From His Father's Death to the Commencement of His Ministry

A JOUENAL is extant containing an exact record of his employments from day to day during the whole of the vacation that immediately succeeded his father’s death. This book, however, is entirely silent regarding his progress in the divine life. It takes no note either of his joys or his sorrows. The exercises of his spirit and the emotions of his heart during that trying season he has deliberately omitted to record. The memory of them has passed away with him. His great sorrow, however, did not impede or divert his course as a student; it rather quickened his pace by supplying additional motives. From the 1st of May to the 29th of October 1835 the daily tale of work is briefly, coolly, sternly entered. The summer was one continuous effort, and the only relaxation seems to have been a frequent change of occupation. From Latin to English history, and from mathematics to Luther’s Bible, he turned freely and frequently, but never from work to rest. If he is somewhat wearied by five hours of seventeenth century theology, eleven hundred lines of Virgil, in preparation for his degree, must do duty as a period of rest; and when his eyes grow dry over the

Greek of Thucydides and Euripides, lie will bathe them in the large and luscious tomes of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall.

The hour of rising varies from five to seven, and the preparation of his father’s Memoir occupies a portion of almost every day. On the 1st of May the Ewing medal, for an account of the Wars of the League in France, with other honours, are sent home to the manse. The sight of trophies saddens the winner’s heart, because the lips whose praise he coveted were cold and silent.

In September the daily entries cease, and instead the following record stands: — “11-19. — These nine days were almost wholly lost by preparations for leaving Strathblane, and by arranging the library after reaching our new residence. Left Strathblane on Wed. the 16th. Read 200 pages of Whewell’s Astronomy and General Physics, and Pillans’ Letters on Teaching, 140 pages; also 150 pages of Dods On the Incarnation, and Crabbe’s Poems, vol. i., 300 pages.”

Thus the departure of the minister’s family from the manse is wrapped up in a bundle of figures and names. Not a word betrays any emotion. I suppose the reason why the emotions were not written is that they were too big. This eldest son of a widow gathered up the goods of the family, and led his mother and her younger children forth from the house of his childhood with a courage more than stoical, for it was the fruit of Christian faith. By maintaining a complete silence regarding the feelings of the moment, he has in effect cast a veil over his face while it was wet with weeping, that a grief so sacred might not be exposed to the public gaze. What lie desired to conceal we shall make no effort to uncover.

The library, we incidentally learn, was the bulkiest part of the “flitting.” The labour of arranging it interfered with study for several days. That same library, in which he had often revelled while yet a child at his father’s knee, enriched by many additions of his own, stood as a stately monument in his house at Euston Square, the mine in which he quarried for his gold, and the object of interest to the casual visitor.

On 9 th September the change of address is intimated to his uncle, still without a syllable on that removal from the home of his childhood, which must have been one of the saddest scenes of his life: —

“In future be so good as address letters for us to the care of Messrs. Ogle and Son, Glasgow, for there is no post-office within three miles of Easterhouse. I shall be in town almost every day in winter. Besides Divinity, Hebrew, and Church History, I propose to attend the classes for Anatomy and Natural History, And as I intend to take my degree this year if I can get it, I shall have enough to do during the winter. That is what I like, for I become unhappy when inactive.”

In the first instance, the family found a comfortable residence at Easterhouse, a few miles eastward from the city of Glasgow. A month later he is able to give his uncle a more cheerful report: —

“Easterhouse, Old Monkland,
Nov. 16th, 1835.

“My dear Uncle, — I do not believe that I have written to you since we came to this place, and that is now two mouths ago. We are five miles from town, and “William and I go every day to attend the classes there. We leave home in the Canal passage-boat after breakfast, and return about five in the evening. Mamma’s health is greatly improved. We are within a mile of Baillieston Church, one of the new erections, the minister of which, Mr. Gray, is a good man, and an interesting preacher. I must say that in its altered circumstances I had much rather be here than at Strathblane.”

The last sentence refers to the settlement of a minister as his father’s successor. He was vigorous, scholarly, and accomplished. He failed not to show that sympathy and tenderness to the family of his predecessor which their character and their circumstances deserved, but it was all too evident to James that the tone of his father’s teaching in the parish would in many respects be reversed. The incumbent did not long survive.

In tracing the course of James Hamilton’s life at this, as at every period, one is amazed at the quantity of evidence, scattered on every side, of a teeming activity that never knew repose, and an appetite for acquirement that seemed to grow by what it fed on. A book inaugurated 17th July 1835, and filled to the brim, presents a most interesting and suggestive miscellany. On the fly-leaf it is entitled, ^avraaiai, and in a regular introduction gives the following account of itself: —

“As much good timber is carried down the Mississippi and drifted into the Atlantic Ocean, where it is destroyed

78. CHEISTIAN UNITY.

or lost, as would, if interrupted in its progress, build a navy, I have committed to writing few thoughts worth preserving, but by having no proper place to put them I have lost a multitude. For such stray thoughts Dr. Thomas Brown (vide Welsh’s Life) kept a book which he called a chaos. It shall be a magazine in which to treasure up all those thoughts which are not required for present consumption, but which may all be needed in a futm’e dearth — a lumber-room of unclaimed and unassorted ideas — a TravSoeiov — for the temporary accommodation of all stragglers, great and small.”

The first entry in this day-book of floating ideas is entitled Christian Unity, and is inserted here entire: —

“In heaven there will be no such thing as formal reconciliations. Without the intervention of a third party Paul and Barnabas would at once be friends — friends for eternity. No explanations, no making of apologies, no satisfaction. It is only a proof of the sad imperfection of the present state, that all those who are reconciled unto God through Christ do not necessarily continue steadfastly attached to one another. The moment a good man enters heaven he finds himself one of a band of brothers, though in the midst of that company towards which his heart is at once drawn out in the tenderest love may be those of whose presence he used to be shy, whose motives he was wont to suspect, and whose persons he held in dislike. From the moment that the first note of the heavenly music strikes the ear, all hearts must beat in unison.”

The next head is Selfishness. On the series goes tUl the book is crammed to its last fly-leaf with a congeries of thoughts and things as variegated as the contents of the earth, — as bright withal, and as beautiful. Comments on texts of Scripture alternate with extracts from scientific books, and physical facts commingle with moral speculations. His mind passed through the confused tumult of miscellaneous life as a magnet passes through a heap of sweepings from a factory, leaving everything that was mere dust behind, but emerging with all the filings of real steel that lay in the way adhering to its sides, to be stored for future use. The ultimate extent of his acquirements, with the high uses to which he applied them, constituted another example of the Scriptural maxim, “The hand of the diligent maketh rich.”

From the multifarious contents of this book we submit another specimen, showing that his mental activity was continually shaping itseK into schemes of practical usefulness: —

“6. History of the Church of Scotland. — I have been asked if there is no history of the Scottish Church fit for the use of schools. I know of none. Defoe’s is perhaps the most suitable, but it was not written on purpose. Such a history should be concise, without having the appearance of an abridgment, should be written in an engaging style, and should be free from the prejudices and misrepresentations mixed up with most of the popular histories. Such a work would be of great value. By making the youth of the present generation at an early period acquainted with the constitution and eventful history, the services, and the piety of our National Church, their affections might be gained in its behaK, and their minds fortified against the prevailing efforts to prejudice the public against it. The usefulness of the undertaking should render it sufficiently dignified. If not anticipated in my design, and if health and opportunity be given, I may myseK attempt it. J. H.

“Aug. 7, 1835.”

