r BX9225=H32 A76 1883 Amot. , William life of James Hamilton D.D. F.L.S LIFE JAMES HAMILTON, D.D. F.L.S. ^..^-.__<^iDi- LIFE OP JAMES HAMILTON D.D. F.L.S. BY WILLIAM AENOT EDINBURGH SIXTH EDITION. LONDON JAMES NISBET & CO., BEENEES STEEET 1883. EDINBURGH : T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVEBStTT. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE — CHILDHOOD — VOUTH TILL HIS FATHER'S DEATH. PATE Notices of the family — Sketch of his father — Circumstances of his bu-th — Infancy — Strathblane — Literary habits in child- hood— Educational influences — First journal — First session at College — Spiritual life — Literary adventure — Anticipates an early removal — Death of his sister Elizabeth — College examination — Exercises in vacation — Self-searching — Natural philosophy — Professors and students — Chemistry — Father's death, ........ . . 1-73 CHAPTER IL FROM HIS father's DEATH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS MINISTRY. Leaving the Manse — Day-book — Observations in natural his- tory— Memoir of his father — Removal to Edinbui-gh — Dr. Thomas Thomson — Sir William Hooker — The botany of Pales- tine— Literary engagements — Journey to London — Oxford — Resignation of appointment to Morniugside — Death of his sister Mary — Mission in St. George's Parish, Edinburgh, 74-127 CHAPTER in. MINISTRY AT ABERNYTE. The minister of the parish — His work as assistant — Invited to Greenock — Natural history in the puljjit — William Burns — Visit to Strathblane — Strathbogie — Conflict between Church and State— Called to Edinburgh, 128-166 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. MINISTRY IN EDINBURGH AND REMOVAL TO LONDON. PAGE Ordination as minister of Roxburgh Church — Fruits of his short ministry there — The National Scotch Church, Regent Square — Edward Irving — Mr. Hamilton called to Loudon, 167-188 CHAPTER V. FROM HIS SETTLEMENT IN LONDON IN 1841 TO THE DISRUPTION OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH IN 1843. Halley and Hamilton — Series of tracts — Church in the House, etc. — The Presbyterian Church in England — Troubles in Scotland — The Convocation — The Harp on the Willows — The liberty demanded by the Church, and refused by the State — The death of M'Cheyne — A quickened ministry — The Dis- ruption— Relation of the Churches in England to Scotch Establishment — Presbytery of Loudon — Law and Equity, 189-233 CHAPTER VI. 1843-1846. Dr. Guthrie — Robert M'Cheyne — Review of intrusted talents — Christian union — Difficulty of obtaining ministers — Origin of Life in Earnest — Natural history — Call to Rev. A. Bonar — Residence at Ems — Travelling in Germany — Sojourn in Wales — Plans for preaching — The Calvinists and the Estab- lishment in Wales — Series of letters to Miss Moore — His marriage, .... ..... 234-300 CHAPTER VIL 1846-1849. Course on the Evidences — Presbyterian College — Emblems from Eden — Sermons to various classes — Days numbered and noted — The dangerous classes — Happy Home — How tracts should be written — The Presbyterian Messenger — Death of his sister, Mrs. Walker 301-348 CONTENTS. VU CHAPTER VIII. 1849-1851. PAGK Artists — Stratliblane notables — Memoir of Lady Colquhoun — Vacation occupations — The brothers Laurence — Pastoral ad- dress on epidemic — Presbyterian Church in England — Death of his sister's child, and of his brother's wife — Quoad sacra Churches — The 1st of May at Glasgow — Speech in the General A ssembly — His library — Birth of his son — Bomanism, its Root of Bitterness, ....... .349-396 CHAPTER IX. 1851-1854. Bibline or book-essence — Literary hoards — Doddridge and Watts — Sir John Pirie — Lady Verney — Sir George Sinclair — The Royal Preacher — Mr. William Hamilton — Mr. and Mrs. Barbour — The Light to the Path — Excelsior — Ifemoir of Bichard Williams — Governor Briggs and Mr. Amos Lau- rence, ..... .... 397-4.38 CHAPTER X, 1855-1857. Time wasted — Members of Evangelical Alliance — His mother'a death — Thankfulness — Railway collision — Dr. James W. Alexander — The Great Biography — The China Mission — David Sandeman — Fruits from Life in Earnest — Our Chris- tian Classics — Literature for Sweden — Rotatory reading- rooms, 439-476 CHAPTER XL 1858-1863. Botany of Scripture — Efforts to overcome defects — Dr. Hamil- ton as a Jreacher — Death of Mr. Sandeman — Erasmus — • Purchase and repair of Regent Sqiiare Church — Nelson's battle-cry — A Whip for the Indolent — Congregational Report — James Burns and James Hamilton — The Church Exten- sion Scheme, 477-514 PA OR vm CONTENTS. CHAPTER Xn. 1860-1865. Death of bis cousin — Greek Philosophy — Literary aspirations — Day-book — Invitation to Edinburgh declined — Dialogue with a piano tuner — Retrospect of vacations — Labour on the Life of Erasmus — The project abandoned — Dr. Living- stone— Dangerous accident to his son, . , . .515-554 CHAPTER XIII. LATEST YEARS. The College at Glasgow — Review of its recent history — Eminent students — Professors — Influence of the College on the city — Hunterian Museum — West Church Burying-ground — Tlie Prodigal Son — The Book of Psalms and Hymns — Tlt-e Psalter and Hyran Booh, Tliree Lectures — Controversy on the subject of Hymns — Latest public labours — Illness — Residence at Eltham — At Godalming — Marriage of his daughter — Letter to the Congregation — Residence at Mar- gate— The setting sun — Narrative of closing scenes — His death — His funeral — The members of his family — A fragrant memory, .......... 555-000 CHAPTEE I. I PARENTAGE — CHILDHOOD — YOUTH, TILL HIS FATHER'S DEATH. " A TRAP to catch a sunbeam," — the playful title of a fiction, strangely presents itself here as the fittest phrase to express the aim, sober, grave, and tender, of this real and recent history. Great and good lives, — lives that are at once manly and godly, where the affections that spring from the earth are imbued with the holiness that distils from heaven, — are like rays of sunlight which gladden the world while they shine, but leave it dark and chilly when they depart. 0 for an art in the moral sphere, equiva- lent to that of the photographer in the material, whereby we might seize, and fix, and perpetuate those rarer rays which stream through the mass of human history like veins of felspar in a quarry ! This is the specific task assigned to the biographer. Feeble and faint at best must be the image of a li^ trans- ferred to a printed page, in comparison with that life itself, as it was felt by friends while it lasted, and is remembered still ; but, if the original were indeed a sunbeam sent from heaven to cheer a portion of this dull earth, a copy, to some extent true and suggestive, may be taken and kept. The negative which a biography may fix for the use of A r 2 NOTICES OF THE FAMILY. posterity will fail indeed to reproduce tlie vital colours ; but if it be at once fond and faithful it will secure a true outline, and help surviving friends to recall the vanished life. The family from which James Hamilton sprang can be traced for several generations, some as proprietors and some as cultivators of the soil, in the middle ward of Lanarkshire. About the middle of the last century, John Hamilton, laird of Burnside and East Quarter, had reached an advanced age, and was unmarried. In these circum- stances it was natural that James, the son of his deceased brother, should, in his youth, permit himself to be buoyed up with the hope of becoming in due time a country gentle- man, and so being able to live on his rents without care or labour of his own. The marriage of the old gentleman, • however, and the appearance of an heiress on the stage, effectually extinguished the young man's fondly cherished hopes. But that which came in the form of a calamity turned out a blessing in disguise : it supplied the stimulus which was needed to mould and invigorate his character. The event that spoilt his prospect of an inheritance tore him away, before it was too late, from a career of idle sport, already begun, and projected his life upon a course of honourable industry. In 1761, at the age of twenty- three, he married Mary, daughter of Andrew Hamilton of Avondale, who had suffered much in person and property from incursions of the rebels in 1745. Thomas, their youngest son, originator and head of the eminent publish- ing house of Hamilton, Adams, and Co., London, still sur- NOTICES OF THE FAMILY. 3 vives at a patriarclial age, in full possession of all his faculties, a pattern at once of the successful merchant, the accomplished gentleman, and the humble yet hopeful dis- ciple of Christ. William, an elder son, Dr. James Hamilton's father, was born on the 4th of February 1780, at Longridge in the parish of Stonehouse. The course of his early education is summed up in two short sentences of his autobiography, " The Bible was my class book. My mother was my tutor." Somewhat imperfectly equipped, according to his own account, for want of a competent classical instructor within reach, he entered the University of Edinburgh in November 1796, Prosecuting each successive branch of his studies with extraordinary zeal, he completed with great credit his course of philosophy and theology, and was licensed as a probationer of the Scottish Church by the Presbytery of Hamilton in December 1804. After liaving served about three years as assistant successively in the parishes of Broughton and New Kilpatrick, he was ordained minister of St. Andrew's Chapel, Dundee, in December 1807. There, with a wide sphere and abundant opportunities, he threw himself with his whole heart into the work of the ministry ; but as the chapel was unen- dowed, and did not confer on its minister the privilege of a seat in any ecclesiastical court, he judged it his duty, within a period of two years, to accept a proffered presentation to the parish of Strathblane in the county of Stirling. In this place he continued serving God in the gospel with signal devotion and with much practical success till his death in 1835. As notices of his character and work from 4 SKETCH OF HIS FATHER. almost the beginning of his ministry in Strathblane will naturally emerge as we proceed, and entwine themselves round our own proper narrative, it is not necessary at this stage to prolong the sketch of his course. In the mean- time, however, and by anticipation, it may be well to in- troduce the estimate of that gifted father, which was formed and expressed in mature life by his still more gifted son : — " In that manse the animating presence was a ' house- mother,' who filled every corner with her kindly, cheerful influence ; but somewhat awfully enshrined in his studious sanctuary, sate with brief interval his uncle,'^ the Eev. William Hamilton, D.D. August in an altitude of six feet two, with raven locks brushed down on his high brow, with the darkest of eyes flashing terrible disdain on all shabbiness, as well as indignation at all sin, he was an object of uneasy respect to 'moderate' and temporizing co-presbyters, and to some of the more jovial spirits amongst his own parishioners was so formidable, that rather than encounter him they would escape from his approach by a retreat more rapid than dignified. At the same time, his affections Avere so warm, his heart so tender,, his standard of Christian attainment so lofty, his spiritua- lity of mind was in such grand harmony with his intel- lectual majesty, his whole nature was so noble, that it was with an admiring, uplooking affection that he was beloved by those who sufficiently knew him. His greatest failing * This sketcli occurs in a memoir of his cousin, the Rev. James Hamilton,, only son of the publisher, a most devoted and exemplary minister of the Church of England, Rector of Beddington, Surrey. SKETCH OF HIS FATHER. S was a morbid sense of time's preciousness. Every moment was grudged which he did not give to his parish or his library. Even during the hasty repast his mind would be absorbed in the Magdeburg Centuriators or Owen on Per- severance; and what with forced journeys, and rising excessively early, and the absence of all recreation, he may be said to have shortened his days in redeeming the time. Eor, in regard to this as well as the other talent.*', the maxim holds true — ' There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth.' " Although most generous in distributing his books, his money, and his influence, it must be confessed that his reluctance to part with a minute was miserly. Even the snatches surrendered to his family and friends were given with a grudge ; and forgetful of the good which through his vast acquirements and conversational powers he could confer on others, it seemed never to strike him that in this form of beneficence he might after all be lending to the Lord, and fulfilling an important ministry. " Still it was an impressive sight to witness that life so intense and devoted : the day begun with a long perusal of Kennicott's Hebrew Bible, and the evening closing in with the contracted Greek of Eusebius, or the stately pages of Justin Martyr, under the brightest blaze of the argand lamp, and all the space between filled up with vigorous study and visits of mercy. Even now, and recalling it over an interval of thirty years, it is affecting to remember the work which that faithful pastor did for his little flock of a thousand people ; the sermons which he prepared for a congregation of ploughmen and calico- 6 CHAEACTER OF HIS printers, as carefully as if they had been the most learned in the land ; the classes, the libraries, the savings' banks, which he established ; the innumerable lectures on popu- lar science with which he enlivened their winter evenings, and the good books with which he furnished their homes. And as his image arises again in that rustic pulpit, with its green baize drapery and the westering sun shining in through the plane-trees surrounding the little sanctuary, whilst with eyes suffused, and a countenance radiant with unutterable rapture, he expatiated on the love of God and the glories of the great redemption, we do not wonder that it was often felt to be heaven on earth ; nor do we wonder that from the neighbouring city many came out into the wilderness to see." On the 19th of January 1813, soon after his settlement in Strathblane, William Hamilton married Jane, daughter of William King of Lonend, Paisley,^ a man who com- bined in a high degree diligence in his secular busi- ness with fervency of spirit in the service of the Lord. He was a citizen of Paisley at a time when that place was remarkable for the observance of the Sabbath, and the almost universal practice of family prayer. Manufactures, in the earlier stage of their growth, did not demoralize and degrade the population, perhaps because then the increase of the inhabitants had not yet outgrown the means of general education and religious instruction. 1 Dr. Kobert Bums, of Paisley, presided at the marriage ceremony, and survives in bodily health and mental vigour to this present day. (Such was the fact when this sheet was sent to the printer ; but ere it returned the race of the venerable patriarch was run. He died at Toronto in August 1869. ) MATERNAL GRANDFATHER. 7 " Paisley," Eowland Hill has said, " is the paradise of Scotland, for there Christians love one another." Mr. King was a cotton-spinner, and he must have been a man of enterprise, for his factory, according to the statistical account, " was the first that was erected in Scot- land." He seems moreover to have ruled his own house with as much exactitude and rigour as his miU. His daughter, Mrs. Hamilton, was wont to tell her children how two boys, her brothers, lost their caps, as boys are apt to do, in a gust of wind on Saturday night after all the shops were shut, and how on the Sabbath morning, which, how- ever, fortunately turned out fine, they were led through the streets to church by their father, one firmly grasped in either hand, with bare heads, in spite of all their remonstrances. This God-fearing Scottish cotton- spinner did not see why an idle Sabbath should be spent at home because the boys were somewhat ashamed to march to the church barelieaded. This is the sort of stuff of which the men who made Paisley in those days were themselves made. But this man, so resolute where duty was concerned, was tender and liberal when any case of need appeared. When his course was run, and they had carried his dust to the grave, a crowd of dependants and pensioners were admitted to the house, in order to receive some mark of kindness in memory of the dead. Among them one poor widow was observed with streaming eyes gazing on his portrait that hung on the wall. " That," she said, " that is the very way he looked when he gave me the twenty- pound note to buy my laddie back frae the soldiers " 8 CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED This, to the bystanders, was the first intimatiou of the fact. James Hamilton's mother, from whom he learned so much, and whom he loved so well, was the daughter of this Scottish patriarch. On both sides he enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of being the seed of the righteous. He was born at Lonend, Paisley, on the 27 th November 1814. It was through the accident of his mother's tem- porary residence in her father's house that Paisley became his birthplace, and in March 1815, M'-hen little more than three months old, he was removed to Strathblane, which was to all practical intents the place of his nativity, and continued to be his home till the death of his father in 1835. The other children of the family were — William King, born 2Gth April 1816, minister of the Free Cliurcli at Stonehouse. Elizabeth, born 24th May 1818 ; died 13th September 1831. Mary, born 12th April 1820; died at Edinburgh 5th November 1838. Jane, born 19th April 1822, married Mr. James Walker, minister of the Free Church, Carnwath, 1st January 1847 ; died 15th April 1849. Andrew, born 14th December 1826 ; skilled in European languages and general literature ; author of an interesting and valuable work on Denmark. '^ The circumstances attending his birth fixed the atten- tion of his parents with a peculiar intensity on their eldest child, and led them to dedicate him to God with singulai urgency at the time, and with undeviating constancy after- ^ Sixteen Months in the Danish Isles. By Andrew Hamilton, Mem- ber of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of the North at Copenhagen. 2 vols. London : Richard Bentley. 1852. WITH HIS BIETH. 9 wards. The record, written at the time and on the spot by his father, although it touches private suffering in plainer terms than we should have chosen to employ, seems a thing so sacred that we dare not mutilate it. Only " the day shall declare " how much the effectual fervent prayer of this righteous man availed to bring down upon the babe in all his subsequent life a double portion ■of the Spirit. If the agonizing cry of the trembling parent seem to draw aside the curtain, and admit a stranger further within the family precincts than a biography ordi- narily ventures to do, let the reader tread softly the ground which sorrow makes sacred, and reverence the grief that brings the sufferer so near to God. We transcribe from the journal of Dr. William Hamilton : — " LoNEND, 2Uh November 1814. — This to me has been a day of darkness, perplexity, and distress. Early on Friday morning my dear wife was taken ill. Her laboiir became severe on Friday afternoon at four. There has been no remission during all the evening, during all the night, and no appearance of abatement even this forenoon. Her spirits are sinking, her strength failing, and her cries pierce my heart and harrow up my soul. Lord, shall the children be brought to the birth, and shall there not be strength to bring forth ? Shall the desire of mine eyes be taken away, when on the point of becoming a mother ? Lord, what can be the meaning of this dark dispensation ? If she be now removed, what end has been served by her union and mine ? Oh send forth thy light and truth ; lead her through the dark valley, and conduct her forth in safety and comfort. Here I give her and myself and 1 0 HIS father's journal. the infant up to Thee. Do with us what seemeth good in Thy sight. Only make us Thine own : Thine in time, and Thine through eternity ; that if we be soon separated in this vale of tears, we may meet in the regions of bliss, and spend our eternity in Thy presence and in Thy praise. " 21th November. LordJs day. — 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.' This morn- ing, at three minutes before four, my wife was safely de- livered of a son. 0 my soul, never forget all the fear and pain which thou hast felt on her account; and all the vows and resolutions which thou hast made before th^ Lord to devote the remainder of my life to His service and glory ; to promote the temporal comfort and spiritual im- provement of my wife ; to guard against levity and folly ; to suppress peevishness and irritability; to cultivate a meek and quiet spirit. 0 Lord, I am Thine ; Thy vows are upon me. Seal my soul till the day of complete re- demption." While in substance this monologue is sublime, it be- comes in form dramatic. What a burst of joy flows forth when the light breaks at length ! Nor was this goodness like the morning cloud. These vows were paid. This suppliant cleaved as close to God his Saviour in subse- quent prosperity, as in that day of darkness. In an enumeration of signal providences in his behalf, at various periods of his life, Dr. Hamilton, the father, has given an account of a dangerous illness through which his eldest child passed in infancy : — "On the Lord's day, August 6, 1815, my eldest child, ILLNESS IN INFANCY. 11 who was little mure than eight months, and wlio had been seriously ill for many days, seemed in the morning to be growing worse. As the case was not desperate, I went to the church, and went through the forenoon service, in the hope that his complaint would take a favourable turn by the time that it was over. On my return I found him worse. I had left the people in the expectation of sermon in the afternoon, and therefore was again obliged, though with a painful heart, to ascend the pulpit. On the close of the last service he appeared to be rapidly sinking ; and on asking the surgeon his opinion of the case, he declared that the child could not long survive sunset. This con- firmed all my fears ; but since my dear child's decease was so near, I rejoiced that I had received warning of its approach ; requested the surgeon to withdraw, and fell on my knees, with my wife by my side, by the bed of our infant. I cried to God that we would not contend with Him — that our child and ourselves were wholly His — that we gave our infant as a free-will offering — that we were thankful that He had given us warning of His plea- sure, and were glad, since svich was His holy will, to have the privilege of surrendering voluntarily such a child into His hands. Again and again I cried, ' Father, glorify Thy name.' My ambition was that His name should be glori- fied. And, like a God of infinite grace, he speedily glori- fied His blessed name far beyond all that we could expect. He guided the skill of the surgeon in another way by bleeding, to preserve our infant ; and within forty-five minutes after He had enabled my wife and myself to sur- render our infant into His hands, we saw decided symptoms 12 ILLNESS IN INFANCY. of the abatement of inflammatory attack, Oli, who is a God like unto onr God ! and what must eternity be like in the presence of Him who spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all ; and on earth hears our prayers, and treats us with such ineffable gentleness and tenderness ! During the season of agitating suspense, I enjoyed uncommonly elevated views of the majesty, love, and all- sufficiency of the Lord; and saw most powerfully that though my child were removed, His power, and grace, and glory would remain unchanged, and that in the riches of His grace, and all-sufficiency of His nature, there was still an infinite fulness from which to supply all my need, and replenish and delight my soul with every consolation and joy." ^ From the time of Moses downwards, it has been observed that, as a general rule, those who are destined to be leaders of Israel in their maturity have been in their childhood drawn out of the water. The hearer of prayer knows that it is " out of the depths " that the most urgent cries ascend to the throne ; and he seems, in paternal wisdom and love, to permit the danger to become imminent in order to in- crease the fervency of the prayer. In whatever way the fact may be explained, the fact itself cannot be disputed, that, for the most part, those who have occupied a high place, and accomplished a great work in the Church, have been brought to the " large pla3e " of their mature activity " through fire and water " in some form during the earlier period of their lives. Among Dr. Hamilton's miscellaneous papers, I have 1 Memoir of Dr. William Hamilton , p. 98. SKETCH OF STRATHBLANE. 