In one man, a God serene Is Conscience; In another, a Devil clean Is Conscience; Here shooting up to the Stars Through Conscience; There beating against Hell's bars Through Conscience. When civilized, strong for the Good When savage, thirsting for blood Is Conscience; One man is mounted to Heaven Through Conscience; Another to Hell is driven Through Conscience. Where the Christ-Spirit rules heart and mind, Supreme and intense,— Only there need you seek, can you find A God-informed true Conscience. Tinlie Rhymes. ELDER SHANKS. 'HE din over the death of Campie Phil was heard for many a day. It proved, as already hinted at in the previous Episode, a revealer of the thoughts and characters of men. But none came so badly through that ordeal as Puddle-Michty; and the next worst was Elder Shanks of Pierie Linns. There was a godly Woman at the Hollows, whom the Elder, as a stoop of the Free Kirk in those parts, "visited" professionally. He considered it his duty, once every week, to call upon this Widow of Shunem, inquire into the condition of her Family and her Farm, offer promiscuous counsel on all things under Heaven and in Heaven, and wind up with Family Prayers, at which all the Children, the Goodwife herself, the Servants, and generally the Dogs, and occasionally a Pet Lamb, were expected to take their due share in the great roomy Kitchen. But, somehow, this function did not prove equally attractive to all. The Pet Lamb frequently got tired of the slow ceremonial, and shamelessly exercised its butting propensities on the kneeling worshippers. More than once, it shortened the Elder's eloquent perorations to the Almighty, which it regarded as manifestly incongruous, by an effective blow on those nether parts of his person, too temptingly projected, while he knelt. Some of us suspected that a revengeful Plough Boy had something to do with training it to deliver that blow, when opportunity arose. The Dogs, more graciously inclined, at once fell asleep. But when the Elder waxed pathetic, and pitched his voice rather high, they had dreams of hares being chased, and impiously yelled again in pursuit,—marring thereby many of his fine sentences, not specially intended for the Almighty, but designed, as sermon - appeals disguised in the forms of prayer, to break the Sinner's hardened heart and to pierce his Conscience with shafts of remorse. The younger Lads and Lassies, who had been at it in the open air since Day Break, either in hard work or in exciting play, did not despise the luxury of an occasional snore, the effect of which was strangely contagious on the Risibles of the rest. You felt that one was nudging another to be quiet; or you heard a badly-muffled snirt of laughter going round all the spacious Kitchen! But, as in duty bound, the Elder usually soared away to the full end of his tether. He emptied his soul of its ideas. Everything was poured out as it came, the uppermost first, in a wearisome jumble of words, partly addressed to the Almighty, but principally fired off at the Souls kneeling around him. On all of these, he sat in severe judgment, and presented each of them to God, ticketed as it were, and labelled with certain directions to the Creator as to certain changes required to be made in them before they could be at all worthy of their Author! Very much as an Able Editor revises the Essay of a Contributor to his Magazine. "Mrs Watters," began the Elder rather unctuously, at the close of a very prolonged affliction of this kind, about a week after the death of Campie Phil, "I hope none of your boys or mine will ever become a Castaway, like the Son of poor Mrs SaundersGod forbid!" There was an exceptional harshness in his tone, that rasped the Mother-heart of the Mistress of the Hollows, though she did not shrink at times from joining in very Pharisaic judgments on their neighbours. But, that night, a something deeper than Theology or Free Kirkism stirred her soul, and she flashed at him the answer : "I canna an' I wunna join in that Prayer, Pierie Linns. Nowther o' us may ever hae a Son that could staun' in Campie's shoon! Michty me, what'll come tae ony o' us, gif yae slip o' the judgment, or even the unbalancin' o' the Brain, under some mysterious stroke frae God or Man, maun fix oor doom? Na, na, Elder Shanks; the Creator's no made o' stuff like that! It may pass muster at Pierie Linns, whaur you alane are judge; but things like that'll no weigh a feather against dear Campie Phil, whan the Lord God that made him sits at the balance. Never use that word, 'Castaway,' in ma hearin' again, gif ye care for ma freenship! I hae sons o' ma ain; an' I wunna use 't, an' what's mair, I wunna listen till 't. I'm a Mither, an' sae is Mrs Saunders; an' I wad curse, tae His Face, ony God that treated His ain Crayturs that gate. Faither though ye be, Pierie Linns, wi' sons an' dochters a' roon ye, I fear that the Faither-Heart has na waukened in ye yet; or ye could na use that word 'Castaway' tae puir Campie Phil!" Severe though he was, Elder Shanks marked a something in the eye and manner of Mrs Watters that forbade him to retort. Not that he was at all convinced; in fact his Conscience pricked him to save the misguided Woman from her perilous laxity of Creed. But he thought it wiser for the time to be silent; as the Mistress of The Hollows turned to her two Boys, and began preparing them for bed, with a passion of Motherhood in her manner that seemed to say she would cling to them for ever, even through storm and tempest worse than that which had overwhelmed the Mother of Campie Phil. To do him justice, the Elder's "Good Night" had in it a softer tone than that which had breathed through his Prayers; but his severity came back on him, like a flood, when he was alone on the road to Pierie Linns, and the Idols of his Brain once more rose up and darkened all his thoughts of God, and therefore also his thoughts of Man. The matter, however, reached a climax on Sunday evening, when fussy little Puddle-Michty provoked the wrath of Castlebraes beyond all endurance. A kind of Revival Meeting was about to be held in the Village School Room, with two young Students, lately converted at Edinburgh, as the principal speakers. They were earnest, single |