The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Willie Gillies.
the English pheelosopher, on his journey to the Heebrides,
foregathered \vi' a canny fule at a certain laird's hoose.
For fun, the pheelosopher tried to pose the fule by speiring
if he could tell him wha was the faither of the sons of
Zcbedee. Weel, the fule scratched his head, but, upon
conseederation, he brichtened up a' at aince and said,
' Toots, man, wha could it be but Zebedee himself? And
noo that I ha'e answered your question, will you answer
ane of mine ? ' 'Of course,' said the pheelosopher. ' Weel
then,' continued the fule, ' can you tell me wha was my
f^iither?' Ha, ha! The pheelosopher was posed, and
couldna answer a word."
The rebuke restrained my examinator from similar
catch questions in the remainder of the English examination.
He, indeed, endeavoured to provoke me to make
heretical replies to questions on the abstruse doctrines of
free grace and predestination, and I am free to confess that
my replies exhibited fully as much apparent inconsistency
as the doctrines themselves. In the Greek and Hebrew
examination, I was more than a match for my pundit,
although he had posted himself up in the passages selected
by himself to puzzle me. After the %'iva voce examination,
I read, according to custom, the trial discourses of a
candidate for license. On looking over them now, I do
feel that they are verbose and overcharged with incon-
gruous imagery, but they have the rudiments of several
good thoughts, and, certainly, when read ore rotundo by the
young author, they must have had, as my friend the lay
elder assured me at the time, " a grand soond." As 1 was
saying, when the trial was concluded, I was told to go into
the next room, and allow the Presbytery t(^- deliberate in
private There was a chink in the partition, and, while
ashamed of eavesdropping, I could not help listening to the
conversation which ensued. I need not repeat it. Suffice
it to say, that the doctor laboured to impress on his
brethren that my learning was more specious than solid,
•and that in doctrine I was far t'rom sound. He was not.