Immense quantities of botanical observations are scattered over all his journals. Many pages are filled with notices of particular plants, and of the locahties in which they were found. In this sense it may be said that flowers were freely interwoven with all his studies. But though botany everywhere bulks most largely, it did not, among the physical sciences, obtain a monopoly of Ms attention. The journals of 1835 teem with facts in various departments, accompanied with appropriate philosophical speculations. Nothing escaped his notice, and nothing that attracted his notice was omitted from his notes. A whale was cast ashore in the Clyde, and its skeleton exhibited in Glasgow; forthwith all its measurements go into his journal, with relative comments and queries. We learn the girth of the aorta, and the quantity in gallons of arterial blood that is drawn in by every contraction of the left ventricle. In the same or a subsequent exhibition is a living rhinoceros; he also is dissected in the book as minutely as his dead marine confrere. Facts are gathered and speculations hazarded regarding the distribution of plants over the earth, from one or more centres. The miners of the neighbourhood, with whom one has time enough to converse during the slow progress of the canal-boat to the city, supply him with some curious information regarding the relative position of the various strata through which they penetrate in sinking their shafts. Forthw-ith he must endeavour to account for the facts bygeological generalizations already made, or set the unexplained facts aside as materials of a new generalization. Interspersed with these notices in the domain of natural history, occur miniature biograpliies of certain ragged urchins who stand on the roll of his Sabbath-school, with anticipations sometimes anxious, sometimes hopeful, regarding their spiritual progress. On the whole, the tracks which the student has left of his course during this year constitute a precious and beautiful miscellany. This is not a prejudiced or one-sided intellect; it is peculiarly well balanced. This ship is remarkably well trimmed, and may be expected to cleave steadily, even through stormy seas, if her course should happen to Ke in that direction. Science is neither divorced from, nor overlaid by, religion. These two, both living, grow in the same soil, and intertwine their branches, as usefully and as beautifully as the forest-trees and the vines on the hill slopes of Italy. In the material world and the Scriptures this scholar is equally at home. In both fields he expatiates with delight, simultaneously or alternately. On one page of his journal you may find confirmation by fact and experiment of Darwin’s theory, that the ascent of the plumula in germinating seeds is stimulated by air, and the descent of the radicle by moisture, and on the next page you may read that “Robert Black and David Brownlee repeated their psalms without fault,” while Andrew Burt and John Brownlee made one slip each. Thus, in

F the true pHlosopliic spirit, he observed his facts carefully, and recorded them exactly, in whatever domain they might “be found. To write down whatever he saw or heard seems to have been with him both a passion and a habit.

He had an eye for what is grand or beautiful in external nature; yet he fully and practically owned that the immortal young miners who were growing up all around, are more wonderful works of God, and more worthy of cultivation than the flowers that blossomed on the surface, or the minerals that lay in the crust of the earth. AVithout conscious effort, and with singular precision, he gave everything its proper place. In his view, natural law and spiritual revival were parallel lines, which might run near each other in the same direction for ever without running foul

The account of his reading during this season is enough to make one giddy. “Rose at 4, rose at 5,” varied by an occasional indulgence till 7 o’clock, make up the tale of time. The number of hours devoted to each department of the day’s duty is daily chronicled: so many in the canal boat; so many in attendance at classes; so many in reading, or in conversation with visitors. Then comes a note of the pages that have been read, distinguishing the sizes of the several books. At the close of each month there is a summation of quantities, — June gives 2580, July 2250, and August 2110, pages.

I suppose the work and the record of it act and react on each other alternately, as cause and effect. It may be true that if he had not noted so carefully for his own eye what he did, he would not have done so much; but it may also be true that if he had not done so much work, he would scarcely have written out so clearly the evidence of his indolence. The merchant who keeps his ledgers all correct will probably make money; but, on the other hand, it is precisely the money-making merchant that delights to enter his gains in the book.

The Session 1835-6, while he resided at Easterhouse, was the last that he attended at the University of Glasgow. With the exception of some months of 1 83 7, devoted to the study of botany under Sir William Hooker, his relations with the western metropolis were closed in May 1836. His long residence in Glasgow must have exercised a beneficial influence in moulding his character. The College, situated in the heart of a great mercantile city, cannot become isolated and wrap itself up in the folds of a mysterious antiquity. While an educational institute of the highest class exercises an elevating influence on the commercial community by which it is surrounded, that community reciprocally interfuses a wholesome air through the cloisters of the College, and checks its tendency towards mediaeval monasticism. If the founders of colleges in England had happened to erect their structures over the coal and iron-stone beds, and Oxford had found itself in the centre of modern Birmingham, the Tractarian retrogression towards Rome would probably not have occurred. These fungous growths do not thrive under the tread of busy multitudes, and near the fixes of a vast national industry. Modern life, if it had existed in great masses on the spot, would probably have overcome the attraction of ecclesiastic antiquity. When a student obtains his collegiate education in immediate contact with a large, wealthy, and not illiberal community, there is a better chance that his common sense will be as well developed as his scholarship.

Besides the immediate work of his classes, he was occupied during the winter with the Memoir of his father, and the inevitable, invariable Sabbath-school.

“29th February IS36.

“My deae Uncle, — How can we thank you for your invaluable present? The gift and the giver, and every thing connected with it, make it unspeakably precious. I had little idea that such an engraving was to be produced- It is a wonderful likeness, and has brought the tears into many an eye. You have done what will be a gratification to hundreds. The very sight of this will bring my dear father’s discourses and his living character more vividly to mind than any words printed in a book. What a happy thing that that likeness was taken!

“I do not know whether I told you that we had established a Sabbath-school here about four months ago. It has prospered beyond expectation, and is attended by upwards of thirty boys and fifty girls. It has done more than any other thing to interest me in the place, and I cannot tell how happy I would be were I sure of its doing good. The children have a bad example in their parents, many of whom attend no church, and spend their Saboaths in the public-houses, with which the neighbourhood abounds. Mr. Gray is a diligent minister, and spends much of his time in visiting his people.”

At length, in May 1836, he succeeded in bringing out the Memoir of his father, in one volume, with some posthumous writings in another. Sustained by the counsel of his uncle, the courageous youth addressed himself to the task with a heroic devotion. The work bears marks of a maturity altogether beyond the editor’s years. Never did son more reverentially, and ardently, embalm his father’s memory, and never had worthy son a worthier father as the subject of his first great literary labour.

In the memory of Scottish worthies who have passed the age of fifty, a halo of lovely holiness still hangs round the head of the late minister of Strathblane. It is well that those who knew and admired the virtues of the son, should be reminded that he owed much to his father. James Hamilton in his youth enjoyed, in very large measure, the advantages which the Scottish form of piety in the earlier portion of the century was fitted to confer, with few or none of the disadvantages which to some extent really adhere, and to a much larger extent are incorrectly attributed to it. In the home of his childhood there was, to the full extent, the Scriptural seriousness and devoutness, with none of the sourness which strangers often ascribe to the religion of the country. The light which the gospel shed on the manse of Strathblane was a gladsome light. There was strictness, indeed, in the service of God; but there was also the joyous freedom of dear children. The union, manifested by Dr. Hamilton in London, of old, deep, Scottish Presbyterian orthodoxy with the lovely pliabihty of a universal charity, was the legitimate result of early training and example.

86 PEOSPECT OF SESSION IN EDINBUPvGB.

“Easterhouse, June ZOth, 1836.

“My dear Uncle, — The kindness of your letter has done me great good, and made me feel what I will not try to express. I own that I was anxious about your opinion; for if the Memoir were not in some degree adequate, I was sure you would be disappointed; but you have more than relieved my anxieties; and now, though the book were to dissatisfy all the world besides, it would comfort me to think that it had interested you. For the additional and unexpected act of kindness in regard to the engraving, accept my warmest thanks. I wish I could convey them.

“I hope James will come to Edinburgh next winter. I intend, if all be well, to go thither myself, and it would make it perfectly delightful if James were there. I have laid in a considerable stock of divinity already, and what I want now is instructions how to lay it out to advantage. Good Dr. Macgill has given me a system, and I am going to Dr. Chalmers to get some life put into it; and though James does not stand in the same need of the Doctor’s inspiration, I engage that he shall find the winter spent at Edinburgh the most valuable, and possibly the most agreeable of his life. The Session there lasts from the beginning of November till the end of March. Do persuade him to come.”

The summer passed without change of circumstances or variation of occupations. Again, as in former seasons, lists of his Sabbath scholars, with jottings of their lessons, alternate with Greek and Latin, with theology and philosophy, with scientific observations, and pedestrian feats.

^fany lulls were climbed, and many valleys crossed, in search of plants to increase his acquaintance with the Scottish flora. A solitary tour to Loch Katrine was performed in August. The record of observations is as usual complete. We insert the first page as a specimen of his method.

“August 2, 1836. — Set out for a tour to the Trossachs. Took the boat to Falkirk, where I arrived at half-past three. Walked from that to Stirling, rather more than ten miles. Passed through Larbert, a village with a beautiful church. To the north of it, and in the parish of St. Mnian’s, is Torwood, famous for Donald Cargill’s excommunication of the King, Duke of York, Lauderdale, etc. Still further is Plean, the residence of the late Colonel Simson, who has built and endowed on his estate an hospital for old seamen. At Beaton Mills saw the old cottage where James ill. was murdered; was shown parts of the upper and nether millstones, with the marks of the spindle- sockets which had been in use at the time. Then proceeded to the field of Bannockburn. The Bruce’s flag-stone still remains. A weaver had built it into the wall of his house, but the laird very properly made him take down the wall and surrender the stone, which is now defended from further perils by a strong iron grating. The cows were feeding very peaceably in the morass where Edward’s cavalry made such stumbling amongst Bruce’s spikes and pitfalls. The room where James expired is a small place, with a roof too low to admit of your standing upright. The comer where he lay is still pointed out by the side of the fire.”

