A SCOTCH MINISTER OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 828, 8 February 1868, Page 3

A SCOTCH MINISTER OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

The Rev. George Gilfillan, of Dundee, in a memoir of his father, formerly pastor of Comrie, says : —“ A finer looking pair, when first wedded—we have heard old people say —were seldom seen than Samuel Gilfillan and Rachael Barlas : he for erect stature, manly look, and frank bearing, and she for fine complexion, soft features, and gentle womanly aspect. They began life—he being thirty-one and she twenty-two years of age —on fifty pounds a-year, and, as our father was wont to add, 1 a blessing.’ Surely it was needed, and as certainly it was bestowed. How, indeed, on such a pittance, which was never quite doubled in after years, debt was avoided, education conferred, comparative comfort secured, twelve sons and daughters nurtured, and of these eight brought up to maturity, it is difficult to comprehend, in a case where the blessing did not take the form of the widow’s miraculous cake and overflowing cruse. But so it was ; and the instance is by no means a singular one. We could multiply it by a hundred in the history of ministers’ families of all denominations in Scotland. And, on the principle of Edward Young, that ‘ life’s cares are comforts,’ we believe that the result of such difficulties surmounted, was not only beneficial in the result, but, on the whole, not disagreeable at the time, adding an intensity of interest, a romantic charm, and a religious tone to existence, of which the pampered sons of luxury can hardly conceive : as well as serving to strengthen and hammer out those who were subjected to the dignified privations and scanty, but eagerly snatched, opportunities of virtuous poverty—a poverty, however, which, be it noted, did not spring from congregational stinginess, but from positional necessity.”