13 found a characteristic sketcli of Strathblane, the home of his childhood, which, though without date and unfinished, I insert here as the shortest and best method of conveying to the reader some conception of the place and its people : — " Sheltered from the north by an outlier of the Ochils, and shut in at either end by its own Dunglass and Dun- goiach, with the perpetual Sabbath of the hills smiling down on its industrious valley, and with its bright little river trotting cheerily on tow^ards Loch Lomond, few- parishes in Scotland could be more secluded or lovely than Strathblane. With its southern aspect, it made the most of the sunshine, and, if we could trust our childish recollections, we should say that nowhere else within these seas were the breezes so soft ; that nowhere else did summer linger so long. But the memory of childhood is eclectic, and we begin life as we end it, wearing spectacles, of topaz, or some substance akin to the transparent gold of St. John. Mine were amber- coloured. In the dim winter days I used to look with envy at certain spots far ap the mountain, for I fancied that they were suffused with constant sunshine. It was a great mortification to find at last that they were only patches of withered grass ; and, for fear that in like manner the glory should go off, there are other early illusions which I have refrained from inspecting too closely. Forty years ago, Strathblane still retained some traces of primitive simplicity. The name of Eob Eoy filled a larger place in the imaginations of the people than the Duke of Wellington ; and all who had reached fourscore could recall the times of the Pretender. 14 SKETCH OF STRATHBLANE. Mrs. Provan had been eight years old when a detachment of the rebel army passed through the Muir of Fintry, and as she was the only one left at home the Highlanders coaxed and threatened her by turns to reveal the hiding place of the meal and cheeses ; but although she had seen them buried in the moss, the little maid was firm, and neither swords nor "sweeties" could extort her secret. Some of the old men still wore the broad blue bonnet, and a larger proportion of the old women in showery weather drew the hood of their scarlet mantles over their snowy mutches. The arrival of the first umbrella was a com- paratively recent and well-remembered era. The fortunate possessor was a Miss Robertson of Leddrigreen, and the first day of its public exhibition was a rainy Sabbath. Being apprised of its presence in church, all the youngsters turned out to view the phenomenon, and as the old lady advanced through the descending flood under covert of her moving tent, they eyed her with such admiration as some of us have felt the first time we saw a man go down in a diving-bell. "As in all primitive places, the people were by no means locomotive. Margaret Treeland, for upwards of eighty years, never slept under any roof but her own. Once she was overtaken in Glasgow by a terrible storm, and her hostess would not let her return that evening ; but as, owing to the strangeness of her situation, she lay awake all night, she still could boast that she had never slept out of her own bed. One man had visited the great metropolis. This venturous spirit was John Livingston, a tailor, and to distinguisli him from John Livingston the EARLY LITERARY HABITS. 15 precentor {alias ' singing Johnnie'), he went by the name of ' London John.' We had for a long time no foreigners ; the only exception being a cobbler, an old soldier from England. William Orme and the villagers of Edinkiln did not amalgamate. To him they appeared coarse and slatternly ; and, with tea and fried bacon to his breakfast, but with seldom a decent Sunday suit, he appeared to them little better than a glutton and a self- coddling sensualist. I suspect, however, that his Doric neighbours might have taken, with advantage, a leaf from the soft spoken stranger's book of etiquette." Like many boys, who have ultimately become preachers, and some who have not, he was much addicted to preach- ing at a very tender age. In one important respect, how- ever, his juvenile efforts in this direction were peculiar ; his were not extemporaneous harangues, but regular written sermons, not spoken, but read in select circles of his companions. These discourses, when he was between nine and ten years of age, were pronounced by one of his cousins, some years his senior, to be better than those of -a certain noted parish minister in Lanarkshire. Whether the youthful critic was too partial to his friend, or whethei the dignified clergyman with whom he was compared was not a formidable rival, does not appear. One feature of this picture is interesting to us, — the mimic sermons were written and read. The literary instinct already appears in germ ; the small seed is invested with a species of sublimity, Mdien we think of the tree that may spring from it. The education of the family at this time was conducted 16 HABITS OF STUDY. at home by a resident tutor ; and his brother, who was his^ fellow-student, bears witness that, though exceedingly fond of play, James would on no account consent to abridge the hours set apart for study. He was not a book- worm from, inability or disinclination for sport. His mind, even from childhood, was singularly well balanced. Judgment took command from the first, and mere inclina- tion was resolutely kept in subordination. Under a general law of the manse, the boys were per- mitted to spend an hour or two of the evening in the library, even while their father was at work there, but one stern condition was attached to the privilege — absolute silence. " You may come and read as long as you please, and when you are wearied you may retire, but you may not open your lips while here." William, the younger brother, seems, for the most part, to have considered the privilege dear at the price ; but although he was sparing in the use of it himself, he bears witness that " James enjoyed it mightily for many years." A reminiscence of this fascination of his childhood occurs appropriately in the introduction to a work of his ripest years. Our Christian Classics. " In the following pages the compiler must plead guilty to a certain amount of self-indulgence. It was his lot to be born in the midst of old books. Before he could read them they had become a kind of companions, and, in their coats of brown calf and white vellum, great was his admiration for tomes as tall as himself. By and by, when he was allowed to open the leather portals, and look in on the solemn authors in peaked beards and wooden ruffs, his reverence deepened EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES. 17 for the mighty days of the great departed ; and with son:e vague prepossession, his first use of the art of reading was to mimic an older example, and sit poring for hours over Manton and Hopkins, Eeynolds and Horton. Indeed, so intense did this old-fashioned affection grow, that he can well remember, when compelled to shut the volume and jeLire to rest, how, night after night, he carried to his cot some bulky folio, and only fell asleep to dream of a paradise where there was no end of books, and nothing to interrupt the reader. And although it is impossible to recall, without a smile, such precocious pedantry, the writer is grateful for tastes then formed and for im- pressions then acquired. Busier years have made those early haunts forbidden, but not altogether forgotten ground." Besides sitting for hours in the library reading sombre folios, the boy took great delight in listening to the con- versation of those grave and learned men who frequented the manse as the friends and fellow-workers of his father. Chief of these conversational attractions was a certain Mr. Bell, who resided in the neighbouring parish of Campsie, author of a geography which bears his name, and annotator of RoUin's Ancient History. He is described as having been bodily a short, thickset man, with coarse features, two cr three huge warts on his face, and one eye nearly closed ; mentally a walking encyclopaedia, from which a stream of knowledge flowed like oil from a barrel when the bung comes out. The chief difficulty that occurred in this literary intercourse was to get Mr. Bell stopped after he had begun to flow. These were precious opportunities for our student. B 18 EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES. Silent at his father's knee he sat, while the rest of the children were at play, drinking in knowledge as thirsty lips drink water from the cooling stream. As the re- doubtable geographer warmed with his theme the eye that was at liberty to move glanced grandly in unison with the versatile evolutions of its owner. Nor was this man a dictionary merely ; although his mind was stored with the knowledge of the world, his treasure lay in heaven, and thitherward his heart tended, like the needle trembling towards its pole. The time at length came when the rural philosopher must die. His friend, the minister of Strath- blane, hastened to his bed-side as soon as he heard of his illness. On his return his family observed him deeply affected. Mr. Bell, he informed them, was dying ; but such a deathbed ! It seemed not a dying, but a transla- tion. This man of learning was leaning like a child on the Saviour's breast. He was saying and singing, as he walked down the sides of the dark vaUey, " I will not fear, for thou art with me." By the conversation of such men, and the example of his father, besides the books which he read, the mind of the scholar was stirred, informed, and moulded. Although 1 have not found any record that assigns the time and manner of a decisive heart change, the spiritual life at this period seems to have developed itself concurrently with the intellectual. By its fruits in those early days we know the existence and strength of his faith, rather than from any articulate testimony. Every Saturday night some God-fearing men, chiefly from the neighbouring bleachfieldt: and print-works, convened in the manse for the purpose of FIRST JOURNAL. 19 reading the Scriptures together, and offering in unison specific prayer for the minister and his ministry on the following Sabbath. The minister's eldest son was a con- stituent member of the meeting ; the fragile scholar boy and the brawny labouring men, with one heart, but differ- ing voices, offered alternately the united supplications of the company for the descent of the Spirit to make the word of the Kingdom powerful in the assembled congre- gation on the Lord's day. The earliest journal that has come into my possession is dated 31st December 1827, and bears as title on the blank leaf — " Journal of the literary occupations of James Hamilton." I look with deep interest on the faded paper and boyish handwriting of this humble and now venerable book. Here a life in earnest begins. The spring that bursts from the ground here, we now know, became a great river ere it reached the sea. The student was at this time only thirteen years of age; but he bears himself most manfully even at the outset. As a student, from the very first, he is a workman who " needeth not to be ashamed." The first lines breathe the air of a healthy, hearty earnest- ness. He has girt up his loins for a life-long journey. He will not look behind him. Here is a student who thoroughly loves his work, and walks into it with a will. The first ten months of 1828 seem to have been spent at home, partly in miscellaneous reading, and partly in specific preparation for entering the Greek and Latin classes in the University of Glasgow. The records of the successive months contain little more than a list of the books that he has read. His appetite was from the first 20 FIRST SESSION AT COLLEGE. voracious. Indeed any judicious and experienced adviser, on glancing over these records at tlie time, would certainly have recommended a very great reduction in the quantity of the boy's reading. But the event justified the practice which at the time was dictated only by the mental appe- tite of the youthful scholar. At the moment any observer might have seen that he read much ; but in due time it became evident that he also read well. The mass of mis- cellaneous information which he drank in during those early years was by some peculiar instinctive process stowed all safely away, not in a promiscuous heap, but in regularly arranged and labelled compartments, ready to come forth at call, as they might successively be needed in the various exigencies of his subsequent life. The variety is as noticeable as the vigour of his reading. " Eead Bonar on genuine religion, and the articles Opheo- logy, Sj)ectre, Nile, Mleometer, and the life of William Cowper in the Encyclopmdia Britannica. " Wrote an essay on population. ZOth Septemher. — Slept in the new manse for the first time." Such is a specimen of the entries in this juvenile day-book. It is not our business here to discuss the propriety of the custom, prevalent in Scotland, of sending boys to college at a very tender age. It is enough for us to record the fact that James Hamilton entered the Univer- sity of Glasgow on the 3d of ISTovember 1828, before he had completed his fourteenth year. His two classes for the first session were the Latin and the Greek. Mr. Walker, who presided over the Latin class, was an accom- plished man, and a competent scholar, but by that time FIRST SESSION AT COLLEGE. 21 enfeebled through advanced age. The Professor of Greek was the late Sir Daniel Sandford, justly designated by his eminent pupil, James Halley, "the light of Glasgow College." I have never known any teacher equal to Pro- fessor Sandford in the art of exciting the enthusiasm of his pupils for himself and his theme. By his tenure of the chair, alas ! comparatively short, a great impulse was given to the study of Greek in the west of Scotland. On the 7th of November, four days after his entrance, the student's first letter home was written. As it is the earliest example that has come into our hands, we submit this primary epistle to the reader entire : — " Glasgow, November 1th, 1S28. " My dear Father, — I paid my subscription, or rather your subscription, to the library yesterday, and one pound of deposit; so you may have any book you wish, by sending me word, provided it be not a novel, and have no valuable engravings in it. "On Wednesday afternoon I felt very sorry at your going away. But after a little conversation with the Miss Marshalls, and reading a piece of Horace, my spirits recovered. I hope you and my dear mother (for so I must begin to call mamma now) got home in perfect safety, and found all at the manse quite well. "Yesterday I was called on for the first time to read Sallust, and received a great many compliments from Pro- fessor Walker. " I do not know who is likely to be Lord Eector this year. I understand that Lord John Campbell is to be a candidate. But as there is no student to whom I choose 22 THE ORIGIN AND PEOGEESS to speak, with the exception of Mr. Archibald M'Intyre, I cannot say anything about the matter. And, indeed, il you take no more interest in the matter than I do, it would be preposterous in me to trouble you with any conjecture about it. " I am as comfortable here as I think it possible I could be. Enjoying, as I do, perfect health, and having every comfort that I could desire, I have much cause of grati- tude to God. " Miss Betsey Marshall is in much the same way as when you were here. The ladies here desire to be kindly remembered to you all. And now, my dear father, fare- well. Write soon. Give my kindest love to my mother, aunt, William, and all my sisters, Mr. M'Intyre, and Andrew, if he chooses to take it ; and believe me, your ever affectionate James." Brave boy ! Not yet fourteen : mother and manse for the first time clean out of sight : plunged into the heart of a great city ; pushing his way along crowded streets, where every face is strange. There is a fit of home-sick- ness ; he does not deny the fact ; but neither does he whimper over it. A talk with his landlady and " a piece of Horace " put the disease to flight, and we hear of it no more. A journal, written during the summer of 1831, assuming rather than asserting the commencement of his spiritual life, is mainly occupied with circumstances that helped or hindered its development and progress. Consider- ing his training and his mental constitution, and the method of Providence ordinarily followed in similar OF HIS SPIEITUAL LIFE. 23 cases, I think it is altogether probable that the new life began at an age so early that it could not be definitely marked either by himself or others ; and that, through the blessing of God on a pious nurture and holy example, it grew with his growth. At the same time it is evident that in his case, as well as in the experience of almost all other Christians, there were periods of sudden and great advancement in the divine life. An illness under which he laboured, and which he believed to be unto death, though certainly not the occasion of his first dedication to Christ, seems to have been the immediate means of much growth in grace. I look with peculiar interest on the notes which he has left of his experience during that sick- ness. They reveal to me some things which I could not otherwise have understood so well in his maturer life. There was such a strength and steadiness, such a depth and permanence in his personal religion, when called to mingle for many years with the miscellaneous society of London, that, even in absence of information, would have led one to suppose that his faith at an earlier date must have been, through some special divine dealing, very deeply and widely rooted. The sight of his private day-book, written at Strathblane during the summer of 1831, removes the veil, and explains some things that otherwise would have been to some extent inexplicable. The Lord doeth all things well, and makes all things work together for good to His own. The Lord sees the end from the beginning, and prepares His own instruments in time for the work which he foresees to be necessary. It is not while the sun is shining that the roots of a plant are refreshed and 24 APPREHENSION OF AN invigorated for resisting a subsequent drought, and perfect- ing its fruit in harvest. It is under the dark cloud that the process of strengthening the foundation goes on. God's husbandry in the spiritual sphere follows the analogy of that in the natural. It is in the dark and cloudy day, ordinarily, that the new creature, also the planting of the Lord^ makes most progress in getting itself " rooted and grounded " in the hidden depths of redeeming love. By the wise and kind providence of God this youth, while not yet seventeen years of age, was brought and kept for a while in his own consciousness close to the edge of life and near the entrance of eternity. There he acquainted him- .self with God ; there he became strong in the faith for future work. There the vessel, previously chosen, was purified, enlarged, strengthened for receiving in greater measure the name of Christ, and pouring out that name as precious ointment to the end of his life, and wheresoever his lot might be cast. "Sabbath, Maij 29th, 1831. — The kind providence of God has hitherto upheld me in the enjoyment of much health and comfort ; but now I seem to feel that my connexion with all that is seen and temporal is near a close. A pain which I have felt at intervals in my side for some time past reminds me that I am not to live always, and probably not long. It is a solemn thing to die. The dearest of God's saints have shrunk at the prospect of crossing the dark waters, and unless they had had the arm of Immanuel to lean upon, the floods would have overwhelmed their souls. 0 for an interest in the Ee- deemer's righteousness ! Could I assure myself of pos- EARLY REMOVAL. 25 ■sessing that, death would be welcome. 0 Lord, say unto me that I am thine, and I am prepared for what Thou wilt, and what time Thou wilt." " Saturday, June 1 KA-, 1831. — To-morrow the Sacrament of the Supper is to be dispensed here. 0 for the wedding garment ! This may be the last opportunity that I will have of commemorating the death of the Eedeemer. 0 that my desires were more strongly drawn out after him ! He is the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. 0 that I could see more of his beauty and comeli- ness ! Lord, grant that in encompassing Thy table my faith may be strong, my love to Thee ardent, my sorrow and humiliation for sin greater than they have ever been heretofore. Open the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing till there be not room enough to receive. I have renewed my covenant with Thee. Enable me to remem- ber and keep it. May it be an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, and never to be forgotten. " I should like to do something for the cause of God before I go hence, and be no more. For some time I have spent a few hours occasionally in writing a life of the eminent ]Mr. Baxter. It is nearly finished. This week I commenced writing a small collection of hymns for the Lord's Supper. Some of them were so pleasant to myself that I thought it possible that, were a number of them col- lected and printed, they might be the means of cheering some of Zion's pilgrims on their heavenward journey. I have also contemplated a translation of Arrowsmith's Tadica Sacra. To the execution of these undertakings I would devote what time can be properly spared from my other studies." 26 EELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. "Sabbath, June 1 2th, 1831. — This day sat down at the table of the Lord, My own impression is that I shall not hereafter taste of the fruit of the vine till that day that I shall drink it new in my heavenly Father's kingdom. Had some enjoyment in the ordinance, but too little spirituality for a dying creature. I have this day solemnly and publicly said that whatever others do, I shall serve the Lord. Help me. Lord, to keep this resolution, and may the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devU, not allure me from Thy ways. Guide me by Thy kind counsel through life, and after death receive me to Thy glory. Amen." In the earlier portion of the summer recess, on the occasion of the dispensation of the Lord's Supper at Strath- blane, he devoted an entire week to religious reading, meditation, self-examination, and prayer. By these exer- cises his sense of sin was greatly increased, as his tender and full confessions show; but though he increased in the knowledge of his own unworthiness, his hope and happiness did not fade, for the more he discovered of his own need the more he saw of the Eedeemer's fulness. On the whole, while his religious exercises at this time certainly ran mainly in the direction of a keen self- dissec- tion and stern self-condemnation, the tone of his mind remained thoroughly healthful. His faith throughout remained firm and his hope bright. Severe and protracted introspection did not in his case generate in any de- gree a morbid moroseness. It made his piety stronger without diminishing its elasticity and cheerfulness. Considering the form which his religious activity at RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 27 this time assumed, and the views of those authors with whose works he was most familiar, we need not be sur- prised to learn that he wrote and signed a formal personal covenant, dedicating himself to God in the gospel of his Son. In order that those who knew him in later years, and admired the buoyant, hopeful, winsome type of Chris- tianity which he exhibited in the various circles of Lon- don society, may know something of the roots which bore so many sparkling clusters, I think it my duty to give this document in full. It is written out at the end of the book, and under the corresponding date in the journal occurs a notice of the circumstances connected with it : — "... Endeavoured to humble myself before the Lord because of these sins, and plead the righteousness of Jesus as my only ground of acceptance. I wrote down the form of a personal covenant, finding that that which I made this time two years wanted some things which I now wished to be in it. But the church and the Sabbath- school and the prayer-meeting prevented me from pro- ceeding any further that day ; so I this evening did on my bended knees, in the presence of the God of heaven and earth, set my worthless name to the covenant, and vouch him to be my God and Father, the Lord Jesus to be my only Saviour and Intercessor, and the Holy Spirit to be my sanctifier and guide. This done, I be- sought a special blessing on the approaching communion for myself and fellow-worshippers. " THE COVENANT. " O Lord, I have sinned in Adam, and at my coming 28 PERSONAL COVENANT. into the world I was covered with guilt-pollution. In the first actings of my infant years I manifested the strength of that depravity within which made me prone to every evil and backward to all good. The whole tenor of my life has been a building of actual guilt upon the foundation of original corruption. I am a dying as well as an immortal creature, and if I die in my sins I must perish everlastingly. But no efforts of my own can save me from my sins, for the longer I live I sink the deeper in the mire ; nor do my efforts to extricate myself avail. Unless a stronger arm come to my deliverance I must perish ; but such a deliverance is to be had in the Lord Jesus. Upon the sure testimony of Thy own Word I believe that a gracious covenant was from all eternity entered into by Jehovah, the first person in the blessed Trinity, upon the part of heaven, and by Jehovah, the second person in the Godhead, even Immanuel, the second Adam, on the part of lost sinners, whereby, on condition of His fulfilling all righteousness, the elect should be saved. And I believe that the terms of the covenant have been fulfilled by his meritorious life and death, and that now the way of salvation is opened up, and that he who believeth on Jesus shall not perish, but have ever- lasting life, and that henceforth there is no condemnation to them who are in Him. " 0 Lord, I would ascribe everlasting praise unto Thy name for this well-ordered covenant, and would now take hold of it for my soul's eternal salvation, through faith in Christ. I acquiesce in, love, and admire, the covenant, as all my salvation and all my desire. I embrace Jesus PERSONAL COVENANT. 