There were times, sparse and special occasions, when the Doctor himself made one of the congregation.  Then he would lean back luxuriously in the corner of his own pew, his wiry little form half-lost in the upholstery his arms folded, his knees crossed, his face all humorous indulgence; yes, humorous.  At the announcement of the text a twinkle would lodge in the shrewd grey eyes and a smile but half-suppressed would settle about the corners of the flexible mouth:  he knew what the young fellow there would be at.  And as the young fellow proceeded, his points would be weighed to the accompaniment of the Doctor’s pendent foot, which moved perpetually, judiciously; while the smile sometimes deepened, sometimes lapsed, since there were moments when any young fellow had to be taken seriously.  It was an attitude which only the Doctor was privileged to adopt thus outwardly; but in private it was imitated all up and down the aisles, where responsible heads of families sat considering the quality of the manna that was offered them.  When it fell from the lips of Mr Finlay the verdict was, upon the whole, very favourable, as long as there was no question of comparison with the Doctor.

There could be, indeed, very little question of such comparison.  There was a generation between them and a school, and to that you had to add every set and cast of mind and body that can make men different.  Dr Drummond, in faith and practice, moved with precision along formal and implicit lines; his orbit was established, and his operation within it as unquestionable as the simplest exhibit of nature.  He took in a wonderful degree the stamp of the teaching of his adolescent period; not a line was missing nor a precept; nor was the mould defaced by a single wavering tendency of later date.  Religious doctrine was to him a thing for ever accomplished, to be accepted or rejected as a whole.  He taught eternal punishment and retribution, reconciling both with Divine love and mercy; he liked to defeat the infidel with the crashing question, “Who then was the architect of the Universe?” The celebrated among such persons he pursued to their deathbeds; Voltaire and Rousseau owed their reputation, with many persons in Knox Church, to their last moments and to Dr Drummond.  He had a triumphant invective which drew the mind from chasms in logic, and a tender sense of poetic beauty which drew it, when he quoted great lines, from everything else.  He loved the euphony of the Old Testament; his sonorous delivery would lift a chapter from Isaiah to the height of ritual, and every Psalm he read was a Magnificat whether he would or no.  The warrior in him was happy among the Princes of Issachar; and the parallels he would find for modern events in the annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding.  Yet he kept a sharp eye upon the daily paper, and his reference to current events would often give his listeners an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have been easily discounted by the argument they illustrated.