which we are disposed to think so highly of a
friend, as when we find him standing higher than we expected in the esteem of
others. When assured of the reality of Butler's change of prospects, David
expressed his great satisfaction at his success in life, which, he observed, was
entirely owing to himself (David). »I advised his puir grandmother, who was but
a silly woman, to breed him up to the ministry; and I prophesied that, with a
blessing on his endeavours, he would become a polished shaft in the temple. He
may be something ower proud o' his carnal learning, but a gude lad, and has the
root of the matter - as ministers gang now, where ye'll find ane better, ye'll
find ten waur, than Reuben Butler.«
    He took leave of the man of business, and walked homeward, forgetting his
weariness in the various speculations to which this wonderful piece of
intelligence gave rise. Honest David had now, like other great men, to go to
work to reconcile his speculative principles with existing circumstances; and,
like other great men, when they set seriously about that task, he was tolerably
successful.
    Ought Reuben Butler in conscience to accept of this preferment in the Kirk
of Scotland, subject as David at present thought that establishment was to the
Erastian encroachments of the civil power? This was the leading question, and he
considered it carefully. »The Kirk of Scotland was shorn of its beams, and
deprived of its full artillery and banners of authority; but still it contained
zealous and fructifying pastors, attentive congregations, and, with all her
spots and blemishes, the like of this Kirk was nowhere else to be seen upon
earth.«
    David's doubts had been too many and too critical to permit him ever
unequivocally to unite himself with any of the dissenters, who upon various
accounts absolutely seceded from the national church. He had often joined in
communion with such of the established clergy as approached nearest to the old
Presbyterian model and principles of 1640. And although there were many things
to be amended in that system, yet he remembered that he, David Deans, had
himself ever been an humble pleader for the good old cause in a legal way, but
without rushing into right-hand excesses, divisions and separations. But, as an
enemy to separation, he might join the right-hand of fellowship with a minister
of the Kirk of Scotland in its present model. Ergo, Reuben Butler might take
possession of the parish of Knocktarlitie, without forfeiting his friendship or
favour -