List of Presents for the Orphanage.-PROVISIONS:-Some Fruit and Vegetables, Mr. Phillips, Basket of Eggs, Mrs. Grange; Vegetables for the Ramsgate Home, Mr. Hogbin; Box of Biscuits, Anon; Basket of Apples, Mrs. Doggett; 16 gallons New Milk per day for 6 days, Mr. Keevil, 2 Tins of Honey;

Anon.

SUNDRIES:-Library Case and Books, Mr. Dalton; Some Remnants of Cloth. Anon.; Box of Fancy Goods for Sale-room, Anon.; Ditto, Mrs. Gloag, Two Loads of Rock-work for Garden, Messrs. Doulton.

Donations, etc.-Per Mr. Charlesworth :-Mr. McKenna, 10s.; Widow's Thankoffering for Answered Prayer, £1; 287 Coins from Pillar Box at Orphanage Gates, £8 16s. 114d.-Total, £10 68. 11ąd.

College Buildings.

Statement of Receipts from August 20th to September 19th, 1873.

Further Contributions Received by H. Rylands Brown towards College Buildings.

An Improved Knapsack for the use of the Colporteurs, kindly designed and presented by Mr. W. A.

THE

SWORD AND THE TROWEL.

NOVEMBER, 1873.

A Guide to Billiecrankie.

BY PASTOR W. BROCK, JUN.

DO not introduce under the above title any second-hand edition of Black or Murray; but a native of the place, into whose company I was thrown by wet weather and good fortune combined. My friend is one of the agents of the Scottish Tract Society, and, from all accounts, is as inde

fatigable a colporteur as he is an excellent cicerone.

The day when I called on him was, happily for me, the last of the month, and John was at home making up his account of sales and stock. On the wall hung his great wallet, about double the size of an ordinary knapsack, and as broad as the broad back that has carried it over hill and dale for eighteen years. Well is that wallet known for twenty miles and more hereabout, and "weel respectit " is its owner in many a lone cottage of Rannoch and Strathtay, far from spiritual fold. or shepherd. Scarcely a homestead in the district but has seen the tempting array of books and periodicals spread out on the table for choice and purchase; and even proprietors and wealthy southern visitors have been glad to welcome the colporteur and his goods. Sixteen pounds a month-his average takings-represent many a rough mile travelled, and many a heavy burden borne. "Indeed, John," says his wife, "you take far too weighty a load with you." But John smiles a smile of manly superiority, and evidently does not intend to lighten his load by so much as a single tract.

I spent the next day in the Glen of Killiecrankie, and on its hillsides, with this notable guide. The new batch of books had not arrived, and he was free to combine this act of kindness to a stranger with a

number of miscellaneous pastoral visits. The mists lay low upon the hills, and the grander portion of the scenery had to be taken on trust; but for an almost incredible picture of variety and beauty, commend me to these Fascaly woods in autumn! The oak leaves still retained their green, and the firs showed dark upon the hills; but the carpet of ferns was bleached to brown, and the graceful birch branches glistened almost white, and from chestnut and rowan tree bright red and yellow tints flashed out, like gleams of sunshine on a dark and cloudy day. Beneath ran the far-famed Garry, once red with English blood, and choked with English dead, now rushing with a full stream to meet its sister Tummel, and then to flow onward to the Tay. And though the skies were frowning, and rain fell along our path, nothing could destroy the charm of that October day among the woods, especially, as my guide suggested, when I had "a Hielander at my side." For John is a keen observer of nature, and has his lesson to draw, generally in three divisions, like those of an orthodox sermon, from roots of trees and thatch of houses and stones upon the road. Sometimes his "points" are rather startling, as I felt when I met him next day with a big scythe in his hand, and was accosted with the greeting, "Now, if I were Death, come to cut ye down, wad ye be ready?