In the same style, Stirling, Callander, and every place of note on the route, are dehneated, socially, architecturally, archoeologically, and most of all botanically. The whole comes out a rapid, fresh, beautiful conglomerate. Nothing is omitted, and no two things are counted too diverse in kind for lying next each other. As they came to hand, they are heaped up — old legend, modern aspect, ruined tower, physical observation, — are all thrown peU-mell on the top of each other, for the student is collecting materials at present; he will classify and generalize by and by.

“Easterhouse, Oct. 28t, 1836.

“My dear Uncle, — Since I got your letter of August 1 3th, I have written to James, but it is more than time that I should write to you also.

“We were glad to learn by a letter from Bogside, a few days ago, that it is likely James will be in Edinburgh this winter. We are all going in together, and have taken such a house as will hold us all for the winter. We would be very happy that James should occupy one bedroom that we can spare; and perhaps he and I might make common cause of another room to study in. But if James prefers the independence of an Oxford bachelor, there are hundreds of lodgings at present to let. For our residence this winter, we have secured the ground floor and sunk fiat of a house in Buccleuch Place, near the College; but if Edinburgh should not prove too cold for us, it is likely that at next term we may take a house large enough to hold all our books, etc., and make it our permanent abode. Dr. Chalmers does not begin his lectures till Wednesdav

REMOVAL TO EDINBUllGH. 89

the IGth of next month. If James has Hill’s Lectures on Divinity, and the Doctor’s works on Natural Theology and the Evidences, he should bring them with him; not forgetting Butler’s Analogy. Might it not be worth while for James to attend Dr. Welsh’s lectures on Church History? I believe they are this Session to refer chiefly to the Church of Scotland. But Dr. Welsh is a philosopher and a man of taste, and worth attending, whatever be his subject. Tell James I am only waiting his letter to send my congratulations on honours which I am sure must be conferred one of these days, and am fehcitatingmyseK in the prospect of golden hours together.”

In November 1836, the family removed to Edinburgh, and he enjoyed the much coveted privilege of attending the prelections of Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Welsh on Theology and Church History. A journal of work then begins on 20th November, and differs in nothing from its predecessors, except it may be in giving still more minute details of hours spent, books read, and work done. No history of his spiritual progress at this period is written; at least none is extant. There is every reason to conclude that his faith continued strong, and his love fervent, but for the most part he has kept silence on these high matters, and written only the narrative of his external life.

His effort to induce his cousin to study for one season in Edinburgh failed. That pleasure, though fondly anticipated, was never enjoyed.

The summer came, and with it new opportunities of prosecuting his favourite studies. Although passionately attached to home, lie still leaves it for the botany that in aybe gathered, by the help of Sir William Hooker, in the west, Undistracted by the work of his own classes, which are conducted during the winter, he will this year throw himself with all his might into the summer course of botany given for the benefit of the medical students of the University of Glasgow.

In the following notes we obtain some interesting glimpses of a remarkable man, the late Professor of Chemistry in the University of Glasgow, Dr. Thomas Thomson, Although in manner he was proverbially distant and silent, he seems to have let himself out freely in conversation with his former pupil.

“123 Nile Street, Glasgow,
il/ay Sth, 1837.

“Came from Edinburgh to attend Sir William Hooker’s lectures on Botany. On this side of Falkirk, Dr, Thomson came into the boat. Had more than an hour’s conversation with him. I told him of Dr. Johnson’s (Durham College) paper, which I heard read at the Edinburgh Royal Society, April 17th, in refutation of the Doctor’s analysis of a Baryto-calcite-primeval. ‘He wrote me a letter about it, but as he had only the tenth of a grain to work with, I paid it no attention. — Dr. Hardy’s lectures on church history were the best course he ever attended. So popular was he that you had to secure your place — there was no getting in afterwards. — Dr. Watson’s History of Philip of Spain is the best historical work ever written. There is none so well arranged. Dr, Watson was Professor of Logic, and he and Irving were the only professors that he ever heard swearing in the class.’ He did everything to make himself singular, and attract notice. Dr. Thomson has seen him hop on one leg the whole length of the class-room in the midst of a lecture.

“We had a debate on patronage. The Doctor believes it necessary to the union between Church and State. “VMiat is the use of building more churches when people won’t come out to fill them? The church I attend contains none but well-dressed and genteel-looking people (St. David’s), and it ought to be a poor church. You will find the saying of Dean Swift to hold true: ‘The top is all froth, and the bottom all dregs, for all the religion of the land is among the middle-classes, and it is well, for while they remain uncorrupted they may reform the higher and the lower.’

“I have no doubt that geology furnishes the best argument for a particular Providence, and that the most convincing proofs will by and by be those brought from geology. If there have been successive creations, there must be a particular providence, and I know no more conclusive argument for the Christian miracles, — for what are these creations but so many miracles.”

“May 10. “Called at the College laboratory. Dr. Thomson saying something about his own son Gideon going to India, I said it was not likely I would ever be there. ‘You don’t know where you may be yet. Sir Francis Burdett said that he could not tell but he might be an oyster some day, but he knew he could never be a Tory. Now you see he is a Tory, but he is not an oyster yet.’”

TO HIS SISTER MAKY.

“Glasgow, 30i!7i May 1837.

“Took tea at Dr. Forbes’s. Great deal of interesting conversation, not excepting the mathematical part of it....

“26^A. — Two ladies who were calling sent kind regards, which I undertook to deliver, but neglected to ask their names.

“ZOth. — I have spent no such delightful day as this since I came to Glasgow, nor indeed for a long time past. Sir W. Hooker had fixed this morning for an excursion with his class to Bowling Bay. So at 7 we set sail in a most inauspicious rain, which prevented all, except about fourteen of the most zealous, from venturing. The rain soon went off, and troubled us no more. When we reached Bowling we found the worthy knight, who had sailed up from Kilmun, awaiting us on the quay. After some waving of hats and other preliminaries, he marched up at the head of his battalion to attack a breakfast marshalled in the inn. We soon put the whole of it to flight. Besides despatching kippered salmon and a couple of eggs, I myseK did good service both on toast and rolls. Rising at five, and a sea-voyage, made me valorous. Then ‘Eun to the mountains, run, boys, run.’ After surveying the Eoebuck Glen we went a good way up the hills, and got, besides a profusion of the common plants, a few that are rare. With the names of these I need not entertain you. When the trip was finished, I crossed over to Erskine, accompanied by William and Joseph Hooker. But I must not teU how we ate grapes and cherries in Lord Blantyre’s garden, and how Joseph Hooker, in climbing a lofty fir to get at the eggs in a heron’s nest, in Lord Blantp-e’s heronry, broke a branch, and fell down a great way, and tore his clothes, and had to go home in David Stewart’s. Suffice it to say, that after dining at Erskine ]Manse, home we got by the last boat, and that, after transacting various things, I am now closing this letter hard upon twelve o’clock. My kindest regards to Halley. My love to you all. I have much reason to be thankful that I enjoy such health and opportunities for prosecuting a study that I love so well, and must take care not to give it the place of better things. In its own place it is good, but nothing is good in God’s place. — I remain, my dear Mary, your affectionate brother, J. H.”

TO HIS BEOTHER ANDREW.

“Wednesday, May 2]sf, 1837.” I HAD a party to breakfast, that is, myself and three more — Arnot, Joe Hooker, and a Mr. Sinclair, an Edinburgh friend of William and me. Joe Hooker had collected for me upwards of a dozen mosses when we were at Bowling, and, as I know nothing about these plants, he was kind enough to arrange and name them for me. I went out leaving them all displayed on the table, and, returning two hours afterwards, was dumfoundered to find that my Highland hostess had been beautifying the table; the labels with the names were all piled up in a little heap by themselves, and the mosses packed indiscriminately into the little vasculum. I tendered a very gentle remonstrance on this piece of ill-judged attention, the result of which is that plants have risen so highly in

Mrs. Gilmour’s esteem, that if in sweeping the floor she chances on some useless leaf, it is carefully picked up and laid on the table, or some other place of safety. The afternoon and evening were not interrupted, and I bestowed them on my own uses.

