A more determined objection to giving a categorical answer occurred, as I have been assured, in regard to a more profound question.  A party travelling on a railway got into deep discussion on theological questions.  Like Milton’s spirits in Pandemonium, they had

                         “Reason’d high
     Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate—­
     Fix’d fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute;
     And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost.”

A plain Scotsman present seemed much interested in these matters, and having expressed himself as not satisfied with the explanations which had been elicited in the course of discussion on a particular point regarding predestination, one of the party said to him that he had observed a minister, whom they all knew, in the adjoining compartment, and that when the train stopped at the next station a few minutes, he could go and ask his opinion.  The good man accordingly availed himself of the opportunity to get hold of the minister, and lay their difficulty before him.  He returned in time to resume his own place, and when they had started again, the gentleman who had advised him, finding him not much disposed to voluntary communication, asked if he had seen the minister.  “O ay,” he said, “he had seen him.”  “And did you propose the question to him?” “O ay.”  “And what did he say?” “Oh, he just said he didna ken; and what was mair he didna care!”

I have received the four following admirable anecdotes, illustrative of dry Scottish pawky humour, from an esteemed minister of the Scottish Church, the Rev. W. Mearns of Kinneff.  I now record them nearly in the same words as his own kind communication.  The anecdotes are as follow:—­An aged minister of the old school, Mr. Patrick Stewart, one Sunday took to the pulpit a sermon without observing that the first leaf or two were so worn and eaten away that he couldn’t decipher or announce the text.  He was not a man, however, to be embarrassed or taken aback by a matter of this sort, but at once intimated the state of matters to the congregation,—­“My brethren, I canna tell ye the text, for the mice hae eaten it; but we’ll just begin whaur the mice left aff, and when I come to it I’ll let you ken.”

In the year 1843, shortly after the Disruption, a parish minister had left the manse and removed to about a mile’s distance.  His pony got loose one day, and galloped down the road in the direction of the old glebe.  The minister’s man in charge ran after the pony in a great fuss, and when passing a large farm-steading on the way, cried out to the farmer, who was sauntering about, but did not know what had taken place—­“Oh, sir, did ye see the minister’s shault?” “No, no,” was the answer,—­“but what’s happened?” “Ou, sir, fat do ye think? the minister’s shault’s got lowse frae his tether, an’ I’m frichtened he’s ta’en the road doun to the auld glebe.”  “Weel-a-wicht!”—­was the shrewd clever rejoinder of the farmer, who was a keen supporter of the old parish church, “I wad na wonder at that.  An’ I’se warrant, gin the minister was gettin’ lowse frae his tether, he wad jist tak the same road.”