Crossing the river at the bridge, and paying a flying visit to the Falls of Tummel, our first halt was at a Highland cottage on the hill, with its "but and ben," the wood fire crackling under the great open chimney, the kail-pot swinging above, and the lord and master of the whole sitting by the fireside. Here our business was private, and had to do with the purchase of a goat, which we found browsing in the pasture below. The negotiation failed hopelessly, the owner wanting exactly double the price offered; but it concluded with the usual "word in season"-" Duncan, it's to be hoped ye'll no be among the goats at last!" whereat Duncan, an old schoolfellow of my guide, laughed a short laugh, and went indoors.

The next "interior" proved still more interesting. A sharp descent brought us to the bottom of the glen and the village of Killiecrankie, and climbing the braeside beyond, we came by a row of stately beeches to a long low cot, bright with its yearly coat of whitewash, and with fuchsias adorning the windows. Stooping our heads at the entrance, we found ourselves in a primitive dwelling, built a hundred years ago of rough unhewn stones, mortared together, like a country wall, and the open rafters of the roof perilously near your head. Beyond, in an inner room, was a hand-loom, for the master of the cottage is a weaver, and neighbours wanting woollen garments, bring their wool of divers colours here, and get the cloth woven as they wish. The big hearthstone, the racks of dishes, the hams hanging behind the fire, the hearty housewife, made together a homely scene; and to give a centre to the details of the scene, a damsel of eighteen, knitting busily, stood by the dresser, the picture of contentment. "She has bought a copy of the Anxious Enquirer' lately," said my guide, having evidently good hopes of his young friend. Such are the simple homes into which the colporteur finds his way, where he does his good work, and finds his frequent reward.

Killiecrankie is, of course, associated in all men's minds with the

death of Claverhouse, and the bloody rout of the English troops in 1689. We saw the various spots of interest-the Soldiers' Leap," from rock to rock, over the foaming current, only possible with a deadly enemy at your heels; the greensward on the hill at the opening from the glen, then overspread with trees, down which the Highlanders swept, barefooted, on the royal troops issuing from below; the well, still full, at which Claverhouse's horse was drinking when the fatal shot struck his master in the back, and the knoll above, where, they say, at last he died. But those same hills witnessed other scenes, of which, as we proceeded, the colporteur gave me long and touching accounts. Here were enacted the stages of his own conversion. It was like reading "Grace Abounding" to listen to his story. There was the farm where he worked as a lad, only getting to church five times in as many years; and there the fields in which he reaped, and there the men with whom, when boys, he fought, and played, and went to school; and a clear character they gave him for having been "a light one" in his youth, full of song, and jest, and carelessness. But there, too, was the tree under which, at midnight, he had poured out his prayers for mercy, and the road where he had walked with godly companions, getting words of good cheer; and somewhere else, the vision seemed to come to him of a man of goodly presence, standing before him, as he prayed; and yonder, too, was the very house where light dawned, and the knoll to which he climbed in his new-found joy, and leaped and danced to think that he, too, was among the saved. One can understand, after hearing these experiences, the delight of such a man to carry along the very glens where his youth was spent, and among the very people to whom his great change was known, the unsearchable riches of Christ.

My friend is no Baptist, but a stout son of the Free Kirk. Baptists, indeed, do not abound in these parts; but there are churches of our body at Tullymet and Blair Athol, and a good deal of underlying sympathy with our views. "If you keep within the lids of the Bible," said one man to me, "there's no sect has so much right with them as the Baptists." And this leads me to a visit paid on the following day to another Highland home, but for which this paper would never have been written.

The good colporteur, finding that I was a Baptist, had hinted to me that it was scarcely less than a duty to call on a certain Annie Sims, living with her brother James, in the heart of a wood not far from the meeting of the rivers. Annie, he said, had been "in the way" for seventy-three years, having been baptised in the river Tay at Dunkeld when sixteen years of age, and it was not every day that you could meet with such a case of faithful pilgrimage as that. So, through rain and mire, I found my way up a cart-track to the cottage, and making known my errand, gained a speedy admission.

Three chairs stood beside the hearth, on which the wood crackled cheerfully. On one of the chairs sat an aged woman, her body bent with the injuries caused by a fall, but with a face smooth and bright like a girl's, and a happy voice that charmed you at once. The brother, a man of eighty-four, took his seat opposite, and we were soon in for a "crack." Yes, she had been a church member all those years, and was