for changing his views.  In June 1740 he became tutor to the only son of Mrs. Sinclair in Shetland.  Returning to Aberdeenshire in 1741, he completed his studies for the ministry, was ordained by Bishop Dunbar, and in 1742 became pastor of Langside.  He worked for this little congregation for nearly sixty-five years, and they were happy and united under his pastoral charge.  One very interesting incident took place during his ministry, which bears upon our general question of reminiscences and changes.  John Skinner was in his own person an example of that persecution for political opinion referred to in Professor Macgregor’s account of the large prayer-book in the library at Panmure.  After the ’45, Episcopalians were treated with suspicion and severity.  The severe laws passed against Jacobites were put in force, and poor Skinner fined.

However, better and more peaceful times came round, and all that John Skinner had undergone did not sour his temper or make him severe or misanthropical.  As a pastor he seems to have had tact, as well as good temper, in the management of his flock, if we may judge from the following anecdote:—­Talking with an obstinate self-confident farmer, when the conversation happened to turn on the subject of the motion of the earth, the farmer would not be convinced that the earth moved at all.  “Hoot, minister,” the man roared out; “d’ye see the earth never gaes oot o’ the pairt, and it maun be that the sun gaes round:  we a’ ken he rises i’ the east and sets i’ the west.”  Then, as if to silence all argument, he added triumphantly, “As if the sun didna gae round the earth, when it is said in Scripture that the Lord commanded the sun to stand still!” Mr. Skinner, finding it was no use to argue further, quietly answered, “Ay, it’s vera true; the sun was commanded to stand still, and there he stands still, for Joshua never tauld him to tak the road again.”  I have said John Skinner wrote little Scottish poetry, but what he wrote was rarely good.  His prose works extended over three volumes when they were collected by his son, the Bishop of Aberdeen, but we have no concern with them.  His poetical pieces, by which his name will never die in Scotland, are the “Reel of Tullochgorum” and the “Ewie with the Crooked Horn,” charming Scottish songs,—­one the perfection of the lively, the other of the pathetic.  It is quite enough to say of “Tullochgorum” (by which the old man is now always designated), what was said of it by Robert Burns, as “the first of songs,” and as the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw.

I have brought in the following anecdote, exactly as it appeared in the Scotsman of October 4, 1859, because it introduces his name.