still laughing, but when they stood up again the laughter died on
their lips. James was being swiftly carried out by the current to
sea--and in a tarred herring-box! He had no paddle, and his hands were
of no effect in trying to move the boat toward the shore.

The boys shouted. There came an answering cry from the door of a
cottage in the village. A fisherman came swinging down the beach,
strode to his boat, took the two boys into it, and taking an oar
himself and giving the other to the two boys, they pulled out with the
tide. They reached James and rescued him just as the herring-box was
sinking. He went home to the little cottage where he lived, and his
mother gave him a proper thrashing.

Some of James' schoolfellows used to go on Sundays to a school in
Inverary. He made up his mind to join them. The class met in the
vestry of the United Presbyterian Church there. After their lesson
they went together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr.
Meikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of the school, one
afternoon took from his pocket a magazine (a copy of the "Presbyterian
Record"). From this magazine he read a letter from a brave missionary
in the far-off cannibal islands of Fiji. The letter told of the savage
life there and of how, already, the story of Jesus was leading the men
no longer to drag their victims to the cannibal ovens, nor to pile
up the skulls of their enemies so as to show their own bravery. The
writer said they were beginning happier lives in which the awful
terror of the javelin and the club, and the horror of demons and
witches was gone.

When Mr. Meikle had finished reading the magazine he folded it up
again and then looked round on all the boys in the school, saying: