172 The Elders Journey. [FEB. 



babbling ? who hath wounds without cause ? who hath redness of eyes? 

 They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to seek mixed wine.' 

 twenty-third Proverbs, twenty-ninth and thirtieth verses." 



" As the Lord liveth," said Ebenezer, endeavouring, but in vain, to 

 rise, " my soul is guiltless of this thing !" 



" Look not thou upon the wine when it is red," continued Timothy, 

 t( when it giveth its odour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright : at 

 the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Thirty-first 

 and thirty-second." 



Ebenezer bowed his head upon his breast in anguish and despair ; for 

 while Timothy was speaking, he became convinced of the impossibility of 

 clearing his reputation by words ; and yet, unused to listen without re- 

 plying, or to hear reasonings without reasoning against them, he could 

 not help saying " I allow, Timothy, that wine may be received by a 

 judicious commentator as the generic appellation of strong drink, and 

 that thus it may signify either ale or whiskey or even noyau ; but shall 

 it be said that wine is forbidden, and that strong drink is prohibited ? 

 Doth not holy Paul himself, in his Epistle from Laodicea to thy own 

 namesake but different from thee, inasmuch as he was younger in 

 years and milder in conversation command the Ephesian bishop to 

 drink no longer water, but to use wine, for his stomach's sake ? See the 

 fifth chapter and twenty-third verse. But to-morrow thou shalt have 

 thy belly-full, even as I promised in my letter !" 



" And from thee !" exclaimed Timothy, spitting two yards over his 

 body, " Is it with this dead dog I am come out to combat ? Far be 

 it from me that I should so disgrace myself in our Israel. Arise, and get 

 thee gone ; keep thy lips, if thou canst, from the cup of intoxication, and 

 thy soul from foolishness with the mother of harlots and abomination of 

 the earth, and from being made drunk with the wine of sin foh ! Re- 

 velations, seventeenth chapter, second verse, and last clause of the verse." 

 And so saying, Timothy crossed over into the house, and in half an hour 

 after went home to the Skreigh in the night coach. Mr. Dick returned 

 soon after to Dodrum, as Davie Moffat said, " with his tail between his 

 legs ;" and, to this day, it is a saying in that town, of any one embarking 

 foolishly on an ambitious enterprize, that he is going on the Elder's 

 Journey. L. R. 



NOTES FOH THE MONTH. 



THE Coalition Ministry was in its last struggles at the date of our 

 January number ; and we sit down now, almost at the eleventh hour, 

 to prepare for that of February, with nothing definitively settled as to 

 the manner of replacing it.* This is a subject, however, upon which 

 public curiosity has rather declined during the last few days. The 

 material question, as every body is aware, being far less what parti- 

 cular individuals are to fill particular stations? than, what party of 

 men or, in other words, what class of principles are to regulate the 

 affairs of the country ? And this point is understood already to be 

 decided the Tories are the people that are to come in. 



The causes assigned by public report for the dissolution of the late 

 ministry are various : but probably the most really operative and imme- 



* Since this article was prepared for press, the arrangement of the ministry has been 

 concluded. 