“Uh. — Set out immediately after breakfast to search for some rare plants in Possil marsh, but after ploutering two hours in the bog, came home as wise as I went. So after dinner struck away up the Clyde as far as Daldowie, and fell in with my old acquaintance, Mr. Campbell He was taking his evening promenade in a pair of those sandals without heels or toes — Scotic, bauchles — near a very pleasant hermitage below Daldowie House, his own residence, I presume. He mourns that yonder he cannot find anybody that cares about a plant, though in his younger days he knew old George Don. So I had some more stories of old George, and some of the old ones over again. ‘Many ’s the hungry belly that botany has given me. I remember travelling a whole day, from daybreak to the gloaming, with an umbrella over my head all the time, in search of the Erica cinerea (bell heather), with white flowers, but I got it at last, just when it was growing dark.’ It was growing dark soon after I parted with this botanist of last century, and I assure you it was very romantic to wander down the banks of Clyde, through Daldowie and Kenmuir woods, to see the wild flowers and hear the wild birds. But what was as cheerful a sight as any, at one place I had paused a while to gather a saxifrage, when I heard a frequent plashing in the water. At first I thought it was some mischievous boy

SIR WILLIAM HOOKEll. 95

throwius stones, but soon found that the trouts were at supper, and the party was a large one. I never saw so many in one place, further down, numbers of people were fishing, but the trouts seemed to pay no attention to them. Slept soundly, having walked altogether nearly eleven hours this day.”

TO HIS BKOTHER WILLIAM.

“Glasgow, June 20th, 1837. “Tuesday 2 1 st. — To-day I dined with Sir William, and I doubt if I ever enjoyed a dinner party so much. I had a right to enjoy it, for I refused three other invitations for it. Besides his lady and his sons, there were Mr. Wales, a Newcastle botanist, a gentleman from India, Mr. Murray of the Garden, two English students, and myself. The conversation was all, as I wished and hoped, botanical, with a few episodes on Mr. Simeon of Cambridge, Mr, Montgomery, etc. Lady Hooker is a person of the most pleasing manners, and as fond of plants as the noble knight. He has just got a letter from Berbice, announcing the discovery of a water lily, with leaves six feet in diameter, and flowers a yard in circumference. He gave me to read a book which I expect to find very interesting, Lieber, a German botanist’s travels in Palestine. They are in German, and will give me use for my dictionary, which is fortunately here. He was very kind in inviting me to come as often as I chose and make use of his books and specimens. You know the story of Mungo Park and the moss. When he came home he gave it to his brother-in-law, Mr, Dickson, and told him, ‘That is the moss that saved my life in Africa.’ Mr. Dickson gave it to Sir William, who keeps it among a multitude of other curiosities.”

The discovery in Berbice, mentioned in this note, refers to the Victoria regia, which was immediately introduced by Sir William into the Botanic Garden of Glasgow, and has been cultivated there with great success every year since that time.

“50 George Square, Sept. 27, 1837.

“My dear Uncle, — This summer I attended the botanical class in Glasgow taught by Sir W. Hooker. I had the happiness to become acquainted with him, and he was very urgent that I should go to Syria, and spend a year in collecting its plants and studying its natural history, with a special view to the illustration of the Bible. He represented that there was much to be done in this department, and that a person with zeal for botany and zoology, and a competent knowledge of the original Scriptures, might do great service, and get himself some credit by the investigation. These inducements were powerful, and when he added that if I would go he would allow his son, with whom I have been long intimate, to accompany me, I confess that it was with some reluctance that I last week decided on staying at home. The reasons which chiefly detained me were the distance, expense, and hazards of the enterprise, and, above all, the idea of being three or four years called away from the employment to which I have been so long looking forward. My mother would have been anxious all the time that I was away; I might never have returned, and though I had, might have found the family here in different circumstances from those in which I left them. The excursion to which I now look forward is one to London. I would like to come up at the time next summer when it will be most convenient for James to see me, and I intend sending him an epistle congratulatory to-day, in which I shall unfold my purpose.”

Considering the tastes and acquirements of our student, much interest attaches to the proposal of Sir William, as explained in the preceding letter. It might have been, — it was, a turning-point in his life-course. Had he yielded, and undertaken an exploration of Palestine in the interests generally of natural science, and particularly of Scripture botany, his entrance upon the work of the ministry would havB been postponed, and postponement for several years at that period of his life might have injuriously affected his fitness for it afterwards. The distinguished professor’s suggestion, however, bore appropriate fruit at length. In his riper years Hamilton found scope for his inclinations, in contributing the botanical articles to Fairbairn’s BiUe Dictionary, lately published by the Messrs, Blackie of Glasgow.

It may be interesting to many of our readers to learn that the youth whom his father proposed to send to Palestine with Mr. Hamilton at that time is Dr. Joseph Hooker, the eminent naturalist, who explored the Antarctic regions with Sir John Ross, in the Erebus and Terror, who more lately accomplished a scientific tour in the Western Himmalayas, and who last year was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

By this time the controversy regarding the lawfulness

and expediency of Established Churches had begun to

exhibit in some places so much acrimony that, though he

still maintained his side, he shrunk with aversion from

the actual combat.

“50 George Square, Oct. 7, 1837.

“My deak Uncle, — Amongst all the societies that are organizing, would it not be worth while to try a Peace Society, of which all should be members who thought Christianity more important than the mode of its propagation, and who would allow men to differ from them about the need of EstabKshments without treating them as enemies and Antichrists? If all were of Mr. Willde’s spirit, there would be no difference between Churchmen and Dissenters, and they would have something else to do than backbite and devour one another. Whilst they are displaying their zeal on platforms, and gathering the applause due to their heroic speeches, he is procuring to himself a better recompense in the closes and dens of the Grassmarket, and when he emerges to the light again, he has as kind a word for the theoretical Churchman who has been getting cheered for his church- extension harangues, as for the Voluntary champion who has been abusing the bloated ecclesiastics for allowing their flocks to perish whilst clothing themselves with the wooL”

The next letter is addressed to his fellow-student Mr. Arnot, who was then acting as assistant to Mr. Bonar in the parish of Larbert, where the Carron Ironworks are situated, and where, consequently, a great proportion of the people are miners and ironfounders.

“60 George Square, December 13th, 1837.

“1 DO not so greatly pity you with your swarthy population. George Whitfield, preaching to the colhers at Newcastle, marked the effect of his sermons by the white furrows in their black faces, and I never expect to have a more grateful and attentive auditory than the colliers’ children at Easterhouse. Some evenings in the Grassmarket make these look like golden days. Yet truth to tell, the Grassmarket has its attractions, and last Sabbath night, when Mr. Wilkie looked in, I was dehghted with the answers of the bairns.

“A fortnight ago I gave in to Dr. Welsh an essay on the importance of Church History, which, betwixt reading books and writing, engaged me ten or eleven weeks, and has left me very learned on the History of Creeds and Systems of Divinity. Do you think it will get the prize? If I had heard Welsh’s lectures three years sooner, I should have studied divinity after another fashion. This day he gave us in an hour a view of the evidences which would have been ’ expatiated on in a fortnight’s lectureship ’ had it entered any other noddle.”

Instead of extracts from the detailed report of studies during the year, we submit a brief summary which occurs at the close.

“During 1837 I have read through forty- three volumes, and more or less of other books. Have read the Bible from Genesis to Joel. During the first three months attended classes three hours a day, and for the last six weeks two hours a day. For the last four months have read Latin and French with my sisters, about an hour each day. Spent May, June, and July attending Sir W. Hooker’s lectures on botany, during which time I travelled, chiefly on foot, upwards of 1000 miles in search of plants.

“Besides letters, addresses, minutes of societies, etc., I have written a sermon, exegesis, and two critical exercises. Essays for societies — ‘On the Development of the Moderate Party in the Church of Scotland,” Natural History the appropriate Recreation of a Country Manse,’ and ‘Recent Travellers in Syria;’ and for Dr. Welsh’s prize, ‘The Importance of Church History in a Course of Theological Study.’

“Every Sabbath evening when in Edinburgh, along with William, taught in the Grassmarket Sabbath- school.”

This was his last session at college. His zeal and energy seem to increase as his special opportunities are drawing to a close. The appetite grew by what it fed on. It is already evident that this student will not cease to study when he leaves the college. The “sacred thirst for more” is here a passion so strong that it will certainly last a lifetime. The usual congeries of accomplished work still crowds the pages of his day-book. The huge product is as inexorably demanded as the tale of bricks by Egyptian slave-drivers. In this case, however, himseK was sole driver and sole slave all in one. In still another aspect the process was all the world different from the usual results of slavery; for the driver was never angry, and the slave was never sad. There was hard driving, but no tears fell on the lesson-book in that school, where one gladsome buoyant spirit was both master and pupiL

TO MR. ARNOT.

“1st Feb. 1838.

“I AM happy to teU you that your kind wishes for a good New-year took effect, in so far that on the second day of the session I had the gratification of obtaining Dr. “Welsh’s Church History prize....