29 Christ as he is offered to my acceptance in the Gospel, in all His offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, — as my Surety, Intercessor, and Eedeemer ; and in him God, as my God and Father, and the Holy Spirit as my Sanctifier, Comforter, and Guide. " Every sin that has had dominion over me I renounce, grieving that so many idols have had dominion over me, and praying that grace from on high may be given me to carry on, in the strength of my mighty Picdeemer, an unremitting and successful war against all my spiritual enemies. " To Thee and to Thy service I surrender all the faculties Thou hast bestowed upon me, and pray that Thou wouldest honour me to be successful in Thy service. Grant unto me more and more to know Thee. Strengthen in me that which is good, and root out that which is evil. Make Thy grace sufficient for my need, and perfect Thy strength in my weakness. Support me in the time of trial and temptation, and stand by me in the hour of death. Do Thou then lift upon me the light of Thy reconciled countenance, and make me to behold it. And may all near and dear unto me possess an interest in the blessings of salvation. " 0 Lord, behold me, I am thy servant ; and in token that I am thine I do hereto subscribe my unworthy name, James Hamilton. "June Sth, 1832. " To Father, Son, and Spirit, one God, be glory for ever. Amen." At tills period, plans for the arrangement of his studies 30 JOURNAL. frequently occur in his journal. Although he never practically attained his own ideal, it is evident that he derived very great benefit from the habit of mapping out beforehand the vs^ork which he desired to overtake, and noting afterwards the measure of his success or failure. Both in the ordinary studies of his course at college, and in reading for his own spiritual profit, his life was a con- stant and eager effort to forget the things that were behind, and to reach forward to the mark of a higher attainment which he had set up on the horizon of the future. "Saturday, June 26th. — Impressed with the importance of observing methods (which I am sensible that I have hitherto too much neglected), I purpose to form, and, if health be granted to me, to follow out a course of theological reading. For some time I have been in the habit of reading a portion of Henry's Commentary every day. This I intend to continue. I ought to read some system of Divinity, — either Doolittle, D wight, Hill, or Boston. Eead also the following." Then follows a list of 87 works, 17 of which are biographical. " Wednesday, June 2'^th. — Eose to-day at four o'clock, and finished Baxter's Life. I laid it before the Lord, and im- plored his blessing on it. I intend to devote next Saturday to the correcting of it, previous to sending it up to the London Tract Society, in whose series of Christian bio- graphy I wish it to be inserted. If weU, I may perhaps write a similar account of Boston, Halyburton, or some of the eminently pious ministers of the Kirk of Scotland. The pleasure and benefit resulting from the exercise are ample recompense for the trouble." A LITERARY ADVENTURE. 31 "Friday, July 8th, 1831. — Sent off Baxter to-day, with the following letter : — " ' Sm, — I take the liberty of addressing to you a life of Baxter, written with a view to insertion in the series of Christian Biography published by the London Tract Society. In writing it, I consulted all the authorities which I could meet with (Mr. Orme's Memoir excepted), but have used the words of Baxter himself, as contained in his Narrative of his Life and Times, when this could be done with propriety. I lay claim to no merit, except that of a strict adherence to the truth, and a studious wish to admit no expression which might give offence to any individual who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth. Whether or not I have succeeded belongs to you to judge. " ' Should I be so happy as to have this Life accepted, I would have no objections to write a similar account of Boston, Doolittle, Halyburton, or some other eminent divine, in the course of a few months. " ' If the Mss. be not wanted, have the goodness to return them. — I am. Sir, with much esteem and respect, your mo. obedt. sert., ' ' James Hamilton. "'June 30, 1831. " ' To the Secretary of the London Tract Society.' " Many readers who have been delighted and instructed by the products of his matured mind will be interested to observe how early and how eagerly his instincts led him mto authorship. His Memoir of Baxter was politely declined by the Secretary of the London Tract Society. 32 EELIGIOUS TKACT SOCIETY. No tiling daunted, the youthful biographer obtained an introduction to the conductor of a similar society on a smaller scale in Glasgow, who thankfully received from him and published the Life of Baxter in an abridged form. In subsequent issues, they sent out notices of the lives of Jonathan Edwards and Boston from the same juvenile, but already prolific pen. Not having access to these tracts, I cannot judge whether the author's lack of patronage, or the substantial defects of his earliest efforts,, may have been the cause of his want of success with the great Metropolitan Society. Certain it is that at a later day biographical tracts by James Hamilton would not have gone a-begging from their door. At a later date,, they discovered and acknowledged his worth in the de- partment of Christian Literature for the People. Twenty years afterwards, they solicited his help. It is interesting to mark the contrast ; and, accordingly, we place on record here the principal parts of the letter addressed by the Secretary of the London Tract Society to Mr. Hamilton. " I beg leave to enclose a communication respecting a new journal for the masses, which this Society contemplates establishing. I most respectfully, yet most earnestly, solicit the favour of at least an occasional contribution to the pages of this magazine. The press groans with the weekly issue of periodicals steeped in sensuality, imbued with a secular spirit, if not tinged with infidelity. It is surely time that an effort should be made to rescue this department of literature from the hands in which it has hitherto been too much left, and so consecrating it to the Eedeemer's service. To do this effectually we must have RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. 33 not only sound piety, but consecrated talent of tlie highest order that can be procured. "From the moment the Journal was projected my thoughts have turned to you, as the writer capable of gaining the ear of the masses, and winning the way to their hearts. " My connexion with this Society is of a comparatively recent character, and I learn with regret that from some cause imperfectly understood, you have not hitherto written anything for us. I trust, however, that this difficulty is not an insuperable one. The cause of the working man I must leave to pluad with you. You would have, I hope, if our arrangements are successful, writers of eminence as your coadjutors. " You will pardon me if I am reluctant to contemplate; a total refusal of my request. For years I have been a profited reader of your writings. To Life, in Earnest, per- used and reperused, I personally owe deep obligation, and to recommend it to others I have always felt a great privilege." Let it be fairly acknowledged, however, that twenty years elapsed between the time when James Hamilton solicited the Society for employment, and the time when the Society solicited him for aid. It may be freely con- ceded that the biographer of Baxter had grown in power during the interval, and yet it is possible that if the earlier representatives of the institution had been more attentive and more acute, they might have seen in the volunteered contribution from Strathblane something worthy of their notice, both on account of what it achieved 0 34 RENEWED ANTICIPATIONS and what its achievement by a youth promised for the future. As the season advanced, the impression that his time would be short gained ground. At this period he seems to have thought that secular studies were labour lost, inasmuch as he did not expect to live long enough to turn them to any account. " What time I can command I mean now to devote to the perusal of such books as are best fitted to prepare me for crossing the dark waters. " Tuesday, July 2Qth. — Last Saturday I was called to attend the funeral of my cousin, Jeanie Adam, at Paisley. Three months have not elapsed since in the same church- yard 1 saw the remains of my aunt committed to the grave. Of her happiness I dare not entertain a doubt, for I never saw, and never again may see, one whose affec- tions were more completely raised above all that is seen and temporal, and whose conversation was more in heaven. Jane Adam also died declaring her hopes of acceptance with God, rested on the finished work of Christ alone; and who that ever put their trust in Him were ever put to shame ? Many of my relatives are now in glory, and my heart's desire and prayer for those who yet remain are that they may be saved. May we be followers of them who through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises. " Sabbath morning, July Z\d. — A new ailment has been sent to bid me prepare to meet the Lord. But blessed be His name, I think I can say, ' I know in whom I have believed.' Lord Jesus, into Thy hands I commit myself ; and while heart and flesh do faint and fail, be Thou the OF EAELY REMOVAL. 35 strength of my heart and my portion for ever. The filthy rags of my own righteousness I entirely renounce, and desire to he clothed upon with Thy perfect and all- sufficient righteousness. Into Thy hands I commit my spirit. Heaven is too holy a place for one so vile, but oh, shut me not out of Thy presence, where alone there is fulness of joy ! " When I am taken away from them, 0 Lord, comfort my dear parents. May they not sorrow as those who have no hope. Enrich them with Thy best blessing. Be the God and Father of all near and dear unto me. Bless my brothers and sisters. May they have a loving spirit towards each other, and may they be all united to Thyself. Prepare them for Thy heavenly kingdom, and may the soul of none of them be lost, but may we spend a happy eternity together, for Thy own Son's sake. Amen. " Many are the precious opportunities I have neglected and allowed to pass unimproved. My life has been un- profitable, 0 may my death be more blessed than my life ! May it be the means of leading some who have hitherto been careless and unconcerned, to consideration and serious concern for the salvation of their precious souls ; then shall I not ha,ve lived in vain. • To Jesus, the ground of my hope, My soul is in haste to be gone ; Oh bear me, ye cherubims, up. And waft me away to his throne.' "Saturday, August Gth. — I have had some thoughts of writing a series of lives of the principal theological authors of the Scottish nation, to be sent to the Clirisiinn Instruc- 3G spiritual experience tor. In it I would propose to insert memoirs of Boston, Binning, liutlierford, W. Guthrie, Durham, Craighead, Muir of Paisley, Wishart, Webster (James), etc. In doing so, I would acquire a knowledge of our ecclesiastical history which I might not otherwise attain, and might possibly have some little effect in drawing attention to their writings, which might be followed with most bene- ficial results. " Saturday, August 27^/1-.— To-day was reading the account in Gillies of the awakening at the Kirk of Shotts. How stately were God's goings in his sanctuary that day ! Awake, 0 arm of the Lord, as in the days of old ! 0 blessed Spirit ! breathe on these dry bones with which the valley of the visible Church has so long been filled, and they shall live. The fathers, where are they, and the prophets, do they live for ever? "Wliere now are the men who would renew the scenes of Cambuslang and the Kirk of Shotts ? Surely there are not a few to be found who would rejoice to see these days of the Son of Man re- newed. Wlien will that communion solemnity arrive at Strathblane, when there shall be a general weeping and moui'ning for sin, and men crying out, ' 0 that I knew where I might find him!' Such glorious seasons are coming. Ere long the wilderness and solitary place shall become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest. When I use these words they remind me of Mr. M'Donald of Urquhart, whom I heard preach from them on tlie evening of the Glasgow Fast, last April. I shall ever remember that holy man's ser- mon. Surely he preached with the Spirit, and no other AND LITERARY WORK. 37 preacliing can do good. I do not know whetlier to set him or Mr. Slierrif or my father highest of the preachers I have heard. Surely they are all precious in the sight of God, whose approbation and blessing if they gain, what more need they mind ?" Towards the autumn, without any express notice of tlie fact, it appears from the tone of his journal that the expectation of an early removal gradually wore away. Relieved from the restraint under which he had placed liimself, he launches forth again with vigour into all the departments of useful knowledge that lay w^ithin his reach. At this time he had not completed his seven- teenth year. " Friday, Scjotemher 2d.—'FoT two days have been en- gaged without ceasing in reading Sir H. Davy's Life, a book wliich, when I once begin, I do not know when or how to leave off. AVhat an astonishing man he was ! One would think that nothing in the world escaped his notice but the God who made it. He appears to have gained everything but the thing he most desired, and that was happiness. For as far as I may judge from his Memoirs, he had none of that to spare ; and the reason is plain, because he sought it in meat and drink, in the theatre, the ball-room, and the billiard-table, in his medals, and his hiboratory, instead of seeking it where alone it has ever yet been found — in God, My prayer to God would be, T/trd, make me a Christian philosopher, or none at all. Withhold this world's learning from me if the price of it is to be my interest in the Saviour, " Get and read Dr. Erskine's Letters, and Meditations of 38 ILLNESS AND DEATH Hall of Dunglass, immediately, also Middleton's BiograpJiia Evangelica." His sister Elizabeth, beautiful and wiusome in person, of precocious intellect, and early developed spiritual life, was removed tliis season, at tlie age of thirteen years and five months. This was the first breach in the circle of the family ; and touching proofs appear from time to time through all their subsequent history that the treasure taken away was counted very precious, and that the blank stood long open refusing to be filled up. Her illness was protracted, and both its character and its duration tended at once to develop more fully the loveliness of the patient,^ and to make all the house cling more fondly to the spirit that was passing away. The case occurs so frequently that experienced observers have been inclined to set it down as a general law that consumption seems to single out as its victims the finest specimens of our kind. Whether it selects the refined, or refines after selecting them, it is certain that we have seen many very lovely sun-settings through that dark cloud which hangs so heavy and so con- stant on the horizon of humanity in our northern clime. Indications from all quarters show that in those years Elizabeth was the centre of attraction for the whole family, and in some measure also for a wider circle. She read French, and had made some progress in Greek. Her disposition was both sweet and sprightly. The sick-room became the favourite place of resort. In this case too the insidious malady exerted its proverbial power of de- ception. Expectations of her recovery were entertained till near the close ; and, strange to say, it was the bright- OF HIS SISTER ELIZABETH. 39 ness of her eye that quenched these hopes at last. Aii eminent physician called for consultation said on retiring, in reply to her mother's anxious inquiries, " I don't like that bright eye." Alas ! this was the symptom which had hitherto sustained the hope of the fond but unskilled mother. Such a radiance she thought betokens a longer life on earth ; it rather betokened .an early removal to heaven. The parents, warned by the physician's gentle but faithful hint, prepared themselves to resign the gift into the Giver's hand. The desire of their eyes was re- moved with a stroke, but the faith of their hearts remained firm, and they cherished the memory of Elizabeth as still a member of the famdy, though taken home before the rest. "Saturday, September 10th. — After an illness of more than a year and a half's duration, my dear sister seems now to be drawing near the end of all things earthly. It is cause of gratitude to the Father of mercies that she shows satisfactory evidence of a state of reconciliation to God, which at this moment affords me far greater comfort than her living to the utmost term of human existence destitute of the grace of God could have done. "Tuesday, September I3th. — Dear Elizabeth has been now for some hours in the enjoyment of immortality. She joined the general assembly and church of the first-born at a quarter before twelve this forenoon. " My prayers for her are now ended, and I would now thank the Lord for the kindness of His ways of dealing with her — for her easy dismission from the body — above all, for the work of grace which He hath carried on in her heart. 40 OPPORTUNITIES AND PLANS " For myself and my surviving relations, my prayer is that the Lord would be pleased to make us possessors of the faith and patience of those who now inherit the pro- mises, and then we shall also be made partakers of their joy." " Sabhath, October 2d. — Was chiefly occupied in reading The Pilgrim's Progress, with Scott's notes. Many have considered this book next in value to the Bible, and of any books I have yet read it is certainly the chief. The cause of its being so good is that it has so much of the Bible in it. Eeading it with self-application, I thought t1iat I had a good hope through grace that I was travelling the pilgrim's road to the celestial city ; but my conscience bears me witness that in nothing do I equal Christian save in his deviations from the strait and narrow way ; and in these I am more than his equal If the Lord would only Ijring me back to himself as often as I wander from his good w^ays, let Him do what seemeth Him good with me as far as other things are concerned." The entries in the journal during this season are frequent and full They are all occupied with spiritual reflections, strangely mature considering the age of the writer, and interspersed with plans and resolutions for prosecuting his work. In order to economize space it is necessary to make selections from papers that are all of a similar char- acter. It was a season of great intellectual activity and of rapid spiritual progress. " Glasgow, 5th November 183L — This morning I left my father's house in order to attend the session of college. In my present circumstances there is much which calls FOR WORK AT COLLEGE. 41 for my most lively gratitude, I have a house to myself, which is rendered somewhat like home by having my sister and the furniture to which I was used there. I hope to derive much pleasure from attending upon the Greek, and especially the logic class. Above all, I have the means of grace — good ministers, good books, and the Bible. With the health I enjoy, and by the blessing of the Lord, this may be a profitable winter both for my intellectual and spiritual improvement. Lord, I thank Thee for Thy goodness." " SaUbatli, Kovemhcr 6tJi. — Eenewed my solemn engage- ments to be the Lord's — to fight against sin, the world, the flesh, and the devil — to be for the Lord, and for Him alone. May He grant that in all circumstances wherein I may be placed His glory may be the object of all my exertions, and His word and will the rule of all my actions. " Monday, Novemher 7th. — I am to attend the Greek and loo;ic classes this winter. Though I cannot be certain that it will be at all times expedient or even practicable to follow them out, I make the following suggestions for the employment of my time till the Christmas recess : — "Else at a quarter to 7. Read Henry's Commentary. Attend Greek and logic classes from half-past 7 to half- past 9. Breakfast. 1 0 to 11 write logic lectures. 11 to 1 2 attend the logic class. 1 2 to 2 write letters ; prepare for Greek ; write notes of the logic lectures ; get books from the library, etc. 2 to 3 Greek class. 3 to 4 walk, dine. 4 to 6 Greek. 6 to 7 logic. 7 tea. Half-past 7 to 9 logic. 9 worship. Half-past 9 to half-past 12 read two chapters of Greek Testament, and go to bed. 42 COMPETITION FOR THE PRIZE AT "Mem. — Eead Potter's Antiquities. Theatre of Greeks, Rollin's History. "Sabbath, Novemher 27 th. — A pain at onetime in my breast and at another time in my side, made me apprehend that earth and the things of earth were to me near a close. These apprehensions the Lord has disappointed, and the day of my visitation is still lengthened out. 0 may I improve it for the gracious end for which it has been given ! " I would wish to improve time better. For this purpose I would avoid all unnecessary or useless visiting, never go out to any party more than once in the week, and seldomer if I can. Never be more than seven hours at a time in bed during the winter, except when unwell, or deprived of my usual rest. Spend as short time as possible on my meals when by myself. Always carry about some book for occupying odd minutes. Attend to my most necessary studies first. Do things methodically. "There are a few things which I would like to do before my next birthday, viz. : — Finish my lives of Chris- tian authors for the Tract Society. AVrite some life for the London Tract Society's series. Form a society for religious purposes among the sons of clergymen attending the College. Write a collection cf hymns for young men. " Tuesday, Deeemher 6th. — For some days past have been very busy preparing for the Greek Prize Profession, and, if well, must be equally busy for two weeks longer. It is hard work. Two months of it would make me unfit for any exertion. And tliis is all for a single prize, which I am far from being sure of gaining, and which, though gained, can do me little good. How different from that BLACKSTOXE EXAMINATION. 43 prize which is held out to the acceptance of all, and which will impart joy unmingled, honour unfading, and happiness eternal, on its possessor ! For tliis prize may I be con- tinually straining every nerve, and in due time, by grace from on high keeping me from fainting, I shall reap. "Thursday, Dec. 22d. — This was the day of the Greek Prize Profession. The competitors were, Georgius Porsythe, Jacobus Connal and Hamilton, Joannes Wardlaw, Jos. Crompton, and Piamsay Campbell I professed the Odyssey and Iliad, 2 books of Herodotus, 5 of Xenophon, 3 Tragedies of Sophocles, and 8 of Euripides." At the close of the session he obtained the first prize in this examination, besides the first in logic and the fifth in Greek. This is a very formidable ordeal through which all regular students of arts in the University are obliged to pass. Each student takes his seat successively, and alone, on an old arm-chair, which has for its bottom a smooth black stone of unknown antiquity and virtue. In the case of those who are satisfied with the minimum, an ofi&cer with a mace and a sand-glass standing by, calls out " ad alium, Domine" when the subject has been five minutes under the operation, and he is accordingly set at liberty, like a sheep from the washing, to make way for the next. But when the "mighties" contend for the mastery, a whole day is set apart for the conflict, and the arena is crowded by anxious and interested spectators. The scene, as it occurred on a preceding year, has been photographed by Hamilton's pen in his usual style. In 44 EMINENT STUDENTS : reviewing the memoir of James Halley (3d Edition, 1850), he introduced the following description : — "When we arrived at Glasgow College, more than twenty years ago, the nom de guerre which we heard in its busy class-rooms most frequent and most formidable was Jacobus Halley. "VVe soon acquainted ourselves with the personal appearance of this literary Goliath. He was a tall youth, with large bones, and a light springy step. He had a high and cylindrical head, something like what we suppose Sir Walter Scott's must have been. His haii- was light, inclining to red. He had evidently lost the sight of one eye, and often applied his forefinger to the lid, as if it were still in pain ; but through the survivor there streamed an animation sufficient for many ordinary eyes ; and through every pore of his pale and etiolated countenance there radiated a penetration and alertness which made him look as if he were seeing with all his face. When some hard question in prosody was per- forming the circuit of the silent benches, the concentra- tion on that corner of the class-room showed that the hopes of the Grccci rested with this fair-haired Porson ; and when he rose to read Homer or Aristophanes, the long paragraph which Sir Daniel allowed him to appro- priate, and the loud applause which greeted the brilliant translation, announced a favourite of the Professor, and a champion of the students. We still rememlier his Black- stone examination. It was a day in the dingy Glasgow December, and the great hall of the library, with its solemn folios, was made cheerful by a splendid fire ; and round the awful chair, with its sand-glass suspended in SMITH, TAIT, HALLEY. 