The minister simply looked at him, and remarked, "Eh, man, your psalm-buik has been ill bund." An admirable story of a quiet pulpit rebuke is traditionary in Fife, and is told of Mr.Shirra, a Seceding minister of Kirkcaldy, a man still well remembered by some of the older generation for many excellent and some eccentric qualities.

A young officer of a volunteer corps on duty in the place, very proud of his fresh uniform, had come to Mr.Shirra's church, and walked about as if looking for a seat, but in fact to show off his dress, which he saw was attracting attention from some of the less grave members of the congregation.

He came to his place, however, rather quickly, on Mr.Shirra quietly remonstrating, "O man, will ye sit doun, and we'll see your new breeks when the kirk's dune." This same Mr.
Shirra was well known from his quaint, and, as it were, parenthetical comments which he introduced in his reading of Scripture; as, for example, on reading from the 116th Psalm, "I said in my haste all men are liars," he quietly observed, "Indeed, Dauvid, my man, an' ye had been i' this parish ye might hae said it at your leisure." There was something even still more pungent in the incidental remark of a good man, in the course of his sermon, who had in a country place taken to preaching out of doors in the summer afternoons.

He used to collect the people as they were taking air by the side of a stream outside the village.

On one occasion he had unfortunately taken his place on a bank, and fixed himself on an _ants' nest_.