A SCOTCH CLERGYMAN AND HIS PARISHIONERS

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2573, 17 May 1871, Page 2

A SCOTCH CLERGYMAN AND HIS PARISHIONERS

The Pi esbytery of Linlithgow met at Queen-ferry {lately, to bea ev.deuce in regard to the disputed settlement of the Per. Robert Thomson as minister of the parish of Queensferry. Some of the evidence, as reported in the Scottish papers, is amusing enough:— One witness complained of Mr Thomson having used the expression, “The starry host which sweeps across the milky way.” David Mason said that it was not so much the presentee’s words as his manner that he objected to. On being asked what sort of manner was it, he replied, “A roaring, excited manner.” When he spoke of the tidal wave, he said “It began in the South Pacific Ocean, it struck the east coast of Africa, round the Cape of Good Hope, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean, with a breast of 1500 miles, struck the eastern coast of South America, and recrossed the Atlantic to the continent of Europe somewhere near the Bay of Biscay.” [Laughter.] James Sandercombe deponed—l remember in one of his prayers he prayed for her Majesty at the first then he went on to the Princess of vVales, and then he went back again to her Majesty all in the same prayer. [Laughter.] William Marshall, an elder, deponed that Mr Thomson had behaved justlikea mountebank. He was more like a theatrical man than a man in the pulpit. He prayed for a Provost five times in ouc day. [Laughter.] William M'Bjin, shoemaker, had heard the trial sermons, and his impression was that they were neither done nor I t alone. After the prayer witness burst out laughing, and said to a friend beside him that “his pump was surely pumped dry now.” [Laughter.] He spoke with something in his mouth—a peppermint drop it appeared to me. How did he pray for the Presbytery of Linlithgow ? He said, “ Lord be with us when we go forth before the Presbytery to-morrrow, and give us the hearing ear and the understanding heart to hear the oracles as they ought to be spoken and beard.” Did that strike you as being very bad ? Well, I never heard of a man praying for the Presbytery of Linlithgow, or any Presbytery, before. [Laughter. ] Then it was his praying for the Presbytery you objected to—or was it bis, way of praying ? It was bis way of praying, because he came out with a burst, just the same as it were he had a lot o’ water on his stomach. [Great laughter. ] Then he prayed for those in affliction, and those that had broken bones, and those that had diseased souls, and for the army, navy, and volunteers. [Laughter.] Mrs Hutton deponed that the presentee had made a statement to the effect that “ in the exodus of the children of Israel, Moses led forth three millions of people.” After the last prayer on the second Sunday of the trials, she saw a smile on the face of everybody near her, and she distinctly heard one person say— “ Well, that cows a’. ” In an exposition of the 104 th Psalm, he talked about the fishes as “fellow-creatures;” and, speaking about the coral reefs, &c., at the bottom of the sea, he said “ Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered iuto the heart of man to conceive what is to be fuuud in the depths of the sea” [laughter] which was an application of the passage that witness had never heard before.