45 laurel, was congregated a huge ring of red- robed spectator^ whom the heavy swing of the great college bell was con- stantly augmenting. Depositing their arms — vast piles of Greek books — the challengers took their places. Wo only recollect those who, in Hebrew phrase, would be called the ' three mighties.' And when, preceded by the macer, and followed by his learned colleagues, in his shining boots and rustling gown of Oxford silk. Professor Sandford took his place, it might be seen in the sparkle of his eye, and the proud elasticity of his graceful move- ments, that a great contest was coming off. They were the happy days before he tried to be a statesman, and when his favoured class enjoyed the full treasures of his accom- plished mind, and the fresh outpourings of his enthusiastic eloquence. The tournay commenced with one whose terse renderings, and clear categoric answers, bewrayed the mathematical precision which was soon to win the senior wranglership at Cambridge.^ Then followed a scholar less dry, but equally concinnate, whose manly intellect and elegant erudition were destined to succeed Arnold at Eugby, and impart new dignity to the Deanery which Milner once filled at Carlisle.^ And so fine and unfaltering was tht'' demonstration made by each, that in common years either must have won the prize. But, 'ad alium, Domine' it still was Halley's turn. Tripping nimbly forward, and depositing on the table the learned heap with whose contents his cool assured look bespoke a con- fident acquaintance ; first prose, then poetry, he turned 1 Aj-chibald Smith, Esq. of Jordan Hill. ' Now Archbishop of Canterbury. 46 CONVIVIAL PARTIES. it all into English, so fluent and so liappy ; and all hard questions of syntax and archseology he answered with such an easy completeness that examiners and onlookers alike felt it the ne plus ultra of scholarship, and the rapture with which it was received left no doubt regarding the result. "This is the student whose fame still lingers within the halls of his Alvia Mater, and of whom a loving friend has compiled the faithful memoir which suggested this notice," ^ About the New Year, the earnest student was drawn unwittingly into a scene of dissipation, which he neither enjoyed nor approved. It may not be amiss to submit here the letter to his sister, in which he describes his misfortune, to show that in the aristocratic circles of Glasgow at that time hospitality was sometimes more profuse than refined. The tendency in a wealthy com- mercial community is to exhibit in their entertainments a sublime indifference to pecuniary cost; and those among them who have adopted a different standard of measure- ment find it difficult to stem the tide : — "Jannanj 18.32. " My deae Maey, — On Friday Jane and I went to Mr. 's in the expectation of getting tea, as had been promised, but were a good deal surprised to find instead a ball ! I, who could not dance, was glad to be kept in countenance by so grave men as the Messrs. P and D. S . There were at least forty young people. They got two urns filled with negus set in the lobby, and ' English Preshyterian Messenger, Feb. 1851. EXERCISES IN VACATION. 47 all were allowed to take as much as they chose ; one little girl took seven glasses, and was so ill that she had to go to bed. It was near twelve before we got home. Though the room was very hot we got no cold. I saw ]\Ir. P next day, and he said it was after one before all was over." He expresses no opinion on the character of the enter- tainment. His only interest in the matter concerned the loss of an evening. Time was his treasure, and he mounted guard upon it with a miser's jealousy. The summer vacation of 1832 was spent at home in constant activity. His efforts seem to have been equally divided between the prosecution of his intellectual studies and the cultivation of his own spiritual life. The journals exhibit as usual an alternation of hard head-work and tender spiritual aspirations. Tlie dispensation of the Lord's Supper in his father's congregation is " a well in the desert." The perusal of Baxter's writings makes him ashamed of his backwardness in the divine life : the Sabbath-school opens up to him an unlimited sphere of activity and enjoyment. "Sabbath, July 29th. — This day fortnight I was at Kippen Sacrament, and I bless the Lord for having brought me there, for surely His banner over me then was love. While seated at His table my heart was drawn out after Jesus, and melted at the contemplation of His suffer- ings. I felt an inexpressible delight in again surrendering myself to Him and His service, and was wiUing to do or be anything for His sake. I felt willing to be with Him even then — absent from the body, present with the Lord. To be in such a frame always — how happy ! But this 48 PAISLEY RIOTS. treacherous Jieart will not be long one way, especially in the right way ; and without a constant administration of grace from on high, it is awful to think to what depths of wickedness it will descend. " I have much happiness in teaching the Sabbath-school. This would be greatly increased, no doubt, could I satisfy myself that a work of grace was really going on in the souls of any of the children. But the beginnings of grace are often imperceptible to outward observation." Towards the close of this year we find him again in Glasgow, attending the University for the third session. The following letter is addressed to his youngest sister, then a very little child : — "November 18.32. " My deae Jane, — I send you this letter because it will contain nothing but what is level to your capacity, and which, at the same time, will be interesting to you, namely, the assurance that I am quite well, and am your most affectionate brother, James Hajmilton. "P.S. — There have been sad riots in Paisley yesterday. I have seen no accounts, but have heard plenty. They were attacking the doctors, and breaking their windows. No life was lost. Paisley will never be my birthplace after this, unless it mend its ways. J. H." This was the season of the first outbreak of cholera in this country, and the riots to which he refers were certain ebullitions, partial and temporary, of the poor people, when a wild suspicion for the moment took possession of them *;hat the doctors designedly ]5ropagated the disease. THE VOLUNTARY CONTEOVEESY. 49 " Saturday, Novemher \Oth. — This has been a week of constant occupation, whether to the purpose is a diffeient consideration. If I live to the winter's close, I expect to have many weeks of unremitting toil. Thus it is that men labour for the meat which perisheth, and thus I labour for knowledge which I may speedily forget, or which, if remembered, I may never have opportunities of turning to account. But how few thus labour for the bread of life — how few spend their days and nights in seeking to know God and Jesus whom He hath sent, and whom to know is everlasting life ! " Much study is a weariness to the bodily frame, and its exhausting influences soon tell upon the mind. How cruel to themselves are those men of literature and science who make a working day of the Sabbath ! — who bitterly complain of the hardships of the way in which they travel, but refuse to avail themselves of the rest and refreshment the Sabbath periodically brings round — who are conscious that they are pilgrims in a desert, but refuse to turn aside to that oasis which meets them at the close of every six days' journey." TO HIS SISTER. "December 5th, 1832. " Dr. Wardlaw was to have delivered a grand sermon against Establishments on Sabbath night, but studied so hard during the week that on Sabbath neither he nor the sermon was forthcoming. Just like some acquaintances of mine last winter (I do not include myself in the num- ber), who used to sit up so late preparing for the Greek D 50 THE VOLUNTARY CONTROVERSY. class, that tliey slept so long in the morning that the Greek class had to do without them. " Dr. Thomson's geographical ladies are on the increase. J. H." The brief postscript refers to a praiseworthy effort made by the late Dr. James Thomson, Professor of Mathe- matics in Glasgow, and father of Sir William Thomson, who now occupies and honours the Chair of Natural Philo- sophy in the same University, to extend the benefits of a higher education to the citizens generally, and especially to the female sex. He was the first of our academic men in Scotland, as far as we know, who made the attempt ; and it is only now that both in Edinburgh and Glasgow his idea has begun to be carried out in a systematic man- ner, and on a larger scale. The allusion in the body of the letter, though playfully expressed, as spoken to a child, points to what was at that period a great and keen ecclesiastical controversy in Scot- land. At that early period the question which has risen to the surface of practical politics in our own day, whether there should be an Endowed and Established Church, was de- bated with much earnestness and not a little acrimony. The champions on both sides were led at times to take up extreme positions ; and these excesses have impeded some- what the progress of that review which the great problem is undergoing now ; but in the main that old battle did much to prepare the way for a better era, which seems now to be dawning on the nation. In the allusion to the indisposition which prevented Dr. Wardlaw from de- livering liis promised lecture on behalf of a Voluntary KEDEEMING THE TIME. 51 Churcli, our student betrays somewhat of the class pre- judice with which, at that period, the zealous members of the Establishment were tinged. In his circumstances he could not but adopt the views of those by whom he was immediately surrounded, especially as his father and the godly circle of his associates were all attached to the Established Church. However, notwithstanding the par- tial alienation which this controversy produced, young Hamilton cherished even then a very high respect for Dr. Wardlaw, and lived, as these pages in the proper place will prove, to pronounce the Church's common eulogy over his grave. We resume the journal "Saturday, December 15th, 18*32. — Since Thursday last week I have every evening had some engagement or other — to a lecture, to a meeting, to dinner, etc., each occupy- ing, I should say, more than two hours at an average, and, with one day's exception, I am similarly engaged for all next week. Now, all this appears to me quite wrong. I am here at great expense to my father, for the avowed purpose of prosecuting my studies at College, and adding to my previous information. And for this purpose aU the time I have is short enough, after making deductions for those necessary interruptions occasioned by calls from friends, letter- writing, and a hundred other things. Now, if I choose to accept of every invitation, and at the same time am desirous to obtain a respectable standing in my classes, I must redeem the time thus squandered from what quar- ter I can get it — that is to say, from sleep ; in other words, from health, for a proper measure of sleep is as essential 52 REDEEMING THE TIME. to health, as time is to study. I am therefore determined to take effectual measures for diminishing these encroach- ments on my leisure, should I be spared till after the ap- proaching holidays. Once going out, whether to breakfast, tea, or dinner, is sufficient for one week. Since Monday ten full hours have been spent in College-meetings, visits, etc. Of these at least eight may be spared in all time coming. " Time is a talent, and, with all the rest, must be ac- counted for. If called on to account for the way in which each moment of my time has been employed to a fellow- mortal, how silly and contemptible would the reckoning appear ! What, then, must the ordinary employment of them appear when viewed in the light of eternity ? " "January 2, 1833. — During the past year I have read thirty-nine duodecimos, eighteen octavos, and one quarto — in all fifty-eight volumes. I also wrote an abridgment of Boston on Fasting, a translation of Theophrastus, an essay on the Ehetoric of Aristotle, another on the Eule of Faith, etc." A little later, 8th Janufiry, he writes to his father : — " This is the best time of the College — this and the next two months, — when we have a good steady supply of work, but not too much, and few interruptions." This short sentence, we think, exhibits the leau-id4al of a student's spirit. Here is a strong and healthful appetite. The " supply" he desires and rejoices in is " a supply of work." He is supremely happy in the prospect ; for, on the one hand, as the interruptions will be few, the quan- tity of work will be sufficiently large ; and, on the other SELF-SEARCHING. 53 hand, prudential considerations, springing from experi- ence regarding his healUi, are satisfied by the reflection that there will not be too much. The summer vacation of 1833 was spent at home in the usual way. Tew memorials of that season remain, except the inevitable and formidable lists of books read, and hours daily occupied, with here and there a hearty plunge either into himself or into some injudicious visitor for the loss of half a day. Neither from letters nor journals can any continuous narrative be constructed : but as you foUow the track of the student you meet evidences on every side of the same constant and zealous labour. Both his instincts and his adopted principles pressed him con- tinually forward. Idleness and procrastination were alien alike to his constitution and his convictions. His mind was a bow always bent ; to be unstrung was to be unhappy. The current of his life was always flowing, never stagnant, never even slow. Here and there, as in the next extract, we obtain glimpses of a conflict which Paul waged long ago between two natures, a worse and a better, an old and a new, in his own breast. In this matter, however, the only safe and healthy state is a state of active warfare, for victory will not be complete until the pilgrimage is done. "Thursday, June Uh, 1833. — On looking back I see a great many things to cause self-abasement. In everything I come short, but there are some particular deficiencies with which I feel myself especially chargeable. One of them is a want of candour, often attributing to the worst of two motives particular actions of certain individuals. 54 SELF-SEARCHING. This is a very odious and sinful spirit, and I humbly pray that I may be delivered from it in time to come. Nearly allied to this is a censorious disposition, commenting on the faults of others, and in frequently noticing the failings even of the excellent of the earth. I waste much invalu- able time ; the consequence of which is that I do not make that progress in learning that I ought, do little good, and leave to the last things of high importance. By fre- quently lying so long in bed in the morning I leave myself little time for reading the Bible, and am hurried in devotion. Often listless and unengaged in family and public worship. I have again and again found myself more willing to pass by a wrong thing in another, as if I had not observed it, than incur the bad opinion or ill-will of man by standing up for the honour of God — as if the good opinion of man were better than the favour of God. 0 Lord, lay not these sins to my charge. Against these 1 would especially watch and strive in the time to come, by the aid of Divine grace," " Sahhath, August 11, 1833. — In reading Henry Martyn's Memoirs, the sacrifices he made that he might do good to souls could not fail to press upon me a painful and troub- ling sense of the little good that I have done, and the little labour which I have undergone in the cause of God., Oh for that spirit by which he was actuated, or rather, that that mind which was in Christ may be also in me ! Then will I overcome this fear of man, which has hitherto proved to me such a snare, and kept me silent and inactive when I should have been zealous for the Lord of Hosts. Then will no sacrifice — nothing in the way of performance so CLASS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 55 difficult, or of endurance so painful — cause me for a moment to hesitate when the salvation of souls is at stake. I have this day been thinking that I may find it my duty to go and preach the gospel to the heathen. Before I can do so — and if I see a call of God to do so, I trust I shall — what self-denial will be needful ! What a missionary I would make at present — with a mind so filled with schemes about academic distinction, so vain and earthly in all its tendencies, so apt to be dismayed by every discouraging circumstance !" In the beginning of November, braced up in health as well as furnished in mind, the student betook himself once more to his philosophical studies in Glasgow. In the fourth and last year of their undergraduate course, students at the University of Glasgow attend what is called the Natural Philosophy class. like most of the other classes, it meets twice a day ; the first hour is occu- pied with prelections by the Professor, and the second with a public examination of the students on subjects which have been previously explained. It is a course of applied mathematics, ranging over mechanics, optics, electricity, and other departments of physics. The class was at that time competently conducted by the late Mr. Meikleham. The examinations were oral and public; each student answered in presence of all his peers. This system, combined with the practice of awarding prizes at the close of the session by the majority of votes, proved, under a competent master, eminently successful. It pro- duced in the pupils a healthful, well-sustained enthusiasm. As the students entered the class with various measures 56 MATHEMATICAL FEAT. of mathematical acquirements, the Professor at the com- mencement of the session gauged the capacity of each, and ever afterwards took care to accommodate the depth of his question to the depth of the scholar's attainments. Some were permitted, when their turn came round, to answer respectably a simple interrogatory regarding the more obvious physical laws, while another was permitted to perform a solo with chalk on a blackboard among the intricacies of algebraic formularies. On these occa- sions, human nature, instead of being dammed up, was permitted freely to flow, and the stream did yeoman service in driving round the educational machinery. When the Professor had chosen his man, and the chosen man, justifying his teacher's confidence, had tunnelled through his mountain, and emerged, chalk in hand and blush on countenance, on the other side, then the old man's eye glistened in liquid delight, and his formal " Silence, gen- tlemen," was manifestly not meant to check, far less to extinguish, the rapturous applause with which the roof was by this time ringing. In such scenes, and by such methods, a generous rivalry was stimulated, and ordinarily those men who strove hardest for the mastery in the class were sworn friends ever after on the wide stage of the world. A surviving fellow- student delights to tell how the Pro- fessor on one occasion called up Hamilton to demonstrate the proposition from Newton's Prineipia, Book i. sect. 3, that "if a body revolve in an ellipse, the force tending to the focus of the ellipse varies inversely as the square of the distance," and how he performed his task in such a manner as to fill the face of the venerable but ruddy philo- DR. JOHN CUNNINGHAM. 57 sopher with beaming delight, and draw forth from the youthful audience a louder and more articulate satisfaction. Nor is the narrator an incompetent judge of prowess in these recondite matters. He is Dr. John Cunningham, a man of prodigious mathematical faculties and attainments, a Christian of the same primitive and unadorned type with the late Michael Faraday, and, like him, uniting the most retiring and modest simplicity of character with the highest scientific acquisitions. This man, now venerable in years and aspect, has devoted his life as a missionary to the Jews in London. A philosopher who might have coped with any of his contemporaries in plying the calculus which extorts from Nature her secrets, treads the dark narrow lanes, and climbs the dark narrow stairs, of the metropolis, seeking the lost sheep of the house of IsraeL There he labours, sowing good seed on beaten way-sides, contented to follow his Master's footsteps where he is not " seen of men."^ John Cunningham cherished a fond friendship for his fellow- student while he lived, and sur- vives to lament his comparatively early removal. There is not much of permanent interest in the letters and journals of this session. A few brief extracts are sub- joined. 1 Some years since I had occasion to meet a Wesleyan missionary from the Fiji Islands, oa leave of absence in England for the benefit of his health, and was much interested in learning that he was the brother of Mr. Adams the astronomer, who, simultaneously with Leverrier, but independently, discovered the planet Neptune. How diverse on the surface, and yet how closely con- nected in the deep, were the positions and occupations of the two brothers ! One, in the central home of British science, measuring out the heavens, and determining where an unseen planet must be rolling ; the other on a small speck of earth standing oiit from the surface of the southern ocean, labouring to win some degraded savages to Christ. Sublime occupations both 1 Par nobile fratrum I 68 DR. HANNA. "December 13th, 1S33. " My dear Mary, — I am glad that the book of travels gives satisfaction. By reading such books, taking care to follow the route of the traveller on a map, you may soon come to have a good knowledge of the geography of different countries, along with a great deal of information besides which it is desirable to possess. It is no waste of time to read good voyages and travels, the lives of great men, and works of history. I think now that if I could manage it I would read a multitude of such books, and regret having read so few when I had better opportunities. This winter I do not expect to have one hour for such purposes, nor can I well anticipate the time when I shall have sufficient leisure to acquire much of what I am horri- fied at the idea of wanting — general knowledge. I there- fore consider myself entitled to prescribe to you what I have myself failed in, in the same way that a condemned criminal may exhort others to take warning from his fate." " Sahhath, March 9, 1834. — I went to hear Dr. Cooke of Belfast with my dear friend Hanna this evening. He goes home to-morrow. The Lord watch between him and me when we are parted from one another ! 1 felt that I have been much the better for his conversation during the short intervals that we have been together during these few days. He has the right views of what a minister should do and be. Would that there were many such !" The friendship thus begun continued unbroken to the last, and Dr. Hanna survives to mourn with us the absence of a precious member from the ever lessening circle of HIS POLITICAL CHEED. 