“I spent last night in a curious house — Mrs. Gregory’s, the widow of the late Dr. Gregory, of famous classical and medical memory. His great practice left his family independent, and they live in some splendour. But what interested me most was the MSS. of the great mathematical Gregories, his ancestors. There were four of them, and one of them professor in Oxford. He was the friend of Newton, and for the first time I saw, in the author’s handwriting, the first draught of problems that made the world wonder in ‘The Optics.’ To say nothing of fine paintings, a large library, the bones and coffin-nails of Robert Bruce, and a conservatory (where there was only one plant in flower), I could have got a week’s employment in looking over their rarities, and a month’s in listening to Mrs. G.’s stories of all the hterati of Scotland within the last half century. The reason of my being there was a visit to my friend and her nephew, John Mackenzie of CouL

“I am not ready to break your excellent rules anent early rising, or rather, early going to bed. But when I feel perdidi diem, it is hard to lose all the night too; e.g., last Saturday I devoted fourteen hours (something more than a day, as days go at present) to societies, friends, etc., and could not have slept without a peace-offering to myself.”

A note in the day-book, under date 9th March, is interesting as being his first regular engagement with a publisher for other than periodical papers: —

“Began, and for three hours wrote, a biographical preface to Hall’s Contemplations, which I have been asked to prepare for a bookseller in town. It must be comprised in thirty-two octavo pages, according to a sample produced. Is not this to be a bookseller’s hack? However, I did not ask the job, and greater men have not scorned the like employment.”

It need scarcely be remarked now, that it was only his own inexperience that suggested any scruple regarding this transaction. It was honourable to both parties, and useful to the community. It reflects credit on the sagacity of the Messrs. Nelson, the publishers to whom he refers, that they recognised in the somewhat soft-looking juvenile student, who had lately come to Edinburgh, some faculty for writing the biographies of ancient worthies, which might, if called out, be of eminent service both to its possessor and its employer. The two parties to that comparatively small transaction have since, in their separate lines, run parallel courses of honour and usefulness. Both the author and the publisher occupy a larger place in the public eye to-day. Afterwards, in the years 1845-47, the intercourse thus pleasantly begun was renewed and extended. Mr. Hamilton contributed brief biographies, of

John Bunyan and Matthew Henry, to accompany selections of their works then in the course of publication by Mr. Nelson, To dig in these Puritan strata, and bring up gems of personal history for the delight and instruction of the present race of men, was James Hamilton’s earliest love. Although his first effort in biography did not meet with encouragement, like a true hero he tried again, and tried with eminent success. It cost him no labour to bring himself into sympathy with the Christian worthies of a former age. Partly through parental training, partly through mental constitution, he found himself spontaneously in sympathy with them, as soon as he came in contact with their works. His exertions in this department were a labour of love. At a later period of his life, as we shall see, he returned to it with increased fervour. His faculty was indeed in this respect unique, I do not know any other man who was equally at home with the quaint piety of the past, and the general culture of the present, generation. He possessed more faculty than any writer with whom I am acquainted, to bridge over the chasm which divides the seventeenth from the nineteenth century, and show substantial truth ever the same under every degree of circumstantial difference.

Some additional extracts from journals and letters will stand as specimen and memorial of his occupations towards the close of his last session at college: —

“February lOth. — Alex. Campbell’s essay on the Moravians in the Missionary Society most affecting and solemnizing. Seldom felt more the obligation to ask ‘Am I willing to leave mother, and brothers, and sisters, and home

104 DR. M’CRIE’s lectures.

for the Gospel’s sake?’ This was warmly urged in the essay, and deeply felt by the auditory, Mr. Mitchell and I brought forward the motion anent establishing a periodical, which was readily responded to. An interesting, and I hope eventful, meeting, which, as Leitch said, will, I hope, be remembered not only in future days but in other lands.

“Some preachers use their text as * a louping-on-stane.’ If by help of it they can only get mounted, they do not care how far they go from it, or if ever they see it again.

“February 22. — The Committees of the General Assembly’s Schemes have agreed to publish a periodical, no doubt owing to the application from our College Society.”

“■Ist March 1838.

“I USED to be terrified at the postman’s ring, for he used to bring nothing but letters of business, and it is very seldom that a letter of business is a letter of friendship. Matters have so far improved that, if my heart gives a jump now at his impetuous tintinabular onset, the first dunt is succeeded by a delectable fluttering ‘twixt hope and anxiety, in which the influence of ’ the charmer ’ {vide, Tom Campbell) predominates. In short, then, I was in the lobby last night when the plenipotentiary of the post-office brought your letter, and an invitation for Willie to his namesake the Professor’s. My being in the lobby in the present instance was preparatory to going out, which I think it necessary to state, lest you should suppose that I was coming in. But to proceed, I was going to hear a lecture on Church History by the Rev. Thos. M’Orie. Said lectures are usually crowded. I hesitated whether I should recreate myself with your epistle, and take my chance of standing to hear the lecture, when the wiser alternative prevailed, I planted myself in the corner of an empty pew, and read, and as I read, I laughed, and as I laughed, I looked up and saw some people looking and laughing at me. Nathless I read on till the kirk filled and the minister came into the pulpit and ended the sport. These lectures are most interesting, as I have stated at greater length elsewhere (provided Dr. Burns has put my notice into his Instructor for this month); and, you who have got Dr. M’Turk’s prizes, and therefore know all about the Church of Scotland, could not give them of Larbert a greater treat than a course of such lectures. If a spark of national feeling linger, nothing can do more to provoke a godly emulation of our fathers. Did I ever unfold to you a scheme which I have cherished so long that it is a question whether it or I shall die first, viz., — to get up the History of the Church of Scotland something on the plan of Sir Walter Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, thereby intending them for young persons, imprimis? For if that history could be learned in the nursery or at school, it might do something to forestall the present spirit of indifference or hostility towards our Kirk, and perhaps something more.

“March 29th. — Bond fide the above was written, as it professes, a month ago. Since then I have been an invalid for three weeks, and the above is probably symptomatic. I have had an attack of smallpox, which confined me to bed for a fortnight, and has made me very weak, but done no other damage, for if once I were strong I will be as beautiful as ever.

“I do not know whether to join your preachers’ strike against candidateship. Have you any feasible scheme to substitute? For the blind-man’s-buff system of taking a minister on recommendations will not answer.

“2d March. — Wrote and read five hours on the Gardens of the Ancient Hebrews.

“A few friends of the Missionary Society took tea with us. Resolved to write to Dr. Duff to come and address the students; also to cultivate more acquaintance with the Irish students in the hall, who have not met with the attention and kindness due to strangers.

“bth April. — Mr. Nelson, the pubhsher, paid me five pounds for my life of Hall, the first fruits of my literary labour.”

To this another short entry of a subsequent date should be subjoined as the natural complement. — “Sent one of my five pounds No be divided between John, Arthur, and Mary M’Gregor. Should I ever make further literary earnings, resolve to subject them to a similar percentage.” It was thus that he chpt the wings of his riches to prevent them from flying away.

“Zth May. — Says a worthy friend, ‘There is but one good article in this Presbyterian, and it is yours.” I am sorry to hear it,’ say I, ’ for I have two articles in this number.’ He was kind, and I was rude, but unintentionally.”

Two papers in one number of the Presbyterian Review, during the session of college, with all his other avocations, indicate already the pen of a ready writer, as well as the habit of an eager student. Nor was this all; another useful periodical of that day profited by his alacrity and willingness, as appears from another jotting: — “Friends at breakfast. Got the Christian Instructor and the Presbyterian Review for May, with certain papers in them which I have not managed to read. All day revising my Life of Hall for a new edition.”

The chief event of this summer was his long promised and much desired visit to England. In the family of his uncle, the publisher, there was at once a strong attraction to London, and a means of turning his residence there to the best account. The journal of events is, as usual, lively, accurate, and full. We submit a few extracts to show the buoyant spirit of the youthful traveller, and the sharp look-out which he kept on men and things in the great metropolis. He read actual human life as he read books, in order to extract knowledge which might be stored for future use.

“Thursday, May 17th, 1838, 7 P.M. — I take to my journal as we have now no more land to look at, but are far at sea, somewhere off the coast of Lincoln. It was after six last night when our steam- ship, the ‘Victoria,’ sailed from Leith roads, and since then she has been skipping along, with the help of a side wind, from nine to ten knots an hour. The meaning of said knots shall presently be explained, wind and weather permitting. The Bass was the most interesting object by far which met our view before it grew dark. Rising 400 feet, with precipices not only perpendicular, but overhanging, and looking down on two coasts at once, and the many islands of the Firth, from

Inclikeith to May, with its meriy men, and the nearer but singular rocks, Craigleith and the Lamb, and Fidra, a huge mass of trap through which the surge has formed a natural cavern permeable by the waves from side to side, as if intended for Neptune’s triumphal arch; it might form a fit habitation for some hermit who had just philanthropy enough to like a distant view of the haunts of men. But the Bass has seldom been a habitation from choice, except to its solan geese, who were all too busy sleeping to honour us with the accustomed salute.

