Rabbi Saunderson | Page 4

occasional amazing results, as when information was asked about some Eastern sect for whose necessities the Presbytery were asked to collect, and to whose warm piety affecting allusion was made, and Jeremiah showed clearly, with the reporters present, that the Cappadocians were guilty of a heresy beside which Morisonianism was an unsullied whiteness. His work as examiner-in-general for the court was a merciful failure, and encouraged the students of the district to return to their district court, who, on the mere rumour of him, had transferred themselves in a body to a Highland Presbytery, where the standard question in Philosophy used to be, "How many horns has a dilemma, and distinguish the one from the other." No man knew what the minister of Kilbogie might not ask--the student was only perfectly certain that it would be beyond his knowledge; but as Saunderson always gave the answer himself in the end, and imputed it to the student, anxiety was reduced to a minimum. Saunderson, indeed, was in the custom of passing all candidates and reporting them as marvels of erudition, whose only fault was a becoming modesty--which, however, had not concealed from his keen eye hidden treasures of learning. Beyond this sphere the good man's services were not used by a body of shrewd ecclesiastics, as the inordinate length of an ordination sermon had ruined a dinner prepared for the court by "one of our intelligent and large-hearted laymen," and it is still pleasantly told how Saunderson was invited to a congregational soirée--an ancient meeting, where the people ate oranges, and the speaker rallied the minister on being still unmarried--and discoursed, as a carefully chosen subject, on the Jewish feasts,--with illustrations from the Talmud,--till some one burst a paper-bag and allowed the feelings of the people to escape. When this history was passed round Muirtown Market, Kilbogie thought still more highly of their minister, and indicated their opinion of the other parish in severely theological language.
Standing at his full height he might have been six feet, but, with much poring over books and meditation, he had descended some two inches. His hair was long, not because he made any conscious claim to genius, but because he forgot to get it cut, and, with his flowing, untrimmed beard, was now quite grey. Within his clothes he was the merest skeleton, being so thin that his shoulder-blades stood out in sharp outline, and his hands were almost transparent. The redeeming feature in Saunderson was his eyes, which were large and eloquent, of a trustful, wistful hazel, the beautiful eyes of a dumb animal. Whether he was expounding doctrines charged with despair of humanity, or exalting, in rare moments, the riches of a Divine love in which he did not expect to share, or humbly beseeching his brethren to give him information on some point in scholarship no one knew anything about except himself, or stroking the hair of some little child sitting upon his knee, those eyes were ever simple, honest, and most pathetic. Young ministers coming to the Presbytery full of self-conceit and new views were arrested by their light shining through the glasses, and came in a year or two to have a profound regard for Saunderson, curiously compounded of amusement at his ways, which for strangeness were quite beyond imagination, admiration for his knowledge, which was amazing for its accuracy and comprehensiveness, respect for his honesty, which feared no conclusion, however repellent to flesh and blood, but chiefly of love for the unaffected and shining goodness of a man in whose virgin soul neither self nor this world had any part. For years the youngsters of the Presbytery knew not how to address the minister of Kilbogie, since any one who had dared to call him Saunderson, as they said "Carmichael," and even "MacWheep," though he was elderly, would have been deposed, without delay, from the ministry--so much reverence at least was in the lads--and "Mister" attached to this personality would be like a silk hat on the head of an Eastern sage. Jenkins of Pitrodie always considered that he was inspired when he one day called Saunderson "Rabbi," and unto the day of his death Kilbogie was so called. He made protest against the title as being forbidden in the Gospels, but the lads insisted that it must be understood in the sense of scholar, whereupon Saunderson disowned it on the ground of his slender attainments. The lads saw the force of this objection, and admitted that the honourable word belonged by rights to MacWheep, who was a "gude body," but it was their fancy to assign it to Saunderson--whereat Saunderson yielded, only exacting a pledge that he should never be so called in public, lest all concerned be condemned for foolishness. When it was announced that the University