59 kindred spirits that gravitated towards each other by the force of common aspirations in those early days. " I6th April 1834, " My deak Father, — Friday is a holiday, but I must stay in town, comforting myself with the prospect that a fortnight will bring me home for altogether. I have got an addition to my library — a very beautiful copy of Magee on the Atonement. It is a present from the students, and from the inscription having something about ' zeal for the best interests of the University,' I suppose it is given for che same reason for which Dr. Fleming and others would say it should have been withheld. My conscience does not reproach me for the manner in which I have exercised my rights as a member of Glasgow University. If poli- tical principles be hereditary, I apprehend mine ought to be comprehended in this — 1. What is right is the true expediency ; 2. The real rights and interests of the many should be preferred to the alleged interests of the few. Whether this be Whiggism, or whatever it be, I am not conscious of having done anything contrary to it in these matters. And though I was always aware, and am now more than ever, that this was not the way to secure the favour of Professors, I have the satisfaction of knowing that there is more honesty, kind-heartedness, and talent among the twenty-four names attached to this present than are to be found in the majority of the faculty." The preceding letter alludes to the lively contest be- tween the Liberal and Conservative parties, which termi- nated in the election of the late Lord Cockburn, one of the judges of the Court of Session, as Lord Eector of the 60 TESTIMONIAL FKOM FELLOW-STUDENTS. College. It is quite refreshing to hear the clear, frank confession of a Liberal faith in the sphere of temporal politics, from the lips of this grave and studious youth. Nor is it merely an adherence to a party through heredi- tary prejudice. It is manifestly a matter of the judgment, and based upon what he considered the right and the true. So effectively had Hamilton led the Liberal phalanx in that campaign that the victors resolved to express and record their satisfaction by a united and formal presenta- tion. The inscription, with its list of appended names, is subjoined. The principles that were then dwelling in the breasts of generous youths have since that time told effec- tively in various places and in various spheres. There is scarcely any species of certificate on which we should be inclined to set a higher value than the spon- taneous and enthusiastic acclaim of his fellow-students. " College of Glasgow, 1834. " Presented by ' tlie Cockbum Committee ' to Mr. James Hamilton, the son of a most learned, upright, and pious father, in testimony of their high sense of his distinguished talents, profound erudition, inde- fatigable industry, stern integrity, and honest independent zeal for the best interests of the University. Robert Walter Stewart, M.A. William Park, M.A. John Craufurd, Med. Thomas Dymock, M.A. Alexander P. Stewart, do. Thomas Thomson, Arts. James Davidson, Arts. David Stewart, Arts. Colin Campbell, Jun. Joseph Compton, Arts. William H. Graham, Arts. George B. Moncrieff, do. David Thomson, do. William J. Unwin, B.A. W. Urquhart, do. John M. Douglas, Arts. H. W. Nesbitt, Med. Alexander P. Forbes, Arts. Adam Roxburgh, Theol. Michael Connal, do. John S. Wardlaw. George R. Kenedy, Theol. James Halley, A.B. Alexander Gardiner, A.M." CONFLICTS BETWEEN PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS. 61 Conflicts on various subjects between the students and the Professors were of frequent occurrence in those days, and constituted interesting episodes in the otherwise dull routine of College life. They have long passed away, and it is not necessary to revive them. Suffice it to remark, generally, that liberal ideas on many subjects were invad- ing the monkish cloisters, and ordinarily the students caught the spirit of the age somewhat earlier than their seniors. Hence some smart skirmishes between the more advanced and more liberal-minded students on the one hand, and the dignified Conservative heads of the Senatus on the other — not on points of theology or philosophy, but on certain practical matters of administration. In short, some wavelets from the great storm that raged outside between those who demanded reform and those who re- sisted it, had leapt over the dark battlements of the ancient University, and raised an unwonted commotion in its hitherto still, if not stagnant, waters. On one occasion about this period the collision be- tween the progress of Liberal ideas among the students, and the Conservative tendencies of the Senatus, went so far as to threaten danger to the discipline of the Uni- versity. The students plied the Senatus with "memo- rials," and the Senatus launched forth " minutes" against the students, until the duel assumed ominous propor- tions. Threats of expulsion were introduced, not very skilfully, into the minutes. These were repaid with interest by memorials, drawn up in a phraseology of con- ventional respectfulness which was not meant to conceal, 62 CHOICE OP PROFESSION. as one of the remonstrants characterized it, " an under- current of contempt." The commonplace observation, it may be frankly con- fessed, was true of those wars, — there were faults on both sides. The students were too bold and self-confident, but the Professors lacked the wisdom and generosity that would have directed, instead of merely repressing, the impetuosity of youth. Another summer vacation passes without change of methods, and it may therefore be left without a record. Next session he entered the classes of theology. He does not signalize this stage of his progress by any permanent notice in either letters or journals. The obvious reason of this reticence is, that the choice of his profession had been decidedly made long before. He did not need to consider, at the close of his undergraduate course, what direction should be given to his studies in the next stage of his progress. The choice of his sphere and work was made at a very tender age, and it was made with a com- plete intelligence. I have never known any one more constantly and thoroughly dedicated to the Lord's service, like Samuel, from his birth, in his childhood, and in his mature age. The vows of his father, uttered before his birth, were fondly accepted by himself as soon as his understanding opened. His father's judgment became his own; and at no subsequent period did he ever manifest any tendency either to reverse the decision he had formed, or to regret the step he had taken. His heart was all in it, and always in it. If, a few years after this date, and immediately before he PROFESSORS OF THEOLOGY. 63 was called to the ministry, he experienced some desires to devote himself to botany, and relative literature, there was still no dubiety as to the aim of his life. With his tastes and acquirements in natural science on the one side, and his physical constitution, feeble in those organs on which a preacher must mainly rely, on the other, it is not wonderful that he should have entertained the ques- tion as to the position in which his talents might be best laid out in the service of God ; but whatever amount of debate was admitted at any time, it was a debate as to means, and not as to end. He was bought with a price, and he was bent on glorifying the Lord that bought him. The only inquiry he made at any stage was. How and where may the talents intrusted to me be most profitably expended in my Master's cause ? In some of the theological classes of the University at that time a beneficial influence was exerted upon the students, but in others, if the young men did not educate themselves, they fared the worse. In some cases patron- age had filled a chair in accordance with some obscure private connexions, in flagrant defiance alike of the public opinion and the public good. A person endued with a perennial childishness, not very many degrees above abso- lute imbecility, might, if he gained the patron's favour, be placed in a chair in which he should doze and vegetate for half a century, to the unspeakable injury of two gene- rations. In those days there was neither security for a right appointment at first, nor provision for retirement when age and infirmity had done their work. The aged incumbent must live, although the students should be left 64: COMPENSATIONS. to take care of themselves. But in Providence compensa- tions come up in a wonderful manner, when and where they are most wanted. The particular form in which these preserving and healing powers of nature appeared in the College of Glasgow when James Hamilton studied theo- logy there, was a liberal, earnest, patriotic spirit, diffused in large measure among the students. If they shivered sometimes when condemned to sit out their hour on the benches of the class-room, they kept themselves warm by combining together both for mental discipline and spiritual health. To the theological societies and the missionary meetings of those days the memory of many men now scattered over the world in the service of the gospel still fondly reverts, as to springs of water in a dry place. By means of earnest and able teachers in departments where such held office, or in spite of a teaching that was cold or incompetent where that obstacle unfortunately stood in the way, many of the students that passed through the Hall in line with Hamilton, have, through God's good hand upon them, reached and held important positions in the Christian Church. His younger brother having this year entered the Uni- versity, he writes to his sister : — " I^^ov. 5th, 1834. " My dear Mary, — . . . William is enjoying the Latin very much,— as much as I enjoy the chemistry. ... Dr. M'Turk gave his first lecture yesterday, and, like my neighbours, I had pen and ink ready for taking notes, but as nothing notable occurred most of us saved our paper, but I did not see anybody sleeping. Dr. M'Gill's WILLIAM BURNS. 65 lectures make amends, and if his future lectures be equal to the two which I have heard, I shall never bear to hear any one speak disparagingly of them. William Burns, of Kilsyth, is in the Hall with me, so are a good many of last year's acquaintances, some strangers too." The allusion to William Burns, singled out from all the rest, and named as his class-fellow, in the light of subsequent events seems almost prophetic. It is alto- gether prophetic in the best sense ; for that deep congruity of spirit which drew these two together in their youth, continued in force, and in due time knit them into a pair, one at home and another abroad, in the mission work. United thus by one spirit in early life, in their death, as we shall find in the course of our narrative, they were not divided. "Glasgow, JVov. 28, 1834. " My dear Jane, — Yesterday, you know, was my birth- day, and I lay awake a long while, scarcely believing that I could be twenty years of age. And I have just been thinking that in these twenty years more time has been wasted than IMilton took to compose Paradise Lost, or Newton to write the Principia. If you be a good arith- metician, you may perhaps get on to learn mathematics, and then you will be able, like Mrs. Somerville, to under- stand the Principia, which is more perhaps than other three ladies in England do. . . . " Edward Irving has been in town for more than a month, meeting with a few people in the Lyceum Eooms every Sabbath. I believe he performs very little of the service E 66 EDWARD IRVING. himself, merely addressing the congregation in a few words before the close. His health is bad. It is sup- posed that his lungs are diseased. Three Sabbaths ago I met him riding in the High Street, being the first time that I have seen him since he used to play with me in the old manse of Strathblane. He has seen changes since that time, and has made the sad descent from the highest popularity to the deepest obscurity." A casual meeting for a moment between Edward Irving and James Hamilton, as two atoms meet in the air, then pass, and never meet again ! History will connect both with the National Scotch Church in London. How like, and yet how diverse ! In the one, piety, genius, power, all wrecked by a wayward spirit, and an enthusiasm which mightily impelled, without a sober judgment to direct; in the other, piety, genius, and a Christ-like meekness, which did more execution upon the enemies of God and man than any giant-champion who might make the battle-ground shake beneath his feet. When the engine slips off the rails, the skHfulness of its structure and the force of its fire avail it nothing. As a student, James Hamilton was as blithe and dis- cursive as a butterfly, but as busy and successful as a bee. His learning was spread wide, but it was not therefore spread thin. While he was engaged in the professional study of theology, he contrived to carry on always some under-plot without marring his main pursuit. Of his subsidiary studies, botany, natural history, and chemistry were the chief. Botany was a life-long recreation, but THE CHEMISTRY CLASS. 67 in this year, and during the currency of his theological course, he made an earnest and not unsuccessful inroad on the domain of chemistry. A class-room, in the form and of the dimensions of a small theatre, had been built beyond the walls of the College, to accommodate the numbers who flockec to the study of chemistry under the late eminent Professor Dr. Thomas Thomson. I remem- ber well a pilgrimage made by a few students from the Divinity Hall at the close of the session to the chemistry class-room, where our sectional pride was abundantly gratified by hearing Hamilton called to receive the first prize in a class of several hundreds engaged profes- sionally in the study of medicine. In great glee we marched along College Street to see Hamilton " beat the medicals." It is right, and may be useful to mention here, that while he was indebted for success in these sciences to his own intellectual aptitude and his persevering zeal, he was indebted, under Providence, for the opportunity to a moderate patrimony, which relieved him wholly from the necessity of working for his bread. While Hamilton was thus enabled to enrich his mind, and lay in precious stores for future use, James Halley, and other companions and contemporaries less gifted, were obliged to toil four or five hours every day grinding juniors, in order to pro- cure the means of attending the University themselves. Very little provision was made in those days for assisting students who might have shown themselves worthy of being assisted. For the most part the bursaries that existed were at the disposal of patrons who admitted 68 BURSARIES. — IHE ILLNESS no influence except that of private partialities. Better days have come for Scottish students. A great number of bursaries have been instituted since that date, almost all open to public competition. Of late years not a few- princely gifts have been bestowed or bequeathed by patriotic private citizens, for the purpose of encouragiag learning in connexion with the Scotch Universities. Al- though few and feeble in comparison with the rich founda- tions of Oxford and Cambridge, some endowed scholarships are now in full operation, especially in Edinburgh, which enable young men of intellect and energy to prosecute their studies somewhat beyond the period of the ordinary curriculum, without the necessity of toiling all the time for daily bread. This session w^as suddenly and prematurely closed on the IGtli of April, by the heaviest stroke that had ever fallen on his head — the death of his father. On the 5th, eleven days before his decease, he preached a public ser- mon in St. David's Church, Glasgow. It so happened that on that occasion I saw and heard the minister of Strathblane for the first and last time. I remember well both his figure and fervent manner as he preached. He gave me the impression of the Baptist preparing the way of the Lord, with none of the Baptist's sternness. I stood in awe before him, but it was the awe inspired by the tenderness of a messenger who besought us to be recon- ciled to God. From want of vigour in the chest, his voice was not well under control, — indeed the power of his preaching owed little to the instrument by which the message was articulated. It was not the measured AND DEATH OF HIS FATHER. 69 cadence of a cultivated orator that carried you away, it was the holy elevated earnestness of the man that made a listener's heart burn within him, in spite of defective vocal modulations. James spent some hours with his father that evening in Glasgow, in animated conversation on the themes which parent and child' relished in common — the things that concerned the kingdom of Christ, and next morning saw him off by the stage to Strathblane. It w^as the last meeting of these two, who had been very lovely in their lives. He preached in his own church on the following Sabbath, was taken ill on Monday, and, after a very short illness, gently passed away. The great bereavement was simply and briefly announced in a letter to his uncle, the publisher in London, the first of a long series affectionately written by the nephew, and affectionately preserved by the uncle, which will afford us important aid at every stage of our narrative, even to its close. " Stkatjielane, April 11th, 1835. " My dear Uncle,— On Monday my dear father com- plained that he felt unwell, and at tea-time was seized with a shivering fit, and persuaded to go to bed. It seemed at first to be merely a cold, and no danger was at all apprehended, — so much so that I was not sent for from town ; but he had a worse night on Wednesday, and yes- terday morning my mother sent to town for Dr. Eainy. About mid-day yesterday it was evident that his strength was giving way, and when Dr. Eainy arrived at ten in the evening, he found him so low that he had no hope of his 70 THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER, AND recovery. His throat, which had been much inflamed, had now become greatly suppurated. He only lingered till midnight, and then his prepared spirit winged its flight to that heaven which had so long been its home. Oh, my dear uncle, you know how unsearchable are His ways, and this is one of them. ]\Iamma was dreadfully agitated last night, but is more composed to-day. It was only this morning, when Dr. Eainy returned to town, that I heard that my father was so ill, and that he was gone. I am not able to give more particulars at present, but his mind was happy, happy. "Pray for us, and God bless you, my dear uncle. — Your affectionate nephew, JAiiES Hamilton." It will be convenient to introduce here an extract on the same subject from his journal, although it is dated at Easterhouse in the beginning of the following year : — " What have I been called to see and feel since I made my last entry in this journal ! Since then I have ex- perienced at least one dangerous illness, have lost a father such as few had to lose, and I, and those who are dearest to me, have gone from a home which we loved, and where we almost dreamed that we were to abide for ever, to sojourn in what we may truly call a stranger-land. Last winter was almost entirely given up to the acquisition of human knowledge, and the pursuits of literary distinction. There was every appearance that my wishes would be gratified. On Thursday, the 16th of April, having just completed an essay which I expected would gain a prize, and as the day was one of the most beautiful days that REFLECTIONS ON THAT EVENT. 71 ever lighted up the spring, I wandered four or five miles up the Clyde in search of plants. Little did I imagine, as I looked forward to my return home, which another fortnight would bring about, and laid schemes of employ- ment and recreation for the summer, and thought of the possible gratification which might be occasioned to those I most fondly loved by a successful termination of the winter's toils, — little did I imagine that at that very hour the hand of death was on the object of my warmest affec- tions, and that next day I should be called to a desolate home, to find my mother broken-hearted, my brothers and sisters all sick of an alarming malady, and my father's lifeless remains. In a few days I myself was taken ill with sore throat also ; and as if to pour contempt on all my pride, when the 1st of May arrived, my medal and my prize- books came in the evening, and found me in bed, scarcely begun to recover. After such an admonition I would be more brutish than any man if I did not regard this world's honours and pleasures as vanity. The warn- ing, I trust, has not been altogether in vain, I now feel alarmed when mere secular studies are beginning to occupy the place which God claims for Himself. 0 that He were more constantly and indisputably supreme in my affections ! Till His throne be established here, if He has purposes of mercy towards me. He will visit my back- slidings, and when His mercies fail to accomplish it, make Himself remembered by ' terrible things in righteousness.' Lord, help me to live above the world. Keep me from ever being so engrossed by its cares as to forget the one thing needful. 72 FEEBLE HEALTH OF HIS MOTHER. " Here we have commenced, about two months ago, a Sabbath- school. I do not yet feel the same interest in these children as I did in those I left at Strathblane, but 1 must remember that all souls are equally precious. I often wonder how I am so lethargic and lifeless amongst the scholars, when I always feel as if my time were short, and that I am soon to give in my account. I am not what I would like to be. I would like to make more exertions to promote the comfort and happiness of my beloved mother, whose heart is oppressed with a load of sorrow accessible only to the hand of the Great Physician, and to advance the spiritual improvement of the rest of the family. I would like to be more lively in prayer, more humble, less fretful, less vain-glorious. I would like to live nearer to God, and possess an assurance of my own acceptance. I would like to read the Bible more as the Word of the living God!' ''June SOth, 1835. " My deae Uncle, — When I look at the date of your last letter, I fear you may begin to feel uneasy at my long silence. The truth is, when I was purposing to write to you a fortnight ago, I was attacked by one of the most obstinate colds I ever recollect to have had, which has confined me to bed for nearly all that time, and which still renders writing a formidable employment. I am sorry that I am not yet able to give favourable accounts of mamma's health. For nearly a month she has not been out of bed, and so far from being better, I think she has for the last two days been weaker than ever. This long protracted debility is a cause of much anxiety to us all. BURDEN BORNE BY ELDEST SOX. 73 The summer is hastening away without having produced any of those beneficial effects which we thought it only requu^ed time to accomplish. And in a month or two we must leave Strathblane, which I do not see how she can stand in her present infirm state." When a minister in the country is called away by death, some peculiar features adhere to the bereavement. It is not only that the modest income ceases immediately, but the house, the birthplace and home of the children, must be abandoned at once. The first morning that they awake fatherless, they aw^ake as strangers on the only spot they have ever known as their own. The wddow, while her wounds are yet green, must remove with all her family, to seek elsewhere a place of abode. In this case the suffering was much mitigated by the possession of a little property, which, carefully husbanded, satisfied the simple wants of mother and children, and sufficed to carry forward the education of aU three sons. Suddenly at this crisis our youthful student was thrown to the front, and obliged to cope directly with the various troubles of life — as the support of his widowed mother and the guide of his younger brothers and sisters. Loyally he accepted the task, lovingly and courageously he dis- charged it. Now appeared the value of the training he had received from his father, and the grace he had gotten from God. CHAPTEE II. FEOM HIS father's DEATH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS MINISTRY. A JOURNAL 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 pro- gress 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 LEAVING THE MANSE. 75 Greek of Tliucydides and Euripides, he will batlie 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 resi- dence. Left Strathblane on Wed. the 16th. Eead 200 pages of Whewell's Astronomy and General Phijsics, 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 76 SETTLEMENT AT EASTERHOUSE. miglit not be exposed to the public gaze. What he 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 9th 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 in- tend 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. I6th, 1835. " My dear Uncle, — I do not believe that I have written DAY-BOOK FOR STRAY THOUGHTS. 77 to you since we came to this place, and tliat is now two months 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 re- turn 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 Ms 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 evi- dence, 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 CHRISTIAN UNITY. or lost, as would, if interrupted in its progress, build a naw, I have committed to writing; few tliouglits 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 trea- sure up all those thoughts which are not required for present consumption, but which may all be needed in a future dearth — a lumber-room of unclaimed and unassorted ideas — a iravSox^Lou — for the temporary accommodation of all stragglers, great and small." The first entry in this day-book of floating ideas is entitled Christian Unitij, and is inserted here entire : — " In heaven there wiLL be no such thing as formal re - conciliations. Without the intervention of a third pariy 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 till the book is crammed to its last fly-leaf with a congeries A CHURCH HISTORY FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. 79 of tliouglits 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 specula- tions. 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 acquire- ments, with the high uses to which he applied them, constituted another example of the Scriptural maxim, " The hand of the dihgent 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 use- fulness : — " 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 popu- lar 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 his- tory, the services, and the piety of our National Church, their affections might be gained in its behalf, and their 80 MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. minds fortified against the prevailing efforts to prejudice tlie 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 myself attempt it. J. H. ''Aug. 7, 1835." Immense quantities of botanical observations are scat- tered over aU liis journals. Many pages are filled with notices of particular plants, and of the localities in which they were found. In this sense it may be said that flowers were freely interwoven -^ith aU his studies. But though botany everywhere bullvS most largely, it did not, among the physical sciences, obtain a monopoly of liis atten- tion. The journals of 1835 teem with facts in various departments, accompanied with appropriate pliilosophical 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 ex- hibited 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 inforraa- IN NA.TUIIAL HISTORY. 81 tion regarding the relative position of the various strata through which they penetrate in sinking their shafts. Forthwith he must endeavour to account for the facts by- geological generahzations already made, or set the un- explained facts aside as materials of a new generalization. Interspersed with these notices in the domain of natu- ral history, occur miniature biograpliies of certain ragged urchins who stand on the roll of his Sabbath-school, with anticipations sometimes anxious, sometimes hopeful, re- garding 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 He in that direction. Science is neither divorced from, nor overlaid by, rehgion. 