estate. Though but a very small one, and not at all to be compared with that of Culfargie, it was a good help to his stipend, and with both under the management of his lady, an excellent woman, being both genteel in her manners and prudent in her conduct, he was enabled to indulge, in no small degree, his natural turn to the hospitable intercourses of society. The families at the parsonage of Abernethey and at Culfargie lived together in the greatest intimacy; which was considered by the Seceders as a great backsliding on the part of their pastor. The strictness, the dismal tone, and the hypocrisy, too, of the Seceders, served Mrs. Moncrieff (who had professed herself to be a Seceder only out of complaisance to her husband), as an inexhaustible fund of merriment. There were other two persons in this neigh bourhood besides the minister of the establishment and the Seceding minister's wife, highly distinguished by wit and humour. They were also distinguished by eccentricities in their character and conduct, which sometimes gave their sallies a wider course, and still more celebrity. These were, Mr. Friar, laird of Invernethey, and Mr. Kier, laird of the Western Rynd. These four persons were not unfrequently to be found in company together; and certainly, if a stranger passing through this parish had happened to fall in with this society, he would have been apt to set Abernethey down, not for the most dismal and hum-drum, but the merriest place in Britain. When Mr. Gray came first to Abernethey, the students avoided him as they would have done Satan but on perceiving his intimacy with their own minister, and understanding, also, that he was reckoned a man of good parts, as well as a regular university education, some of them, the most intelligent we may suppose, sought his acquaintance, which, frank as he was, they easily obtained. Mr. Gray observed to one of these students, of whose capacity he had formed a good opinion, that there could not be a better course of practical logic, or a better introduction to reasoning and investigation on all subjects, than to study Euclid's Elements of Geometry. The student said, he certainly would. Mr. Gray sent him an Euclid. In eight days time he brought it back. "What," said Mr. Gray, "have you done with Euclid already?"--"O yes," said the other, "I have read all the enunciations, which seem to be true enough, and very good reading. I did not trouble myself with the A's and B's." Since the Seceder College was moved from Abernethey, it has been, on the whole, in an ambulatory state; moving from place to place, according to the residences of the persons appointed professors. It has happened in a good number of instances, that seceders, intending their sons for the ministry, have sent them to one or other of the universities. But this measure, which certainly shews not a little liberality for a seceder, proves almost uniformly fatal to the good man's design. The youth, in the course of their attendance at the universities, are either reasoned out of the peculiar tenets of their fathers, or laughed out of them; or, perhaps they acquire some degree of indifference to religious dis putes, and are contented, in rebus dubiis, to embrace that system which promises, in an ecclesiastical benefice, the most convenient retreat, for the study of very intricate controversies. Among seceder ministers, I find, that there are some now who have obtained the degree of DOCTOR, from some one or other (Aberdeen I presume, or St. Andrews) of our universities. This doctorship may be considered as a capital æra in the history of the seceders. This affectation of human distinction, and being called Rabbi, this acceptance of an honour, such as it is, from universities in close alliance, and, indeed, forming a part of the established church, would not have passed, in the pure periods of the secession, without severe animadversion; nay, probably even the total expulsion of the doctor from the witnessing remnant. After refreshing myself and my companion, I mean my poney, at Abernethey, where, I shall only say, tea, and butter, and bread, formed only a slight proportion of my repast, at a very hospitable, though. inelegant inn, or, indeed, rather ale-house, I went on, on the Cupar road, to take a peep into this part of the north boundary of Fife. Of the eastern part I had formed some idea, in some excursions to Dundee, when a student at St. Andrews. In about half an hour after, leaving Abernethey, I arrived at Newburgh, a royal burgh, as above observed, though it does not now send a representative to parliament. In this ride, the course of the Tay was opened to my view, as far as the craggy hill and castle of Kinfauns, the usual residence of lord Gray, and part of the grand cliff of Kinnoull, within less than two miles of Perth. On the opposite bank of the Tay, |