“When we had rounded Berwick Law, the breeze freshened, and, despite the exquisite spirits into which a comfortable cup of tea had put us, pale faces began to indicate the disquiet of their owners. Discretion was our valour, and at ten we turned into our beds. We had secured berths near the centre of motion, and therefore felt little of the ship’s heaving. But I, being tallest, was promoted to the upmost shelf or berth, which, though near the centre of noise, was very noisy. (Hence the laws of sound and motion can’t be identical. This for the philosophers.) There I heard in great perfection every heaveho of the sailors as they shifted the sails each time that the wind varied, and that might be once an hour; the pilot’s bell to announce the half hour, and a responsive bell from the forecastle, just to tell the pilot that they had heard his bell; the tread of the man on the quarter-deck, and the pacing of squeamish passengers up and down, hoping that their sickness would walk off, besides the gurgle of the waves, the splash of the paddle-wheels, the grinding of the engines, the roar of the furnaces, and the creaking, and warping, and straining of timbers. All this without a storm was noise enough to keep me long awake. But it was still dark when I fell asleep, nor did my slumber break till daylight had extinguished the floating light of our cabin-lamp. At seven I lowered myseK from my perch, put on my coat, which, with my boots, was all that I had taken off, and stepped on deck. The sun was smihng on the face of the ocean, which was scarcely ruffled; it was only dimpled, as if smiling back again. At breakfast no lady was forthcoming, and some did not leave the roost all day. Yet we seldom had any motion beyond the solemn heave of the vessel under the propulsion of 260 horse-power, and the fretful jarring of the over-strained timbers....

“Read the second volume of Basil Hall’s Fragments of Voyages and Travels, — amusing, egotistical, and exaggerated, full of nautical slang.”

Here is the ruling passion strong in the sickly tossings of the hissing steamer, as in the soKtary lodging of the student; he must be devouring a book, and must also jot down for his own use a note of its contents, or an opinion of its worth.

Passing over many notices of the city and its citizens, take one which points to his own favourite pursuits. From this time forth, the British Museum became one of his favourite haunts. It was a mine of gold opened at his door.

“Thundered along in an omnibus to the British Museum, and found that we had selected the only day on which it was impossible to see it. With Adam White, took a run to the Linnean Society’s Rooms in Soho Square, the former residence of Sir Joseph Banks. Saw the three little greenpainted presses which contain the herbarium of the great Linnaeus, sacredly kept as he had left them, and a number of similar presses filled with the collections of Sir James E. Smith, and many others. Then to the Zoological Society’s Rooms, whose museum we explored. It contains many unique specimens. And lastly, to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. This year’s is the seventieth. The painting which attracted the greatest attention was Wilkie’s, ‘The Queen presiding at the Council on her Accession to the Throne.’ This was executed for the Queen at her own command....

“Turner’s landscapes, gilt over with sunshine, have a peculiar effect, which is almost natural in the banishment of Ovid from Rome. It is evening, and the scene floats in such radiance as the prodigal sky of Italy pours into its Tiber. The landscape is set off with all those attractions which could make a last look the most agonizing to a poet who, like Ovid, had sensibiHty without heroism, and could only sing with Rome in his eye, or in his memory. Landseer’s dogs are the pink of canine elegance and good breeding, most gentleman-looking dogs.”

This visit was his first sight of the great world. It is here he begins to find the use of his classic stores. His acquisitions and tastes will put more meaning into one of Turner’s landscapes, and more meaning into many other objects that must pass before the observer in the moving panorama of miscellaneous life.

A visit to Oxford is briefly sketched in a letter to his sister.

VISIT TO OXFOED. Ill

“St. John’s College, Oxon, 28th May 1838.

“My dear Mary, — James and I came here on Friday. We left London early, so as to give ourselves time to visit Windsor, The Queen is at Buckingham House; so we had the range of the state-rooms unmolested. They are splendid. The hall where the Knights of the Garter dine with her Majesty on great occasions we particularly admired. It is very long, and very lofty. The ceiling blazoned with the arms of many hundred nobles who have won the blue ribbon in their day; and the walls hung round with suits of armour of every age and fashion. In an ante-room are many busts and pictures; that of Nelson has for a pedestal the lower part of the ‘Victory’s ’ foremast perforated by a cannon ball. The royal chapel is a solemn place, surrounded with the monuments of kings and paved with their tomb-stones. The marble group representing the death of the Princess Charlotte is the most expressive thing I have seen in marble. A palace is to me a sadder spectacle than a graveyard; for the study of splendour contrasts mournfully with the tokens of human weakness and evanescence. Passed through Eton, and had the prospect which inspired Gray’s famous ode, but we did not feel poetical

“Slough, where Sir John Herschel has just taken up Ms residence on his return from the Cape, and where his lather’s enormous telescope lies in ruins. Oxford at night. Took lodgings in the town; but take our meals in college. Wonderful old place. Yesterday heard four sermons, and attended five churches or chapels. Heard the Bampton Lecture, and James’s tutor asked us to dine with the fellows of this college, where I sat next to the august lecturer; chatted and drank wine with him, and thought of him and some other of the big-wigs as the old woman did of the judges. I have not yet penetrated the entire mystery of caps, gowns, hoods, and surplices, of which there are at least twenty combinations. But this morning breakfasted at the rooms of a student with a velvet cap, which interpreted means a Gentleman Commoner, or one who spends £200 a year additional for a higher seat at chapel; and a youth came in and took a cup of coffee, with a gold tassel on his top, which proved him to be my Lord Brooke, eldest son of the Earl of Warwick. A college life may be very pleasant, — comfortable rooms, heaps of servants, libraries, lectures, silver-plate (for here every trencher and jug are sohd silver); but I do not like the uncoUegiate distinction of velvet and gold tassels. Every one, however, looks like a gentleman, and most are really such.

“In London I heard Melvill, but was much more interested with Mr. Newman here. He is suspected of Popery by some, but is a High Churchman only. I have not for long heard a sermon so affecting or so impressively spoken. He is doing much good and some evil. Love to all, from yourseK upwards and downwards, — Your very affectionate brother, James Hamilton.”

It is interesting to observe the estimate formed at that time of Mr. Newman by a liberal and catholic, but thoroughly Protestant, listener. He generously appreciates the good, and refuses to believe in all the evil Alas! the canker had by that time eaten deeper into the vitals of the Anglican Church than good men were willing to believe possible. Since that time the leaven of ritualism has spread so widely through the national Establishment, that, though faithful men within it still hold on in hope, others outside begin to despair of reformation except through a dissolution of the body, and a reconstruction of its elements.

“June Sth. — Afternoon with uncle to Hampstead; through Lincoln’s Inn and St. Pancras’ Church. Beautiful Grecian structure, with a tower copied from the Temple of the Winds, but unpleasantly like a heathen temple, with its caryatides, etc.; cost £80,000; holds 2500. Called at West End. Dined at Mr. Thorpe’s.

“June Qth. — British Museum, to make extracts from some books.

“Sabbath, June 10th. — Mr. Binney’s, Weigh-House. ‘Signs of the Times.’ Remarkable man. The finest forehead extant, perhaps. Forcible language. Factory children ’ defrauded of their childhood.’ Fine people sighing over the negro’s oppression, ’ whilst they flaunted about in gay clothing, wet with the tears and stained with the blood of their infant fellow-countrymen.” Valleys which once awoke only to the voice of the bird, have had their echoes disturbed and frightened by the rumble of machinery.’ A crowded audience of the most respectable and intelligent sang the closing hymn with an enthusiasm which promised hearty support in any measure to which the orator might urge them. Happily this sermon was an exception from his ordinary train of subjects. Considers Chalmers’s visit to London auspicious for the enemies

H of Establishments. A lecturer a novelty; an appeal to public reason a descent from the haughty eminence once occupied by Churchmen. Defended on grounds which High Church of England men will have cause to repent.”

This is thirty years since, and, through God’s good hand upon him, Mr, Binney’s brow is still erect, and the brain it holds is still capable of taking a share in any good cause. The concluding note regarding the defence of Church establishments, when read in the light of the present day, is a testimony to his great sagacity.

“June 1 5th. — Along with Uncle Thomas got away by the three o’clock coach for Brighton. Travelled ten miles an hour regularly, and stopped a quarter for tea. Uncle always makes a point of taking every meal when travelling, whether incUned or not, for the encouragement of people who, at great risk and inconvenience, keep their houses open for the public accommodation. And on the same principle, instead of calling surlily to the waiters, and abusing everything brought to table, he praises what he can. To-night he praised the butter, and it deserved “it. This certainly is in a better spirit, and has a better effect on people, than what you generally hear at the common table of a hoteL ‘Waiter, have these fish stood there since I was last this way V ‘Have you boiled these eggs long enough to kill the chicks inside of them?’”