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 ex- patiates 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 " Eobert Black and David Brown- lee repeated their psalms without fault," while Andrew Burt and John Brownlee made one slip each. Thus, in F 82 EECORD OF WORK. the true pMlosopliic spirit, lie 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 ex- ternal 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. With- out 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 runninir 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 tiU 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 Ms own eye what he did, he would not have done so much ; but it INFLUENCE OF LARGE CITIES. 83 may also be true tliat 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 dehghts 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 Glas- gow. With the exception of some months of 1837, 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 itseK up in the folds of a mysterious antiquity. Wliile 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 col- leges 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 Eome would probably not have occurred. These fungous growths do not thrive under the tread of busy multitudes, and near the fires 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 ob- 84 MEMOIR OF HIS FATHER. tains his collegiate education in immediate contact witli 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, " 29 „ William Gauld, M.D., ,^ May 1, 1863. Sept. 18, 1863. „ Swatow. „ J. L. Maxwell, M.D., „ July 1863, Dec. 181)3, ,, FoRjiosA. 'Rev. Wm. M'Geegor, ordained at Aberdeen, May 16, 1864, Ocl. 1864, „ Atiov. Rev. David Masson, „ Loudon, June 20, 1866, W.iblied overboard anddrowneif Bev. UuuH EntHiE, ,, London, June 17. 1867. [Nov. 10, 1S66 Sent out and supported by the Association in Scotland- Dr. Carnegie has charge of the Hospital at Amoy. 462 MR. DAVID SANDEMAN. high talents and character with singular simplicity and steadfastness to the work of the Lord in that heathen land. Mr. Douglas is now the senior member of the mission, and is eminently qualified by learning, acuteness, and judicial calmness, either for conducting the work on the spot, or representing it, when necessary, before the Church and the world, David Sandeman, the next missionary appointed, has, through his family connexion, his youth, his apostoKc devotion, and the shortness of his course, attracted in an extraordinary measure the sympathetic regard of all who love the cause of missions in the land. Possessing by the favour of the King all the talents, he laid them out without reserve in the King's service. A pleasant glimpse of his bearing on the eve of departure for the mission-field is fjiven in a letter from Dr. Hamilton to Mrs. Georfre Bar- hour, his sister. Mrs. Barbour was in a peculiar manner attached to this mission from the first. She deeply ap- preciated the ministry of William Burns while he remained at home ; and after he was permanently settled in China, she contributed, through Dr. Hamilton, to the Messenger a most valuable series of papers, under the title "A Hearer's Notes of Discourses by William Burns." Accord- ingly, it is in a strain of the most affectionate esteem and regard that Dr. Hamilton addresses her on the occasion of her brother's visit to him in London, preparatory to his voyage. Mr. Barbour has all along borne the burden or enjoyed the privilege (for both are true) of ministering to the mission, — in taking charge of its affairs in Scotland. LETTER TO MRS. BARBOUR. 463 • FROM DR. HAMILTON. "London, Od. 9, 1856. " My dear Mrs. Barbour, — Owing to my absence from town there has not yet appeared a very important letter written by Mr. Douglas in May, giving an account of the ordination of Chinese elders. Your brother's visit (much shortened, however, by frequent expeditions elsewhere) was a great treat to us. It is six years since any one passed from under our roof so completely carrying with him the heart of every inmate. So manly, so noble, and assuring, every feature radiant with kindness, and every movement instinct with grace and goodness, he had all the happiness of one who was taking a right step, and who knew that the Lord was with him. To look at him, and tliink of the sacrifice he was making, was enough to bring the tears into the eyes of others ; but amidst all his self- consecration there was on his own part no consciousness of sacrifice, and many a cheerful sally as well as his whole bright demeanour betokened the peace within. The night he went away, he went up to the nursery and kissed baby in the cradle (for whom he has left a beautiful Bible, to be given her when old enough), and went down to the kitchen and spoke to the servants, and gave each of them a book ; and now, like ourselves, they feel that, ever since he left, something very good and holy has passed away. My wife and I now understand what it must have been to his mother and yourselves to part with such a son and brother. But I doubt not the blessing will be proportional. I trust he is to turn many to righteousness, and will shine 464 THE SABBATH-SCHOOLS OF STOCKPORT. as a star in the firmament. We were much concerned to hear that you were suffering so much when Mr. Barbour came away. Mrs. Hamilton sends her warmest regards, and I remain, dear Mrs. Barbour, most truly yours, " James Hamilton." Dr. Hamilton presided over the Foreign Missions Com- mittee till his death. "As Convener of the Foreign Missions Committee of the English Presbyterian Church, he cast the halo of his genius and the glow of his warm loving nature round their Mission to China ; and the popularity of his much honoured name has given it a publicity far beyond the limits of the denomination he distinguished by his ministry. His ardent character in- fused energy into the foreign enterprise of a Church apt to be absorbed by its struggle with difficulties at home ; and the fervour of his piety diffused itself through all the operations of the society over which he presided." "Stockport, Oct. 13, 1856. 10 a.m. "My deaeest Annie, — I got safely and comfortably here before eleven on Saturday. Mr. "Wilkinson met me at the train. He is a cozy bachelor, with a nice house ; grand piano, on which he plays splendidly, and everything a la mode. Yesterday, nearly 4000 children were mustered in their mighty school-room, to whom I made an address ; and I preached in the same place in the evening, amidst a tempest of music from organ, bassoons, kettle-drums, and hundreds of choristers. However, I confess it was remark- ably good music." THE BISHOP OF LONDON. '465 "London, Oct. 17, 1856. " My dear William, — . . . Last Sabbath I preached for the Sunday schools at Stockport, and had all the organs, kettle-drums, etc., of which Dr. Chalmers gives such a comical account. But I am in no mood to quiz them. In some respects it is the noblest institution of the kind in all the empire. In the morning I addressed 4000 children ; in the evening a vast congregation of grown-up people. The collection was £209. My old fellow-student Tait is now Bishop of London. There could hardly have been a better appointment. I wrote him a few lines of congra- tulation, and had a very hearty answer." The letter from Dr. Tait, which seems to have been written after he was nominated to the Bishopric of London, but before his consecration, is simple, frank, and brotherly. It is honourable to both, and ought to find a place in this record : — FEOM THE DEAN OF CARLISLE. ''Oct. 15, 1856. " My DEAR Mr. Hamilton, — Let me thank you for your very kind letter. The sad events which have befallen Mrs. Tait and myself during the last six months make the thoughts connected with this unexpected change in our prospects doubly solemn. It is a great satisfaction to me to beheve that I have the hearty prayers as well as the good wishes of many kind friends, and I assure you that I greatly feel your kindness. "Many changes have taken place since our Glasgow days, yet how short the time appears since we were there ! A. strong motive, in this shortness of life, to work while it 2 G 466 FRUITS FROM "LIFE IN EARNEST. is day. I hope we may soon meet. — Believe me to be, my dear Mr. Hamilton, ever yours sincerely, " A. C. Tait." One of those men whom Life in Uarnest caught as with a hook in the jaws, and convicted of wasting precious talents, writes to him as follows : — " Oct. 24, 1856. " Eevekend Sir, — To one whose life has, alas ! been very much misspent, the accidental perusal of your excellent book, entitled Life in Earnest, has caused a great revulsion of feeling. It has suddenly, as it were, conjured up around me ten thousand ghosts of neglected opportunities ; it says ' redeem the morning of time ; ' but with me, alas ! the morning has passed away, and the day itself is far spent, and, like a wearied traveller on a mistaken road, I have at length, in this book, found a guide-post that tells me my journey has been in vain ! " In other words, the reading of those beautiful lectures, with their fervent and glowing language, deep and pro- found reasoning, heart-searching appeals, and powerful illustrations, has awakened me to the stern, but deeply humiliating truth, that an existence of upwards of thirty years on this earth has been altogether unproductive, and worse than useless. " I am a poor and comparatively uneducated artisan, and I should rejoice exceedingly to avail myself of any kind counsel and advice which one so eminently qualified as yourself may at any time be pleased to give me, whereby I might be enabled to devote many of those * leavings of daijs and remnants of hours' wliich have hitherto been " EXCELSIOR " FINISHED. 467 triflingly, and therefore uselessly, employed, to better and nobler objects. I rely upon your kindness and conde- scension to pardon my presumption in thus intruding upon your attention ; and beg to remain, with the deepest ad- miration and respect for all those exalted talents and graces which adorn your truly Christian character, your most humble and obedient servant, G. A. B — . " No. 3 Field St., Bagnigge WeUs Road." A touchiag note from Lady Verney reveals at once her strong faith in God, and the confidence with which she could open her heart to Dr. Hamilton, as a minister of the Gospel and a fellow-disciple of Christ : — "Claydon, Oct. 27, 1856. "My deae Dr. Hamilton, — The black edge will tell you of our sorrow, but it is a poor emblem of the glory which illuminated our precious child's last moments. I used sometimes to think a sorrow was come which even God could not heal ; but He has given a balm which I could never have dared to ask or hope for, and I am not crushed. — Believe me, yours very truly, " Eliza Veeney." " NovemUr 28, 1856. — This week I sent the last MSS. of Excelsior to press. It has been very little of a task — rather a pleasant companion, and a very acceptable source of income during these three years. I feel it a great mercy that never once has the publication of a number (and there have been thirty- six) been delayed by illness or any other cause. Of its 2700 pages, I have written 483, or more than a sixth. The chief labour has been 468 " EXCELSIOR " COERESPONDENCE. correcting and condensing the contributions of some of our less practised authors, and corresponding with all and sundries. Of letters received I have preserved up to this date 992, and I have written more than that number. " I now stand committed to a new undertaking, which I believe I shall enjoy very much — Our Christian Classics. It must appear on January 1st, but not one word is yet ;vritten." Excelsior, a monthly magazine that started with the express intention of closing at the end of three years, and that kept its word, was now finished. It constitutes six beautiful little volumes, full of miscellaneous information, and besprinkled with exquisite pictorial illustrations. The thousand letters received in connexion with this work are bound in one neat volume, and labelled " Excelsior" in gold letters on the back. They constitute a cabinet of curiosities. It would be a very suitable book for lending to any gentleman who might be ambitious to become an editor. In particular, he seems to have had much trouble with an American story that, like a wounded snake, dragged its slow length along through many numbers of the magazine. The story was not destitute of merit, but the readers in some cases were destitute of patience, and the editor was dunned by requests, expressed sometimes with more energy than suavity, to cut the matter short. Calmly he held on his way, profiting by hints from every quarter, never losing his temper, and never slackening his effort until his task was done. The work that succeeded it, announced in the close of the letter, is totally different in character. It consists "OUR CHKISTIAN CLASSICS." 469 of specimens of religious writers in the English tongue, from the earliest times till the close of the eighteenth century, with notices, sometimes brief, sometimes very full, of the writers, their circumstances, and their times. Our Christian Classics is a work fitted to fill a very im- portant place in English literature for a long time to come. It was a well-timed publication. In this age com- paratively few can possess the works of those worthies in bulk, and fewer could devote the time and atten- tion necessary for a profitable perusal of such a mass. It was necessary that a competent judge should make selections and introduce the authors. This has been done by a master's hand, and it will probably be long ere his work be antiquated. "London-, Dec. 25, 1856. " My dear William, — ... By a letter from Claydon yesterday we find that Lady Verney is dying. She was at our November communion, and spent the interval with us, fuU of the happy death of her eldest daughter, who has only preceded her to heaven by two months. I have hardly ever known so much ability in a lady, yet thoroughly simple, feminine, and deeply pious." FROM SIR HARRY VERNEY. " WooDHALL Park, Ware, Jan. 31, 1857. "My dear Dr. Hamilton, — I know that you will pardon the long delay which has intervened since you wrote to me on the 6th. Eew can understand better than yourself how deep is the affliction that has fallen vi^oD. me, for you are one of those who could appreciate the 470 LADY VERNEY. remarkable and varied excellencies of her whom I have lost. If she was a delightful companion to her friends — a warm and able advocate of the cause that she believed to be right — a faithful and yet compassionate reprover of sin — a sympathizing friend of the distressed — a wise mistress to servants and dependants — a judicious and affectionate mother, what must she have been to her hus- band ? Suffice it to say, that she was a tower of strength and safety on which I leaned for twenty years and a half of happy married life, and that it has been the will of God to strike down this support, in order that I should lean upon Him alone. You knew her well enough to be aware that that is what she did. After our beloved daughter's death she wrote to an intimate friend, — ' I am unequal to the commonplaces of life, but alone with my Bible and my Saviour I enjoy perfect peace ;' and in one of our last conversations, while she was in severe bodily suffering, and when her delicate and sensitive brain was beginning to be affected, she said to me, — ' What would it be if I had now to recollect any works of my own, or anything belonging to myself or others, I cannot even think, but I can rest firmly on the Eock and be at peace.' I expect about ten days hence to be settled in London, in a small house that I have taken for my daughter and myself, 22 Eutland Gate, Hyde Park. She is something like her mother. I shall venture to take her to Euston Square some day, to introduce her to Mrs. Hamilton. Thanking you, my dear Dr. Hamilton, for your very kind recollection of me, and for your assurance of sympathy and condolence, T am, your very faithful and obliged, Hakry Veeney." DE. HAMILTON'S SERMONS. 471 Here occur two lively and cliaracteristic letters — date of the first uncertain — from a Wesleyan minister, distin- guished by his talents as well as by his name, the late Eev. William Bunting. Besides the objective interest of the subjects with which the letters deal, there is great subjective interest in observing the contact of two such minds in private, familiar, affectionate correspondence. Incidentally, it appears from the second letter that the question of sacred songs for use in public worship had, at that date, already deeply engaged Dr. Hamilton's atten- tion. Both his heart and his judgment are in this work. He laboured patiently in this cause amongst many diffi- culties, and was found still labouring in it when he was called hence. •' HiGHGATE Rise, Dtc. 30. "My dear Friend, — Mr. West, according to his and other people's wont in exigencies of this kind, asks me first to direct the enclosed note, and then to accompany it by a little impertinence of my own. Your direction I do not know, and therefore trouble Mr. Nisbet. In my own urgency I have no faith, and therefore forbear to put it forth. All I will say is, that were I the fabricator and proprietor of a little library of MS. sermons sucli as yours, I should pray for life and leave (out of my own pulpit, if not in it) to preach each of them at least six times over. My lips would 'rejoice' in the very utterance of my own mind, and my ear, like the harper's, lean enamoured on my instrument. If you wish, then, to renew your enjoy - ment, as well as to extend your usefulness (in God's own chosen and incomparable way of preaching), unchain and 472 ORDINANCE OF PSALM-SINGING. liberate your gospel from yonder palatial court-yard in Eegent Square, and let it fly in the midst of heaven, ahghting, if you please, on our beautiful temple at Liver- pool about the time of the Passover. " I am, was, and am likely to be, and my wife the same, yours, Mrs. Hamilton's, and your dear old mother's, ever affectionately, W. M. Bunting." "March 16, 1857. "Ever since Mr. Chalmers first mentioned to me the project of an enlarged supplement to your psalms, I have felt a deep interest in its success. I don't believe you yourselves (in consequence of venerable habits and pre- judices) are yet fully alive to the necessity and blessed- ness of such a provision for your much-awakened con- gregations, as a vehicle of Evangelical 'confession with the mouth unto salvation,' and as in response to such rock-smiting ministrations as yours of yesterday morning. I could have loved to point out to you, before it was too late, a few of Charles Wesley's, nor of his alone, of the . tender, penitential, petitionary, or promise-claiming, or Christ-embracing and exalting character I have in view. "These uninvited hints and utterances — a sort oiumhrae at your study table — may bore, but I can scarcely think wiQ offend you. I hope they come of a sincere care for ' souls * (welcome poor Maurice's sarcasm and reproach), from daily and intimately communing with them up and down the country, and as much out of Methodism as within it, and from some emphatic experience of the blessing brought to afflicted or awakened souls by a judicious administra- tion of God's precious ordinance of psalm-singing. EECHAED WILLIAMS. 473 " I have left less room that I could have liked to thank you for Excelsior, and to express my regret, on almost every ground, that we are to have no more of it. I have heard it praised, sometimes before I have praised it my- self, extensively among our people ; and I have found no book, serial or otherwise, more handy or more useful for presentation to young friends of my own. Your own pulpit-contributions to it were, of course, always para- mount in interest to us — pleasant as was the science, and truly eclectic the poetry. " For Richard Williams, above all, I feel as if I never can appropriately thank you in time, but hope to glorify God in you and in him after a heavenly manner, and with a fervour more purely pious and adoring, if I should be permitted to meet you both in the better land. At pre- sent I cannot subdue a feeling of disappointment and pain (which I have expressed in many companies), that the Christian, and even the Wesleyan, public (as far as I can gather from curt reviews and from a flagging circula- tion) should have been so inadequately affected by that wonderful unfolding of the Holy Spirit's wisdom, gracious- ness, and energy, in the experience of a recent convert, literally 'beside himself unto God;' and by, secondly, that beautiful example, considering the country, con- nexions, and creed, of the biographer (I mean so different from those of the mystical EngHsh Methodist) of a truth- ful, tender, reverential, catholic, and wise spirit in dealing with these marvels of His grace. As uniting deep pathos ■with profound instruction in the things of God, I have placed Eichard Williams along with Hewitson and the 474 CHRISTIAN LITERATURE FOR SWEDEN. Convict Ship, in the inner shrine of my heart. My father e value of that booi "W. M. Bunting." has much the same feeling of the rare value of that book. FROM AMOS LAURENCE. "Boston, United States, A2:)rU 4, 1857. " Eev. and dear Sir, — Your last year's lecture before the Young Men's Christian Association, entitled ' Literary Attractions of the Bible,' was handed over by me to the Eev. Seth Bliss, agent in this city for the American Tract Society, and through his kind attention the tract was republished, and is circulating through the length and breadth of our whole country, and is doing more, I think, to make the Bible common reading than anything lately published. Mr. Bliss visits Europe at this season, partly to recruit his health, and partly to impart information and obtain information of value to us all. May I ask for him your confidence, and thus make me your debtor stiU deeper than at present, Amos Laurence." FROM PAULINE WESLDAHL, A SWEDISH LADY. "Birmingham, May 30, 1857. " My DEAR Sir, — Availing myself of your kind allow- ance, I feel most happy to take up my pen to ask you not only ' one important' question, but another and still another, till I am afraid their number will increase just in proportion to my confidence. When leaving my own dear country for another, of which the literature in gene- ral, and its sacred in particular, has become most dear to myself, I felt delighted in the prospect of meeting with CHRISTIAN LITERATURE FOR SWEDEN. 475 an author to whom I felt especially indebted ; yet it was not only to gratify my own feelings, but still more for the benefit of my countrymen, that I ventured to intrude on his most precious time by calling and asking for his opinion as to the choice of religious writings most suitable to be introduced to the educated among them. Now, my dear sir, considering that question to be partly answered by The Lamp and the Lantern (for the translation of which I am just preparing), I next venture to ask for your highly-valued advice as to that plan of mine already hinted, to presenting to the ' nobles' and 'high cultivated' some substantial object to be considered in the very light of that Lamp, viz., short biographies of celebrated indi- viduals, eminent not only for piety, but for uniting to it science, talent, and taste. Nothing, I am sure, can be more seriously wanted, where there is plenty of good work going on for the spiritual benefit of the people, but very little is found, indeed, to attract that ' nobility ' and those ' high cultivated,' whose views in the light of the Bible are really most poor and wretched, and spiritually want- ing. Having been myself brought up among them, I am able, I daresay, to judge of their state as a most pitiful one ; and by the grace of the Lord my heart is burning within me to give to them just what they were not able to give to me ! . . ." "48 EusTON Square, Dec. 1, 1857. "My dear William, — ... On Saturday I went down to Wigan to re-open our church there, and got through such a jolly lot of reading on the road, going and returning, and there, nearly the half of South's Sermons, 476 ROTATORY READING-ROOMS. and no end of collections of proverbs. There were people in tlie train both ways with whom I might have been obliged to make or renew acquaintance, but I lay -perdu. Next to the British Museum there is nothing comparable to these rotatory reading-rooms, which give you at once fresh air and uninvaded leisure." The result of this reading in collections of proverbs was an interesting paper on the subject in the North British Review, February 1858. CHAPTEE XT. 1858-1863. "48 EusTON Square, June 18, 1858. " My dear Andrew, — . . . This week I am in deep but selfish sorrow, owing to the death of ]\Ir, Pierce Seaman. A slight and painless illness ended in his exchanging this world for a Letter on Sabbath evening. He was in some respects my dearest and most congenial friend. Natural sciences, old books, the successive sea- sons, the shrines of our English worthies, — we went into everything much the same, and had many a delightful day together. With Christian Classics he helped me greatly, and I had always on hand a quantity of his rare old books. On Sabbath se'nnight I was at Eochester, preach- ing the funeral sermon of Dr. Jenkyn, late of Coward College, and last Sabbath I was at Glasgow, introducing to Eree St. James's our late Chinese missionary, Mr. James Johnston. Last Saturday I spent at Woodville, Morningside, with Miss M. Wilson, and your old play- fellow, her cousin, Henrietta. I have undertaken to com- pile a short memoir of Mr. James Wilson. He was a fine character, and I have got some nice materials. Preaching in Glasgow, some old Strathblanians came up to me after 478 SCHIPTURE BOTANY. the service, — Walter Buchanan, James Wingate, and ' Jimmy Graham/ the weaver. This last I had not seen for thirty years." " London, Feb. 22, 1858. " My deak William, — ... I sympathize with your enjoyment of Motley. It is the last big book I read through. It was in May '56, when I had the luxury of a fortnight's invalidism. It is a great mercy that I have never once been unable to get ready my monthly quota for the printer during these four years and upwards. Beforehand I could not have counted on such unbroken health." " London, Feb. 25, 1858. " To-day I have been writing articles for Prof. Fair- bairn's Biblical Dictionary, beginning at the beginning, tUl now I have nothing in my head but almonds and apples, aloes and algum- trees. My heart rather fails when I think of going through the whole alphabet." He contributed all the botanical articles in that im- portant work. " 48 EusTON Square, May 1, 1858. " My dear Andkew, — . . . This winter has brought out a good many books, of which the rumour sometimes reaches me, but I have had no chance to read them — Froude's History of Henry vm. (a vindication), Cardinal Wiseman's Recollections of the last Four Popes, Hogg's Life of Shelley, young Buckland's Recreations in Natural His- tory. But even my old refuge, the omnibus, is no longer a reading-room. I have to take into it proof-sheets, or MRS. HAMILTON ABROAD. 