He was much delighted with the not very refined rebuke which one of his own farmers had given to a young minister who had for some Sundays occupied his pulpit.

The young man had dined with the farmer in the afternoon when services were over, and his appetite was so sharp, that he thought it necessary to apologise to his host for eating so substantial a dinner.--"You see," he said, "I am always very hungry after preaching." The old gentleman, not much admiring the youth's pulpit ministrations, having heard this apology two or three times, at last replied sarcastically, "Indeed, sir, I'm no surprised at it, considering the _trash_ that comes aff your stamach in the morning." What I wish to keep in view is, to distinguish anecdotes which are amusing on account merely of the expressions used, from those which have real wit and humour _combined_, with the purely Scottish vehicle in which they are conveyed.
Of this class I could not have a better specimen to commence with than the defence of the liturgy of his church, by John Skinner of Langside, of whom previous mention has been made.

It is witty and clever.
Being present at a party (I think at Lord Forbes's), where were also several ministers of the Establishment, the conversation over their wine turned, among other things, on the Prayer Book.

Skinner took no part in it, till one minister remarked to him, "The great faut I hae to your prayer-book is that ye use the Lord's Prayer sae aften,--ye juist mak a dishclout o't." Skinner's rejoinder was, "Verra true! Ay, man, we mak a dishclout o't, an' we wring't, an' we wring't, an' we wring't, an' the bree[163] o't washes a' the lave o' our prayers." No one, I think, could deny the wit of the two following rejoinders.
A ruling elder of a country parish in the west of Scotland was well known in the district as a shrewd and ready-witted man.

He received many a visit from persons who liked a banter, or to hear a good joke.