The eminent bibliopole of the Eow carried about with him a true and noble heart in mail-coaches and all sorts of conveyances. This practical protest in favour of the injured innkeepers is an incidental mark of a noble nature.

The late Archbishop Wliately, while yet a youth, made a vigorous and successful stand on the side of a deserving host, on the way between Oxford and his home — an exploit which he recalled with pleasure in later years.

“2d July. — British Museum. Got from Mr. Children two specimens of OpTirys apifera in pots. Linneean Society. Looked over botanical books in the library. Sir James Smith’s copy of Lightfoot’s Flora, 1781, Creech, Edin. The copy of Hudson’s Flora, by the help of which he learned botany; full of marginal notes. Linnseus’s copies of his own pubhcations, done over with annotations, Mr. Don told me that his father’s letters, etc., had been given to Mr. D — in Edinburgh, for the purpose of writing a life, many years ago. Rooms of the Royal Society.

“Zcl July. — AU forenoon in reading-room of British Museimi. Evening, went to Surrey chapeL Mr. Sherman did not preach, but instead of him a young Irishman, in a black stock, with a style as florid as his complexion.”

In its learned societies and libraries and museums, London has immense attractions for this young man. The taste he has obtained during this visit has whetted his appetite. The memory of these botanical and antiquarian treasures will remain, and possibly enter, acknowledged by himself or unacknowledged, as a make-weight into one scale at a subsequent date when he is invited to take up his residence in the metropolis.

At GaUeywood, his cousin’s curacy in Essex: —

“Mh July. — The cottages of the peasantry are, next to the ancient parish churches, the great ornament of this part of the country. They are built with that picturesque disregard of system, either as to position or architecture, which produces a pleasing effect beyond the reach of any system, though it may fail to give the greatest possible accommodation of which the materials are capable. Then there are the flower-plots before each door- step, and the rose-trees festooning with their fragrant branches every window and doorway, with vines or some such creepers on the gable-walls. Whoever has seen these cottages, and gets a parish in Scotland put under his care, should never rest till he has put this badge and instrument of morality upon the homes of all its inhabitants. For, upon the principles of Whitfield, neatness and a love of order are the signs of a good character, and on the principles of the Manse Garden, they lead to it. Mr. Paterson,^ by the way, has noticed the true cause of that romantic and sylvan appearance which Enghsh scenery usually presents, making every parish look like a nobleman’s park. The English plant less than the Scotch. There are few woods in England, but every hedge-row is set with trees, and these answer every purpose of ornament with no sacrifice of land.

“Sabbath, July, 8. — Evening, Scotch Church, Crown Court, Mr. Cumming. Half full, plain people, and a plainer church. Mr. C. had a good lecture. Very absurd on the Temperance Society. Complained of his people’s irregularity in coming late to church. Did not understand why people should be so well conducted in the Church of England, and rude in the Scotch Church. People seemed heartless; and altogether I should fear that Presbyterianism

1 Kev. Nathaniel Paterson, of Glasgow, author of the Manse Garden.

SYDNEY SMITH IN ST. PAUL’s. 117

does not thrive in London. I question how far it is worth while to struggle for its lifeless existence.”

This casual estimate of Presbyterianism in London is worth something to us at the present stage of our progress. There is no sign of prepossession in its favour here. At this period a Scotch pulpit in London seemed to be somewhat of a forlorn hope. He saw the nakedness of the land. Probably the prospect had grown a little brighter when, four years afterwards, he was invited to take part in that “struggle,” but even then it required not a little courage to encounter the anticipated difficulties.

“Sahhath, July Ibtli. — St. Paul’s in the afternoon. Sydney Smith, very good (some might have been suspicious) on pious men endeavouring to render religion attractive. Magnificent anthem from 1 Kings viii., Dedication of the Temple. The richest and most full-toned voice I ever heard, one of the choir, * The heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house which I have builded,’ brought tears profusely into some eyes. Whether occasioned by the music alone, or helped by the consideration that this was the temple of England, I cannot tell. Then in the answer, ‘And God said unto Solomon,’ as the voice seemed to draw nearer as if descending from above, the effect was stupendous. An anthem, by Dr. Boyce. This is in the mimetic style of Handel’s Creation of Light, and Chorus of Angels to the Shepherds.”

“Edinburgh, Sept. 3. “My dear Uncle, — Mary, Andrew, and I had a week’s tour to St. Andrews, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling. At the first- mentioned place I could not but feel a touch of your indignation at the iconoclastic reformers. To see nothing but three towers (tottering to their fall) of a cathedral, once the largest in the world, and whose roof of burnished copper once shone to the eye of pilgrims like the gilded mosque of Omar; and see cattle feeding on the altar-stone hallowed by the rehcs of St. Andrew the apostle, almost moved me from my right mind. But it would have been from my right mind, for I believe that, after all, ’ the dingin’ doon o’ the Cathedral’ helped the Reformation. But when you come next to Scotland, I must take you for a few days to do the churches of Fife, some of them are so very old — St. Monance, Crail, Leuchars, etc. Some of them retain the Episcopal form of a chancel behind the pulpit, and disposed exactly like one of your own parish churches. Above all, the church of St. Rule, built A.D. 375, and to whose antiquity you can scarcely find a match in England. It is almost as solid and homogeneous as a rock. We chmbed to the top of its lofty tower, which is unique in ecclesiastical architecture, being earher than Saxon, and had a noble view. I say we, for there were the families of three ministers, — a daughter of Dr. Andrew Thomson, a son and two daughters of Dr. Lee, and ourselves. At Dundee we were overwhelmed with kindness, which was all the more welcome that it was conferred not for our own sakes. I scarcely thought that so much feeling could have outlived thirty years; and when I saw the church and people, I understood how my father had found it hard to leave them.”

During the autumn after his return from England, he passed tlirongli the usual trials, and was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh on the 11th of October. Some of his experiences at that interesting crisis of his course have been preserved in a letter addressed to Mr. Arnot: —

lOth October 1838.

“I DO not know (nor do you) the feelings of a young lady when, for the last time, she subscribes her own fair name; but I feel to-night very like as if I were to change my name to-morrow. And so in some sense I will, for I must forego the Esq. with which the courtesy of the present age has so long honoured me. But I must beware of nonsense, for my mood is not so nonsensical as usual to-night.

“Henry Taylor told me that you had bespoken my first sermon. Had I known this sooner I might possibly have availed myself of the permission (indeed I did know sooner, for WiUie gave me a hint about it); but Dr. Somerville, of Drumelzier, has long held me engaged to proceed to the top of the Lammermuirs, and make my dSiot to the hundred shepherds who form the good man’s pastoral cure. He was an old friend of my father, and it was in that neighbourhood that my father began his labours as a minister’s assistant, at Broughton, viz. My chief objection to the Doctor’s pulpit is that it does not command a more extensive prospect than the desk in Mr. Wilkie’s Grassmarket Schoolroom, where I am welcome to hold forth any Thursday night, so that a regular church will be quite as much a novelty and as formidable on Sabbath week as it would be on Sabbath first. Then my second and third Sabbaths are pre -occupied, and that which follows (the first Sabbath of November) is our Edinburgh Sacrament, when I cannot think of leaving home. But any day thereafter, if you will receive me, and if we may provide for what is so distant, I shall be exceeding glad to visit you, and, if it be any rehef, to bring a sermon. Should it be the day when you supply Dunipace, so much the better, as it is the smaller church.

“There is one thing which has been very much in my thoughts for some days. Had Halley’s health been spared he would by this time have been a year a preacher. You yourseK have been rather more. I remember one Thursday in September of last year when he came here from Glasgow to consult Ahson. He was very ill, and had delayed his coming for a day that he might see you licensed. At that time you were uppermost in his thoughts, and oftenest in his conversation. I do not think that we can ever hope for a more ardent friend, and one every way so valuable. I am sure I cannot, and at this moment I almost feel as if I was doing a wrong thing in taking license when he is quite disabled for it, so very strange does it seem that I should be a preacher before him. Last Monday I heard that Mr. Ross, an Edinburgh physician, who goes to Madeira yearly, had sent word to Mrs. Ross that he found Halley considerably worse on Ms arrival three weeks ago. Have you had any word from his Glasgow friends?

“Smeaton has been assistant at North Leith for six weeks, and has refused Morningside.