479 old volumes of divinity, to read up for my Christian Classics. I have reached the silk- worm's spinning stage — sheer straightforward production, with a farewell to all the earlier joys of feasting and digesting. This 1st of May reminds me of it pathetically, when we used to get back to the green pastures. I usually read thirty or forty volumes every summer." This season it became necessary that Mrs. Hamilton and one of the children should proceed to the baths at Spa for the benefit of their health, but his engagements at home rendered it impossible that he should accompany them. Mrs. Hamilton, in company with Mrs. M'Laren, a very affectionate friend, similarly situated with herself, accomplished the journey in safety, took the baths with much benefit, and in due time returned. In the mean- time the absence of his wife became the occasion of a very lively correspondence: — "Clevedon, June 9, 1858, 4 p.m. " My dearest Annie, — Here 1 am in safety, without any particular incident. Very warm ride, till Somersetshire, where it is both bright and breezy. I hope it will be as good a day to-morrow. I shall be anxious to hear of your voyage, — for that is to my imagination the only disagree- able feature of the journey. I look upon this opportunity for you as a most kind and happy Providence. " As an additional therapeutic influence, I would gladly have superadded my agreeable society, but as that cannot be, I shall keep you company in thought and good wishes and pi-iiyers. I know that you would have liked to have 480 A BRIGHT SUMMER. me to the bargain, but (with that exception) could there have been a nicer arrangement ? Even the Passover was to be eaten with bitter herbs, and all our mercies here must have a small abatement ; but our happiness, and a great deal of our duty to God — our piety — consists in be- ing very thankful and hopeful and cheerful if, on the whole, we have more good than evil. There 's a sermon without intending one. " My beloved Annie, you will make me happy by en- joying yourself to the utmost. This is your business at Spa, to ride on donkeys, and drink iron, and wear a broad brim, and laugh as much as you can, and come back, you and Marisabel, as broad as you are long, and as brown as the iron baths themselves. The good Lord go with you, and keep you and your kind fellow-travellers in all your ways. — ^Your ever affectionate husband, " James Hamilton." " 48 EusTON Square, London, June 15, 1858. " Started on Friday morning at eight from Bristol for Edinburgh by way of Birmingham, and got to Alva Street at half -past ten. Nothing could exceed the radiance of summer life all along the route ; white mounds and red of blossomed May; the golden laburnum lamps in their green pavilions. Then, close to the line a perfect snow of ox-eye daisies, or a long yellow flash of unbroken broom, with hay and bean-field whiff's ever and anon wafted in. Should this be my last summer on the earth, I think I could testify elsewhere that I had never in my day known it come so near to Paradise. On Saturday morning I FUNERAL OF DR. BUNTING. 481 went out to Woodville, where Dr. Greville kindly came to meet me, and spent the day till lunch looking over dear James Wilson's papers, and talking with his niece and daughter. A very pleasant retreat is Woodville, with its shade and its singing birds, — a fit home for a naturalist." " 48 EusTON Square, London, June 23, 1858. " Yesterday was Dr. Bunting's funeral. It took place in the City Eoad Chapel, beside the graves of Wesley, Flet- cher, Benson, Adam Clarke, Pdchard Watson, and all the renowned fathers of Wesleyan Llethodism, among whom there was none greater than Jabez Bunting, — none who combined so well the preacher, the Christian statesman, and the man of God. It was a long service. One prayer occupied fifty minutes (even in Scotland I never knew anything to match it). But an address by Dr. Le if child was very affecting. He is seventy-eight, and Dr. Bunting was eighty ; and now the friendship of haK a century is dissolved for a little while — but only for a little. The most impressive part of the service was the singing of these two verses, — * 0 that eacli in the day of his coming may say, " I have fought my way through ; I have finished the work Thou didst give me to do." 0 that each from his Lord may receive the glad word, " Well and faithfully done ! Enter into My joy and sit down on My throne." ' I left this at half-past ten and was not home again till five. I should add that there was an excellent sketch of 2 II 482 PROFESSOR OF ELOCUTION. the venerable worthy by Mr. Scott. The chapel was crowded. I hope William Bunting will write a life of his father. It would be a far worthier employment for a coming year or two, than those numberless good-natured services on which he disperses all his exquisite taste and great abilities. The writing long letters of comfort to in- consolable, because dyspeptic, correspondents ; the editing of books for people who are anxious to publish without being able to write, inditing poems for albums, and all that sort of thing, by which the devil under false pretences cheats clever but kind-hearted men out of the time which was given them for serving God and their generation. I told him something of this yesterday, and he retorted by telling me that I was meant to be a preacher, and had gone aside into authorship. If I could persuade myself that I am as well adapted for speaking as writing, I would even yet abjure the press for the pulpit. But what with weakness, nervousness, an ungainly manner, and inability to rely on myself, I hardly think so." Somewhere about this date, whUe assisting him for a week or two in his ministry, and enjoying the hospitality of his house, I incidentally learned that he had paid a fee of five guineas to an American Professor of Elocution, and was diligently submitting to drill with the view of im- proving his articulation, and the modulation of his voice. One evening while we were engaged in conversation, at the ringing of. the door-bell he suddenly started to his feet, and delivering his apology with a combination of look and gesture altogether peculiar to himself, — an EFFORTS TO OVERCOME DEFECTS. 483 earnest purpose underneath, and a cliild-like comic smile mantling over it, — tripped with a hop, step, and jump away to his lesson. Under cover of a lightsome, spark- lincf, humorous evolution he betook himself to serious work, that, if it were possible, he might acquire, on one side, additional power to serve the Lord and edify his congregation. Alas ! it was an unequal conflict against a defect that lay in his constitution. It was a spirit at once conse- crated and buoyant, contending against the weakness of his physical frame. Nor was it the case of a man who was blind to his own deficiency, because it was his own ; he was well aware of the physical feebleness, but he did not fold his hands and yield +o it as inevitable. He never took refuge in the sluggard's plea. At a comparatively advanced age he went to school again with the humility as well as pliability of a little child, on the presenta- tion of a dim possibility that his power of delivering a message to a large assembly might yet be somewhat in- creased. In connexion with the lack of muscular power in those organs on which oratory mainly depends, it is interesting to notice his experience as recorded by himself, that he was always in a glow of happiness at his study on Satur- day,— but that this brightness almost uniformly gave way to a measure of despondency during the actual ministra tions of the Sabbath. In the one department, he was strong; and the strong man, as usual, rejoiced in his streng-th ; in the other department he was comparatively weak^ and consequently was grieved with what he ac- 484 DR. HAMILTON AS A PKEACHER. counted partial failure. In mental resources and acquire- ments he was possessed of great wealth ; but in the capacity to utter his thoughts, with all the variation of tone and key which their nature required, yet so as to be throughly heard in a great edifice, he was far less gifted. In this department, accordingly, he was always pained by a conscious shortcoming from his own ideal. It is cer- tain that lack of vocal force, and ready control over his intonations, largely detracted from the power and popu- larity of his preaching. It is the belief of the most in- telligent observers that if his enunciation had been in force and fineness equal to that of some who were con- fessedly far behind him in mental gifts, he would have been one of the most attractive preachers of the day. In delicacy of conception, in the happy choice of idioms, in the command of striking and original imagery, and in the glow of evangelical fervour that pervaded all, he had few equals. These rare qualities, however, were shorn of half their strength, in as far as his public preaching was con- cerned, by the necessity under which he constantly lay of straining to make himself audible, by standing on his tip-toes, and throwing out his words in handfuls, if so be they might reach the far-distant aisles. If the muscles of his chest had been such as to enable him to stand solidly at ease, while his lips performed the task of arti- culation without the aid of auxiliary blasts from over- inflated lungs, James Hamilton would certainly have been followed by greater crowds, and obtained access for his message to a wider and more varied circle. But we do not know what counter-balancin^x evil micht have FRUITS. 485 come in along; with such external success. Althon2;h with all his prayers and pains this thorn was still left in the flesh, the grand compensation remained : " ]\Iy grace is sufficient for thee ; My strength is perfect in thy weak- ness." What talents the Lord saw meet to bestow, he laid out with marvellous skill and diligence in the Giver's service ; and if some other talents were withheld, the Witliliolder knows why. He hath done all things well. On the whole, James Hamilton, as a preacher, was to a larcre extent the reverse of the class whose deliverv hides the defects and sets off the good qualities of common- place thought ; it was the thought, at once solid and spark- ling, that caught and carried the audience away in a rush, in spite of a considerable tendency to jolting in the vocal A^ehicle that bore it. TO HIS WIFE. " 4S EusTON Square, June 15, 1858. "... Coming in afterwards with Mr. Henderson of Claremont Chapel, he mentioned an instance of the use- fulness of Life in Earnest, which I was very thankful to hear. When it first came out he was acquainted with a very clever young lady, a Miss G — , at K — in Ireland ; but she was quite careless and thoughtless. She was a great reader of novels. Mr. Henderson asked her if she would not read a religious book, if he were to lend her one ? She said. No, she could not read such books, they were so dull. He said that she was quite mistaken ; that some of them contained a great deal of the poetry and description that she was so fond of; and he repeated 486 EEMINISCENCE OF A EEIGHT SEASON. to her two passages wliicli lie had committed to memory out of tlie first lecture in Life in Earnest. Slie said at once that if he would lend it, she would read that book. She did read it, and from one thing to another there came an entire change over her pursuits. She became a de- cided Christian, and is now married to a husband like- minded ; she has written a number of attractive papers in Household Words and other periodicals." • " 4 Archery Villas, St. Leonard's, Sept. 1858. " I can recollect the summer of 1826, with its profusion of sunshine and its long, long weeks of cloudless weather, drying up at last the burn at Strathblane, and leaving the trout in isolated pools to the mercy of the crows and school- boys. Mght after night we lay down independent of blankets ; and morning after morning rose up relying on the returning of the sunshine. That season has made an indelible impression on my memory, and promises to be ' a joy for ever.' It was amidst its light and heat that the poetic temperament of Eobert PoUok culminated, and that, little suspected by his prosaic neighbours, he was com- pleting the Course of Time on the hills of his native Eenfrewshire. This season has not been less wonderful. In the end of May and beginning of June there was a profusion of blossom such as I have never witnessed ; and since then, with the occasional interruption of a refreshful shower, there has been no break in the brightness of the atmosphere, but the evenings have been so enchanting that it was a hardship to go to bed, and the mornings so DEATH OF DAVID SANDEMAN. 487 dazzling that it seemed a sin to lie still. Even London felt the influence, and many a time I felt as if Euston Square were perfectly beautiful. But it was our happiness to spend six weeks at Hadleigh ; from the 15th of June to the 25th of July, and the last fortnight here. Towards this place I have always a homeward feeling, and Hadleigh was made unusually pleasant by the society of Mr. and Mrs. M'Laren, who, in kindness, intelligence, and con- geniality of taste, are all that I could wish friends to be. And now that the wonderftil spring has rushed into an autumn of unwonted profusion, with wife and children well, with health better than it has been for many years, and with some indications of a bles.'iing on the ministry, I feel that, if I were now called away, it would be from the very zenith of earthly happiness. I can never hope to see a lovelier season than the summer now ended. I dare not ask for greater mercies than the Giver of all good is at this moment bestowing. "My holiday has lasted forty days. Besides writing two sermons, I have prepared for the press two numbers of Christian Classics, a series of papers on the Psalms for the Sunday at Home, and new editions of the Royal Preacher and Emllems from Eden. My reading has Ijeen of a very easy kind." The course of the devoted Sandeman on the mission field was short. His spirit brought and kept earth near to heaven while life lasted, and it pleased the Lord soon to blot out the little interval that remained, and take Mm altogether home. Dr. Hamilton wiltes to his sister :— 488 CHAKACTEEISTICS OF THE MISSIONARY, " 48 EusTON Square, London, Oct. 6, 1858. " My dear INIes. Bakboue, — Your beloved brother waa so mucli more a citizen of heaven than of earth, that I cannot think your feeling at his translation will be like the common kinds of sorrow. At least after the first consternation of the uulooked-for tidings, the prevailing feeling with myself was thankfulness for his abundant entrance into the glorious kingdom. I have hardly ever seen any one with whom it was more entirely ' to live is Christ.' Bright, happy, and full of love, his career seemed always to be ' from strength still forward unto strength ;' and at the last stage of all it is delightful to know how entirely death was swallowed up in victory. No one could have his own affections less set on the things of earth, and yet no one drew more affection towards him- self. In his short stay here he gained all hearts. On the day that he went away he went down to the kitchen and took leave of the servants, spoke to them a few kind and earnest words, and gave each of them a book. They are still with us ; and when at family worship on INIonday morning I read the letter from Amoy, they all were weeping — children, servants, and all. To the little Chris- tina (whom he would not baptize) he left a beautiful Bible, which is now very sacred. Mrs. Hamilton keeps it as he left it, in the papers addressed by his own hand. I hope the prayers will be answered which he offered for her. I do not think we can call the dispensa- tion a dark one. He wished to serve Christ, and he is promoted to higher service than he hoped for; and he AND CONSOLATION TO HIS MOTHER. 489 wished to benefit China ; and the affecting circumstances of his death are likely to awaken more interest, and 1 would even expect are likely to draw out more mis- sionaries, than any living appeal could have done. Even his dear and much-tried mother, towards whom so much sympathy now turns, — the Comforter will sustain her ; and where the hope is so full of immortality, it is less of a separation than what took place when he set out from home two years ago. With affectionate regards to ]\Ir. Barbour, and with many tender but pleasant memories of his last visit to London, I remain, dear Mrs. Barbour, most triily yours, James Hamilton." TO HIS WIFE. "County {I.e., Pv,ailway) Hotel, Carlisle, Jan. 10, 1S59. " Yesterday morning I got up at six, and finished a sermon on ' Take no thought for the morrow.' Having a very deep root of melancholy in my nature, I am fond of such subjects, for then I preach sermons useful to myself. With a most clear and joyful confidence in the wisdom and love of Him who ' doeth all things well,' I am con- stantly haunted with special anxieties or obscure mis- givings and depressions. And so I feel sometimes the better for such a sermon as yesterday's. Professor Leone Levi came to dinner (Mrs. Levi has lost her mother), and so did Dr. De la Porte from Swatow. After half-an-hour's sleep I went and saw Mr. Hill, who has rallied a little ; then came home and finished my lecture for the evening on China. Delivered it ; had supper with Annie and her 490 DEPARTED JOYS. cousin ; then to sleep. The incident of this day's journey- was a wonderful sunset. We had reached Kendal when it began. The mountains of Westmoreland and Cumber- land were covered with clouds very solid and massive- looking ; above was open sky, filmed over with flakes of vapour and fleecy stragglers. This upper portion was every tint of glory, from saffron to the rosiest red ; below it looked as if immense piles of snow were drenched with port wine, or some rich empurpling colour, which intensi- fied as it receded from the centre of beauty, and became inky black to the northward." "WooDviLLE, Edinburgh, Jan. 14, 1859. " My dear Annie, — Yesterday I paid a good many visits, and heard Professor Aytoun give a lecture to his rhetoric class. The subject was 'Virgil,' and was one of the greatest treats I have ever enjoyed, reminding me, however, of 'departed joys, departed never to return.' But I need not grudge them. Classical enjoyments are not the greatest after all. In the evening there was a dinner-party here. Professor George Wilson, Pro- fessor Fraser and his wife, and a few others. But I had to leave them in the middle, and go and address a prayer- meeting on behalf of China at St. Luke's. "48 EusTON Square, Jan. 31, 1859. " My dear Andrew, — My visit to Scotland was a short one. I left this on Monday, Jan. 10, spent Tuesday at Jardine Hall, Dumfries -shire (Sir Wm. Jardine's), and tlie three following days at Woodville. I EEV. DR. STEANE. 491 " I have just finished off a variety of little literary jobs, aud to-day I begin James Wilson in earnest. After that I fondly hope to escape from further work of the kind for a long time to come. I am tired of task -work. What with the Presbyterian Messenger, Excelsior, and Christian Classics, I have had a monthly periodical in hand for the last eight years, and, superadded to my weekly prepara- tions, it leaves no leisure for my dearly loved Dutch, and for books which I am burning to read." FEOM DR. STEANE. "Camberwell, July 5, 1859. "Dear Dr. Hamilton, — What can I do to minister to your comfort next Lord's day, when you are to preach for my colleague ? Will you come and dine with us ? Will you come after dinner and take a cup of tea ? Will you like a quiet hour in my library before going to the pulpit ? Will you bring Mrs. Hamilton with you, and afford us the pleasure of her company as well as of your own ? Will you come and take a turn in my garden after the services of the day are over, and then a family meal, — of all meals on the Sabbath to me the most enjoyable, with a friend ? When, let me speak it reverently, ' the burden of the Lord ' has been delivered, and the solemn responsibility has been discharged, however inadequately, the mind re- laxes, and the heart dilates and becomes at once receptive and communicative, and so tries to give pleasure, and is sure to receive it. In short, only feel that for the occa- sion my house will be what my heart always is, ready and delighted to welcome you, and to render you any service 492 RENOVATION OF REGENT SQUARE. in its owner's power. We all unite in kindest regards to you both ; and believe me, dear Dr. Hamilton, yours in Christian brotherhood, Edwaed Steane. " P.S. — Let me allure you by just adding that 'the Englishwoman in America ' will be my guest, and that I should rejoice, if you do not know each other already, that you should meet here." The project of acquiring and repairing Eegent Square Church is ripening now : — TO ME. WATSON. " Barnakd's Gkeen, Great Malvern Aug. 5, 1S59. " My dear Eeiend, — I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for seeing Mr. Gibson on Monday, and bringing matters to a point. I was really coming to fear that we should need to spend another winter as we are ; and it was with difficulty that I quelled an inward revolt and rebellion, and brought myself to feel that I could acquiesce, if needful, in that most undesirable alternative. Perhaps I am to blame in not doing more personally to accelerate matters ; but besides an anxiety to keep step with others, and not seem to outrun more cautious and deliberate brethren, I have felt (not this summer only, but all these eight years) a delicacy in urging forward a consummation in which my own comfort and advantage were so much concerned." "Barnard's Green, Avgust 10, 1859. " My deae Feiend, — Whether or not I entered into an actual covenant with the Session not to preach during this PETITION FOR LIBERTY TO WORK. 493 holiday, I have erred on the safe side, and have refused very many applications. But there are two (or rather three) cases for which I incline to ask a dispensation : — " 1. Mr. Turner, whose little chapel we attend, a vener- able man of God, who originated all the good that has been done in this neighbourhood, — his anniversary is in the end of this month, and he has begged a week-day ser- mon. Lady Pirie tells me his income is about £70 a year, and as a good deal of this depends on the anniversary, I would gladly help him if I could, " 2 and 3. Our friends the Gunns of Warminster (Mrs. Gunn was a Miss Wills) want us to visit them, and wish me to baptize a little Gunn, who is to be named after me. Now it would be very ungracious to refuse, and if I do this, I do not see how I can refuse a request from my old friends of the Bristol Tabernacle to preach the London Mis- sionary Society sermon during that visit. I have a warm side to Bristol, where, in my early days, I met with much kindness, and where a goodly measure of the right spirit still survives from the days of Thorpe, Hall, and Eyland. " Now you will see some of the fathers and brethren to-morrow evening. Beg of them to take the foregoing into their favourable consideration, and please to communi- cate the result, that I may relieve from their painful sus- pense my esteemed correspondents. — Believe me, ever affectionately yours, J. Hamilton." "Barnard's Green, Great Malvern, August 13, 1859. " We usually draw off the water from the fish-tank with a syphon, which will be found under tlie tank. But if iM ILLNESS OF HIS SON. Janet is not up to the manipulation of the syphon, it wilj be quite enough to ladle off with a cup or jug a pailful of water once a week, and replace it with fresh water. The carp and gold-fishes will eat fine crumbs of bread, but they will also make shift without them. The roach will be very thankful for a few flies. He is the only one who is afflicted with fierceness of appetite. " Payson's works will be a great acquisition, and if you will kindly forward them to Euston Square, I shall carry them off on the next occasion. It is a book I should like to possess, for from the feelings with which I read his Life five-and-twenty years ago, there is an interest in all he wrote. But those sermons which I have read are not so striking as one would have expected." " Bakkaed's Geeen, August 15, 1859, " My dear Feiend, — Our poor boy's illness turns out (as I inwardly feared from the first) diphtheria of a very formidable kind. Yesterday we were obhged to remove the others to lodgings in the town, and although the fever is much abated, the state of the throat is very bad. We have a most kind medical attendant in Dr. Grindrod ; it is a great comfort to have our own servants with us ; an- other comfort to have Lady Pirie so near ; but the greatest comfort of all is, that the dear child is in the hands of One who loves him better than ourselves. Although she has had nearly three days and nights of exertion without sleep, poor Annie holds out, — for she is held up. We have been enabled to give him completely u]3 to God's own wise and holy will, and through His own great mercy have been "MOSES, THE MAN OF GOD." 495 kept from rebellious thoughts. At a time like this, His consolations are unspeakably precious. " I know how much your own and dear Mrs. Watson's hearts are with us, and that we shall have your prayers for help in time of need. — Your ever affectionate, "J. Hamilton." To Mr. Arnot he writes on Sept. 16, 1859 :— "Towards Palestine I have no propension. I have read about it so much, and have seen it through so many eyes better than my own, that I should hope nothing from actual survey." "48 Ettston Square, Oct. 21, 1859. " My dear William, — To-day we have been tliree weeks at home. I have begun a course of lectures on Sabbath evening on the History of Moses. This necessitates me to prepare two discourses ; and as the lecture on Moses takes me three days to study, I find myself up to the full- pressure point." TO REV. H. M. GUNN. "London, Nov. 7, 1859. " My dear Mr. Gunn, — Five weeks (including six Sab- baths) have fled away since we took leave of Wiltshire, with its breezy downs and its beloved friends. You will now have a little more leisure for your studies, without the daily interruption of your idle neighbours, and we try to console ourselves for our banishment back to town by tliinldng how the leaves will be falling on Coss-Heap, and how, by reason of these awful hurricanes. Shearwater will 496 ' THE MANIFOLD GOSPEL. have ceased to be navigable. We have never spent a month more purely in recreation, or more pleasantly, and we neither wish nor hope for anything more delightful than the hohday at Warminster. "I have no doubt that your exegesis of 'poor in spirit' is right. What a boundless theme is that sermon ! I remember in the Presbytery of Edinburgh some one ob- jected to the discourse of a candidate for license that ' it did not contain the Gospel ;' and old Dr. Gilchrist retorted, 'I believe that if the Sermon on the Mount had been preached as a trial sermon before this Presbytery, it would have been rejected.' But I suspect the real truth is that the GosjDcl was never absent when the Lord Jesus was present. We have verbal Gospels, like John iii. 1 6 ; and dramatic Gospels, like the Lord's Supper ; and there once was a living Gospel, the good-will of God incarnate in the person of His Son (John i. 17, 12, etc.) In other words, with His manifestation of the Divine disposition towards sinners, the greatest of Gospels was the Lord Jesus Himself; or in other words still, to this and all His sermons there was an evangelical element superadded in the mien and bearing of the Divinely-commissioned and benevolent Speaker. James Hamilton." "London, Feb. 13, 1860. " My deak Mr. Gunn,— . . . You need not look out for my ' reviews ' in the Patriot. My literary echpse is total. There is not even the faintest annulus of illumi- nated surface remaining ; and I cannot tell what a luxury it is to relapse into this comparative leisure. To write two sermons a week I do not find oppressive, as I often ERASMUS. 