Name: Adam Smith. Age: 48. Marital status: widower. Occupation: Church of Scotland minister in the border village of Lammerton. This new drama series is the story of Adam Smith, the man, at a crisis point in his life; when he must search for a new role now that his wife Mary has just died after a long and painful illness. He came to Lammerton from the city six years ago, when Mary was first taken ill. Now his reasons for staying seem to have died with her.

"You cannot separate body and spirit, Helen. Everything you have just said points to the truth of it. If the spirit is not my province, what in the name of God is?" So says village minister Adam Smith as he becomes involved in a dispute with a doctor.

Having already clashed with the villlage doctor over the plight of a young local girl, Adam Smith turns detective in order to piece together her life story.

Adam Smith is called in to help mend a marriage.

Adam Smith becomes involved in a bad-housing protest, and politics.

David Crichton is in Edinburgh. Elizabeth has disappeared. Why then is there a light in the Crichtons’ at midnight? Adam goes to investigate.

When Annie arrives home in Lammerton unexpectedly, she not only brings the number of fugitives in Adam’s care to three, but provides her father with a difficult question to answer.

Trouble among Irish labourers leads Adam Smith to press for better working conditions at a nearby construction site.

Elizabeth Crichton is desperately unhappy after the break-up with her husband, and feels life has come to an end. Meanwhile, Helen is becoming dependent on Adam, and the outside world is calling.

Adam’s persistence is rewarded when Elizabeth finally comes to him in the ? to ask for help. Can Adam persuade her, in all her bitterness, that life is really worth living?

John Ross, senior Elder of the kirk and Adam’s oldest friend in Lammerton, is dying, and Adam must find the strength to comfort him. But Ross has strength enough for two.

Adam has decided to move on. In the last story of the present series, he has to preach to the congregation at Marygate before they "offer him the charge." And the whole congregation turns out to see the new minister.