“I do not know how you felt it, but I find it extremely difficult to write sermons with sufficient plainness and seriousness so long as I have no settled charge, and without making thought and style the chief considerations. It shows a vanity and disingenuity which I would not at one time have suspected, for I have always thought myself honest in the main. And yet, after all, I think I could forego reputation for the certainty of doing good. I agree with you that the system of candidateship is very bad, as it withdraws a preacher’s thoughts from the main end of his office. Have you found a substitute for it by which we who have no patrons may become ordained ministers? I hope to spend this evening quietly, for so I have scarcely spent the day, bat could not help it. It is other people, and not myself, that spend my days.”

“Edinburgh, Nov. 27, 1838.” Dear Mrs. Vetch, — You will remember the Friday evening which you last spent here. I always shall. We little thought that Mary’s pale looks that night were the beginning of her last illness. The first week I had no fear; but on the Monday evening before her death, I returned from Larbert, where I had been preaching, and was uneasy at finding her no better. At the same instant I heard of the death of John Mackenzie, and a depression came over me, from which I could not recover, though I did not then know that Mary’s was the same complaint. Nor was it till the Saturday night that Dr. Huie apprehended danger. She herself was probably never aware of the likely termination of her trouble, nor was it needful or desirable that she should. Now that she is taken from us, I cannot but feel that it was the kindness of God which

122 DEVELOPMENT OF HIS SISTER’s CHARACTER.

selected from our number the one who was ready. She has left us at the time when she was becoming most interesting. Her want of strength had been a great drawback to her. It made her very incapable of exertion, left her little spirit for conversation, and damped the ardour of her mind. But soon after my return from England, I saw a great alteration. Her health and sprightliness were returning. She was taking a charge of the household arrangements, and had applied to her studies with fresh spirit. This told on the development of her mind; and during our short trip to St. Andrews, etc., I was surprised and dehghted at the amount of her intelligence and sagacity and information. Her deep feeling I had always been aware of. But from that time I regarded her in a new light, and felt that she was a wise companion, as well as an amiable sister; and if I wanted any one to accompany me in a walk I was glad if I could secure her. When I was tired of reading or writing, I would go into the dining-room and interrupt her at the piano, and we would spend a lively hour in the Meadows, but now I sit here all day and hear that music no more. I do not know how it is with others, but I feel as if I and my young friends never had such reason to be thoughtful as at this season, when so many young persons are sick and dying. When we are so soon to leave the world, it is the best kindness which we can show to one another to try and secure a happy meeting on the other side of time. If we love the blessed Saviour we cannot too soon be with Him; but tiU then we are not fit to die. There is a book which I am at present reading, and if you have not met with it, I think you would like it also. It is Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. It is a book which requires to be read at leisure. It is full of useful suggestions, and is written with great earnestness, and has done more good than almost any work I know. If you have not got it, and would like to read it, I should be very happy to send you one of my copies, for I happen to have three. As the affairs of Morningside Church have got for the present into great confusion, I have agreed to become Mr. Candlish’s missionary, in the place of John Mackenzie, who is going to Dunkeld. This will not be so difficult to a beginner as a parish and a church. How do you like your new minister?

“Mr. Wilkie is very iU with fever. He has been under it for a week, and has not yet got the turn.”

TO ME, ARNOT.

“December Slst, 1838.” You heard rightly that I had accepted Morningside, and yet I am not, and never will be, its minister. Had I adhered to my acceptance, I would have been settled in the most delightful of all the new churches in Scotland, but it would have brought before the public an angry altercation which had been going on amongst some good men, not to their credit. And in such cases the occasional cause of the evil is sure to be considered a party. I am much happier where I am than I could have been for the next twelve months in Morningside, with a pamphlet, and newspaper, and presbytery controversy about my induction, and all this I had certain knowledge would ensue. I withdrew my acceptance, and Mr. Grant having withdrawn from being a candidate, George Smeaton will be elected to-day, and, I am happy to say, will accept. My withdrawment has brought upon me the resentment of my supporters, but when Smeaton settles among them they will be thankful....

“I have come to see that a sermon will not be well delivered, that it will not even interest the audience, much less do any good, unless it has been the subject of much prayer beforehand. For the want of this, two or three discourses, which I thought my best, have proved such failures that I have no heart to look at them any more....

“This year closes darkly on me. It is not only that loss of which you already know, and which you understand so well, but in Mr. Wilkie I have lost the friend here who was a father and a counsellor, and that at the very time when I most needed a good adviser, the elasticity of my own spirits being broken, and difficult matters requiring serious deliberation. I feel for his family almost as much, perhaps more, than for our own.”

The event to which he alludes as having caused the year to close darkly over Mm, was the death of his sister Mary, on the 5 th of November. Grave, gentle, retiring, she drooped and withered, and was removed in her nineteenth

1 Minister of the Free Church at Ayr. A sharp conflict of opinion took place among certain grave and eminent men, members of the congregation, on the choice of a minister; but the blame, whatever may have been its amount, lay entirely with themselves, for the bearing of the two young ministers was noble throughout. Perfect friendship between themselves, a wise reticence, and a frank retirement gave promise eai-ly of what became the ultimate result in either case, viz., an appropriate sphere and an honourable ministry.

ST. George’s mission. 125

year. Very strong and tender were the bonds that knit the whole family together; correspondingly severe were the pangs of parting. But in each of these successive bereavements the survivors were cheered in their sorrow by the well-founded and well-defined hope of immortality, which threw a halo round the parting scene. The grief caused by breaches in a family who are united in the Lord is as deep as any other grief, but there is a softness in it which is peculiar to itself. The sorrow is all there, but the burning has been taken out of it.

As soon as he had obtained license, he was engaged by Mr. Candlish and the Session of St. George’s to conduct their district mission in Rose Street. As there was only one meeting for public worship every Lord’s day in the mission station, he enjoyed occasional opportunities of preaching in the various churches of the city. He had now attained the consummation of his long cherished desire — the liberty of proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. He entered upon the discharge of his duties with characteristic zeaL He held his calling in the highest honour; he magnified his office, while he humbled himself. From his childhood he cherished an ardent love of this work, and he loved it to the end. Here is the commencement of a ministry that, through God’s grace, will never slacken, and never waver, until the minister, wearied and weakened, shall be summoned by the Master to “come up higher.”

“Jan. 7, 1839.

“Dear Mrs. Vetch, — Your very kind and welcome letter deserved an earlier answer. Once upon a time, the more I did, the more I was able to do. But tMs is not the case at present. When the day’s work is done, instead of sitting down to write sermons and letters, etc., I am glad to rest myself over a book, or talking with a friend. I haK suspect there is some laziness in this, though there is something of weariness also. But, be it what it may, I must reform, or make up my mind to lose my correspondents, a loss which I cannot afford. Perhaps you have heard that I have become Mr, Candlish’s assistant, or more properly the St, George’s missionary. Most of my work consists in visiting the inhabitants of Rose Street, of whom there are nearly 3000. I do not meet with many in abject poverty, as would be the case were my diocese in the Cowgate or Grassmarket, but there are many families quite wretched from the dissipation of the fathers, and the heart-broken tawdriness of the mothers. The poorer people are in great part street-porters and hostlers. They are for the most part improvident, and their children ill-educated, I find it extremely difficult to induce them to send the younger children to the infant school. That school is quite a pet with me; but the parishioners see no use in it, as the scholars in a day school will learn as much reading in a twelvemonth as the infantry do during the three years of their attendance. Perhaps it is also against it that the teacher is so young, for, though admirably fitted for the purpose, she has quite a girhsh appearance; the very contrast to the severe and spectacled dames who taught the Hornbook to our grandpapas. Amongst many bad, and some indifferent, I have met with a few excellent people, and I have marked their houses ’ that I may go “back and refresh myself from time to time, when wearied of more irksome work.’ To-day I was visiting a very interesting boy, who is dying of consumption, at the age of sixteen. It was my third visit, and he cannot live to receive many more. His information is remarkable, and the first time I saw him I was struck with the amount of reading which casually appeared in his conversation. This may have in some measure been owing to his employment, for he was learning to be a book printer. But his warm and intelligent and manly piety was what above all things delighted me. To-day, he told me that, from what he felt in himself, his time could not be long now; * but the nearer it comes I feel always the happier; I wish I could tell the joy that I feel! ‘He said this with a voice and a smile so natural and so expressive that I could not doubt that it was really what he felt, but I asked him what gave him such joy. He said that he could not tell how it came into his mind, but that the passage on which he rested most was the saying, ‘Whoso calleth on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ the same shall be saved.’ Here he misquoted a word, showing that, as he said himself, his memory of texts was giving way, but the spirit of the passage is in the Bible. He said many things which made me wonder at his attainments, and envy, or at least rejoice, in his happiness.”