THE late venerable Dr. Norman
Macleod, long minister of St. Columba’s Gaelic Church, Hope Street,
Glasgow, and father of the late minister of the Barony Parish Church, was
proceeding to open a new place of worship, and as he passed slowly and
gravely through the crowd gathered about the doors, an elderly man, with a
peculiar kind of wig—bright, smooth, and of a reddish-brown—accosted him
:—
"Doctor, if you please I wish to
speak to you."
"Well, Duncan," said the genial
doctor, "can ye not wait till after worship?"
"No, doctor, I must speak to you
now, for it is a matter upon my conscience."
"Oh, since it is a matter of
conscience, tell me what it is; but be brief, Duncan, for time presses."
"The matter is this, doctor. Ye see
the clock yonder on the face of the new church. Well, there is no clock
really there—nothing but the face of the clock. There is no truth in it
but only once in the twelve hours. Now it is, in my mind, very wrong, and
quite against my conscience, that there should be a lie on the face of the
house of God."
"Duncan, I will consider the point.
But I am glad to see you looking so well. You are not young now. I
remember you for many years; and what a fine head of hair you have still
!"
