thing is that, slow and ST.
lent as our Hob is at most times, ne
could yet make his way with the good
wives of the Lothians as not one That
had been bred to the trade could DO.
They tell me he was nightly success
full.
I only know that many day we two
might have gone hungry to bed had it
not been for what Hob brought home,
and often when my heart was down
with the dull and dowie days, the hard
ness of nv heart, and the wryness of
learning. Hob would come in with
lightsome uuirk on his queer face, or
lest on his tongue picked up i'm some
of the outlying villages, so that I could
not help but smile, which made the
learning all the easier afterward.
Yet the hardest part of my sore toll
at COlleSe Was tiio 'ho"Sh1 eHo'e 'iiS
more l Travelled at the theologies, the
less of living religion was in my soul.
Indeed, it was not till had been back
sometime among the common folk, who
sin and die and are buried, that I be-
gan again to taste vital religion as OF
old. For to my thinking there is no
more goddess class than just the young
collegers in divinity. Nor is this a
mock as Hob would have made of 1t,
saying with his queer smile, "Quintin,
what think ye O. mission to the hea-
then divinity lads-to set the fire o hell
to their tails, even as Peden the Pro-
phet bade Richie Cameron do to the
thieves O. Annandale?'
(Note by Hob Mac Clellan)