497 did when I Lad in hand Excelsior and Christian Classics. I have even bought Opera Omnia Erasmi, in eleven folios, and begun to read it through. "Henry Wills was interested in our live stock. He will be happy to hear that the parrakeets are pretty well. The dormouse escaped on Saturday se'nnight, but was found in a trap which I set for him this morning, alive but very hungry. The lizard lived on till the first of December, by which time flies had become exorbitantly dear. That evening, as he was taking a walk in the library, some one trod on his head and he died on the spot." "London, March 5, 18G0. " My deae William, — . . . Eeading together (Annie and I) A Life for a Life, we were so much pleased with it, that I wrote a note thanking the writer, a thing which I never remember to have done before. I had a nice hearty note in return from Miss Mulock, saying that she was once a Eegent Square hearer. I once met her at Mrs. Oliphant's, but cannot recall her. I forget whether I told you that I had been guilty of the great extravagance of buying Erasmus (£7). But he is capital reading, and 'cut and come again.' The release from editorial labour makes me feel quite rich in leisure, and besides writing my two sermons a week (one always on the life and times of Moses), I do read a good deal" The Synod assembles in Sunderland this year : in an interval of business a winged messenger is despatched to carry a pleasant thought home : — 2 I 498 THE PURCHASE AND REPAIR "SuNDERLA^D, Aj)ril 18, 1860. " My dearest Annie, — After four hours' discussion, we have just got through the Foreign Mission Eeport, and so, being released for a few minutes, I devote them to you. Often, in the din of the debate, I take swifter wings than those of a dove, and find myself in my dear nest at home. I wish, too, that it were as natural to me to take these wings and fly away to another home, of which, although we have never yet been there, a good deal has been told us, and which will by and by be far dearer to us than Euston Square has ever been. "We are getting on very pleasantly. There has been no outbreak of temper or bad feeling." Early in 1860, measures were finally taken for bringing to an issue all questions relating to the tenure of the Church. At the period of the Disruption in 1843, a debt of £5000 was attached to the building. As a matter of course, the Session and Congregation made no effort to reduce this burden while any uncertainty remained re- garding their title to the property. For a period of seven- teen years this state of matters remained unchanged. At length, however, it became necessary to execute extensive repairs. But the same reason that withheld them from extinguishing the debt, withlield them also from repairing the fabric until it should be determined whether the pro- perty were legally their own. As the only method of solving the difficulty, the church was exposed to sale by the mortgagee, and bought for the congregation at a price not much greater than the amount of the encumbrance.^ • The conditions of the tnist-deed were very carefully fulfilled. Besides ad- OF KEGENT SQUARE CHURCH. 499 Having secured an unchallengeable title, the congregation proceeded to repair and improve their much-loved church. On examination, it was found that, owing to defects in the original construction of the roof, and a tendency to decay in the external surface of the towers, a much larger sum would be required than was at first contemplated. After many delays, the work was at length executed in the autumn of 18G0. The cost, including the mortgage, £5000, and a handsome lecture-hall, £1000, amounted, inclusive of interest, to £14,083, 5s. 2d. The bulk of this sum was subscribed at the time, and the balance, through sundry efforts of zealous members, was finally cleared off in the close of 1864. Wliile the church was nndergoinfr these extensive re- pairs the minister obtained a holiday. By medical advice, he spent it chiefly at German baths, TO MR. WATSON "HoMBURG, Angust 3, 1S60. "My DEAR Friend,— On Wednesday last, who should turn up at iaUe-d'Iwte but Professor Miller ! He ' took stock' of me after dinner, and pronounced me ready for Schwalbach, and, what I was sorry to hear, in need of it. As this implies my not getting home till the end of the month, I was scarcely inclined to acquiesce, especially as we are most comfortably settled here, and had planned to vertisements of the intended sale in tlie newspapers, notices were sent to the Moderator and Clerk of the General Assemljlj-, and to Dr. John Cnmming of London. The fullest opportunity was given to the authorities of the Estab- lished Church to come forward and pay the mortgagee. If they had chosen to do so, in all probability their claim to the property would not have been resisted. 500 PKOFESSOR MILLER. return with my brother on this day fortnight. However, yesterday I went into Frankfort to consult Dr. Spiess, the most famous physician in Germany. I found him what I was prepared to expect, a solid and masterly man, with quick, keen insight, and great good sense ; and in a few minutes he pronounced for Schwalbach. This is what Dr. Williams recommended before I came away ; but I hoped that after this fortnight at Homburg I should need nothing else. Now, however, there seems no help for it. ' In for a penny, in for a pound.' "Professor Miller's company is itself an immense attraction. "As we were cheated out of Mr. Noel's services last Sabbath, we got up a sermon on Wednesday evening, his last evening here, and had an overflowing congregation. The address was delightful, — quiet, and conversational, on the woman with the alabaster box of ointment." He was captivated by Professor Miller : they were kindred spirits. That beloved physician, too, has been early taken away from a world that seemed to need him. AVith Professor Miller and Baptist Noel and James Hamilton, besides "honourable women not a few," the English community at Homburg that season were favoured with some choice Christian society. " Langenschwalbach, Black Bartliolomeio^s Day, Aug. 24, ISCO. " ]My deae William, — . . . Our own plan was to go on Monday next ; but Professor Miller is so peremptory for another week, that I suppose we must remain till REOPENING OF THE CHURCH. 501 Monday, Sept. 3. On Friday we forgathered with Profes- sor Blackie, who had that day finished his translation of Homer. He took us up to his sanctum, and read a speci- men, which I thought remarkably fine. It is in fourteen syllabic lines, a sort of ballad metre. Then leaving Andrew to be picked up by the Wiesbaden Dihgence, we came home again. " On Friday our colony received an accession in Mr. and Mrs. Main from Edinburgh. Yesterday we had a flying visit from your friend James Crawford and his wife, and yesterday I went with Lord Panmure and his ladies a picnic to Eauenthal, whence a magnificent view of the Khine. These are nearly all the incidents since that saddest one of your ov/n departure. We drink every morning, sleep every noon, table- dlidte at the AUee Saal, — except to-day, when we made a capital dinner for 25 kreuzers apiece at the ' Eestauration,' and this evening, as once before, we take tea with the Lady Emma. Cold and rainy as the weather is, I almost wish that I were again safe amonf^st the books and coals of London. And you are thankful to be again at Stonehouse." The renovated church was opened on a week-day by Dr. Guthrie, and Dr. Hamilton preached on the following Sabbath, 21st October 1860. Before sermon, and in con- nexion with the text. Judges vii. 1 8, he delivered a stir- ring address. We give it in full from his manuscript : — " There is great power in a battle-cry well chosen and well worded. ' Soldiers, from the top of these pyramids forty centuries look down upon you ! ' said Napoleon to his 502 NELSONS BATTLE -CrvY troops on the eve of conflict in Egypt, and this appeal to a cloud of witnesses was the very thing to rouse the fiery and glory-loving sons of France. But not more powerful than the watchword which Gideon gave to his three hundred patriots, a band as devoted as the three hundred at Ther- mopyla3 ; and which, revived not long ago with its double element of patriotism and piety, thrilled the ironsides of Cromwell — ' The sword of the Lord and of Gideon !' " In recent times no saying of the sort has been so suc- cessful as the last appeal of our great naval hero. It was on the 21st of October 1805 (fifty-five years ago this very day) that the battle of Trafalgar was fought. After a two jrcars' hunt, Nelson that morning overtook the fleets of France and Spain, and, never thinking of his inferior numbers, hung out the watchword, ' England expects every man to do his duty.' The signal was answered with acclamations all along the line, and before the sun went down that enormous armament was annihilated, and it became no bootless boast, what another great sea-cap- tain had said not long before in reply to the question, ' But will the French not come to England V 'At all events they cannot come hy sea ! ' " Nelson's watchword was eminently successful ; but it could not have succeeded unless there had been some- thing responsive in the men to whom it spoke. Perhaps it would have failed with Napoleon's guards beneath the Pyramids ; assuredly Napoleon's sentiment would have failed with Nelson's tars. But it is a fine thing to know that even in that rough and regardless time, in the days of [)ress-gangs, and soon after a frightful mutiny, there wa.s ADAPTED TO THE CHURCH. 503 love of country, there was fear of God sufficient to make a challenge like this the key-note of conquest. I say ' love of country/ for the first word was ' England ; ' and ' fear of God,' for the last word was ' duty.' " On such an anniversary, and on the Sabbath after such a sermon as we heard last Wednesday, I hope it is not out of place to recall these memorable words. They are eminently Protestant and British. They recognise that great principle of individual responsibility which makes every man stand alone, and strictly accountable ; they appeal to that Anglo-Saxon energy which performs its own part without looking round to see what others are doing. And although we devoutly pray that such scenes of carnage may never come again, long may such words convey the essence of the Englishman ! Long may they resound in the bloodless battles which it is our lot to be daily fighting ! " Every man, every member of the Church, in our own case the twice three hundred who are enrolled beneath the banner of the Prince of Peace, the Church expects every one to do his duty, and so expects the Church's glorious Head, Do it in the way of preventing evil, as well as in the way of doing good. Do it by speaking the word in season to those who come near you. Do it by sending the missionary to those whom you yourselves cannot leach. Do it in ruling your own spuit, and spare a little to help those who are battling with the sins that beset them. Do it, scholar, in thy study ; do it, preacher, in thy pulpit ; do it, Martha, in the kitchen ; do it, good work and honest, Simon in the tan-pit, Aquila in the tent- 504 BIOGRAPHY OF CARLYLE. maker's yard. Do it, even although there is no one to see. Do it, even although others should not do theirs. Do it, even although there be danger in the doing. Do it, for if there be danger in the doing, there is more dan- ger in the neglect. Do it, though there is no one to see ; for even when onlookers are most numerous, the chief spectator is invisible, and when no one else is visible, He still is present. Do it, even although others should not do theirs ; for if at first it seems a hardship, it is the highest honour not only to fulfil your own, but to supply the lack of other's service." "48 EusTON Square, Jan. 3, 1861. " My dear William, — . . . Your own is a cheering letter, with its accounts of yourselves and of the continued good work in Stonehouse. I am only sorry that blankets are not more abundant in the village. Please to lay out £2 of the enclosed on these ' compliments of the season,' and will you either give £1 to each of the children with my ' Happy ISTew Year,' or expend it in a way that may approve itself to parental wisdom. " Tlie renovated church is a great success. Nothing can be more beautiful, and it is extremely comfortable, and quite as good for hearing as so large a place could be. The standing at Psalms has improved the singing. There is a great increase in the attendance, but the communion roll is almost the same as in '59, — being then 612, and now 617. " Carlyle's biography is both amusing and horrible ; but it lifts the veil, and will leave posterity in no manner of "a whip for the INDOLEJs'T." 505 doubt as to tlie intrinsic character of the moderate party during the last half of last century. George Wilson's life I have read with interest, from having known himself; but I fear it is too long for the general reader. My teeth now water for Motley's new volumes ; but I must leave them over till next week. His daughters — the oldest, a fine intelligent girl — used to attend Eegent Square last winter along with Miss Anderson's pupils. You perceive on what Techerch4 paper I write. Having to inscribe the above some two or three thousand times a year, I thought it would be a great saving to have it printed. I begin the year with four reams or 1920 sheets of it, and will see how long it lasts. I am wonderfully diligent, entirely pastoral, seldom preaching week-day sermons, never out of my own pulpit since October, resolutely refusing all applications to write for the press, even your friend of Pilrig's entreaty to review Motley in the North British. Dr. Wilson of the Free Church Mission Institute, Bom- bay, in a letter of date 14th August 1860, after commend- ing to his notice a young Oriental about to settle in London, says, " When I was in Eajputana some months ago, I found on sale at the Government Education Depot a tract in Urdu (Hindustani, as spoken by the Mussul- mans), in which you may feel some interest, as it is a translation from Life in Earnest, I send a copy of it by Mr. Eyan." And here it is in characters very uncouth to occidental eyes, but with an alternative title, considerately given in English, " A Whip for the Indolent," extracted and translated from Life in Earnest, by Babu Siraprasad. 506 DEATH OF HIS NErHEW. There must be something remarkable iu that religious teaching which is originally addressed to a congregation in London, and is reproduced by one of themselves for the use of Mussulmans in the interior of India, "48 EusTON Square, March 15, 1861. " My dear William, — Yesterday Mr. Adams called and brought bad accounts from the African squadron, in which James (liis cousin's son) of Beddington has been for two years. It seems that the Mandingoes — a set of warlike Africans — had been attacking our settlement on the Gambia, and the ' Arrogant,' with one or two other ships, sailed up the Gambia to put down the disturbance. 3000 Mandingoes with 900 Arab cavalry had entrenched them- selves in stockades — a sort of rampart against which cannon are almost useless, being beams or trunks of trees driven into the ground, and wattled together with green branches, through which balls pass freely, and which can- not be burned. Against this stockade James was leading on a storming party of sixty sailors, waving his sword with one -hand and holding a revolver in the other. They must have seen that he was an of&cer, and taken good aim, for he fell with three bullets through the heart. The stockade was taken with the destruction of some hundreds of its defenders, but poor James lies there in his soldier's grave beneath the tropic." "London, June 12, 1861. " My dear William, — ... A few weeks ago Uncle Thomas called and gave me £1000 of Great Northern Pre- ference Stock, which he intended for poor James ; and he EEVIEW OF THE YEAR. 507 said tliat lie meant to give the same amount to you. The only sad thing about it is, that he for whom it was origi- nally intended ' is not.' It is a wonderful accession of wealth, and will in many ways be useful." "Jan. 1, 1862. — Of four reams of note-paper laid in on last New Year's Day, there now remains a single quire, indicating (of&cial documents and foreign correspondence inclusive) about 2000 letters for the year. These letters take more time than all my sermons and lectures. Since I last wrote in this book, we have altered and re-opened liegent Square Church. The cost was more than £13,000, but both the congregation and friends contributed so largely that we are only £2000 in debt. Mr. Gillespie, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Duncan gave £500 or upwards each, and very memorable have been the services of Mr. Petrie as treasurer, and Mr. Watson as secretary of the acting building committee. The new church was opened by Dr. Guthrie, October 1860; and, with its commodious pews and capital ventilation, is as comfortable as a large building can be. We have just revised our communion roll. Although we have added 108 members during the year, the increase is only eight actually, making our regular communicants 625 in all. During last year I officiated eighty-one times in Eegent Square, and gave fifty sermons or lectures elsewhere." In the congregational report, 1862, when a ministry of twenty-one years had been accomplished amongst them, the office-bearers introduced an affectionate tribute to his worth. Those annual reports are models of succinctness 508 CONGREGATIONAL REPORT. and fulness. The compilers bronglit high business talent to the management of congregational affairs. They did not often or lightly scatter eulogies. When on this one occasion they broke through restraint, and praised him in his presence, it is due to all parties that some of the lead- ing paragraphs should have a place in this record : — "We have left until last, not because it is least, a point in our history the most interesting of the year. On the 25th of July last, our much-loving and much-beloved minister completed his ministerial majority in this place. On that day, twenty-one years ago, he preached his first sermon as our minister. Under his ministry, your gifts, in collections and through our congregational association, exclusive of the building fund, exceed in amount £27,000 ; the building fund sums to £12,000 more. Such an un- broken ministry is not a frequent occurrence, and the liberality which it has drawn forth may fairly compare with what has been seen in the mos"- fruitful soils. The fruits that cannot be marshalled in arithmetical columns we must leave to be unfolded in the great day of account. We give thanks both for that ministry and for its fruits. But if you have given much, you have also received much. How shall we speak of such a ministry as we have had the rare privilege of enjoying for one-and-twenty years, in terms that shall be at once adequate and within bounds ? Viewing the presidency under which we are convened this night, we are restrained, by obvious reasons, from saying all that we might say in other audience. But while restrained from saying all, shall we say nothins ? . . . HONOUR TO THE MINISTER. 509 " We must ask his loving nature to bear with us even in this. We honour ourselves by rendering appropriate homage to a mind so rarely endowed with gifts and graces ; to a man pervaded by so excellent a spirit as is found in him ; to a life so much in earnest, and so w^insome, of which so large a part has been spent with oui"selves ; to so living and loving an epistle, so capable of wooing us to the Saviour ; to a mind so fully furnished with knowledge, so capable of transmuting into gold — beyond the dreams of alchemy — whatsoever it touches ; so capable of im- pressing every fact, and almost every fancy, into his Master's service. Let us rejoice that a mind so sanctified, and so fully charged with things new and old — so capable of compelling tributaries from almost every region to illustrate and enforce the truth, was led to devote itself to the ministry of the Gospel. Let our prayers for his continued health and success in his Master's work be unceasing. Let us rejoice in his ministrations here ; and give thanks for the Christian authorship with which our language and the world is by him enriched. Ever drawing lessons for us from the Great Biography, he has this year added one more to the number, fitting sequence to the theme suggested by the night on the Mount of Olives— A Morning hy the Lake of Galilee!' f (0. -)t ,: -^w-^A ) , „ ^' "London, /«/?/ 7, 1862. " My deak Me. Davidson, — Our friends in Pdver Ter- race Session are afraid that you have been somewhat dis- couraged by representations as to that field of labour, ami have asked me to write to you my candid opinion regard- 510 THE MINISTEE OF RIVER TERRACE. ing it. Now I will not be so Quixotic as to say that I prefer Eiver Terrace to all the Presbyterian localities in London, but as a locality I think it is next to Eegent Square. Islington abounds in Scotchmen, and now that Dr. Edmond is moving off as far as Highbury, the field is left almost entirely to yourself. From what I know of the neighbourhood and of yourself, I know no reason why you should not have next year a large and flourishing congregation gathered round you. I own that the long vacancy has tended to scatter the people, but they are not far away, they are not alienated, and they wiU be easily brought back again. Then the church is free of debt. There is an excellent Sabbath-school; and al- together, unless you give it the coup de grace by declining this call, there are few of our churches which have better prospects than River Terrace. If you can keep up your own resolution, in the trying circumstances, of parting, with your present flock, and so keep up the spirits of the people in Islington, you wiU find a great door and effectual open, and will, I am sure, have no reason to regret the translation. — Believe me, most truly yours, " James Hamilton." Mr. Davidson complied with this advice, and has never had any cause to regret it. His ministry at Islington is in the best sense successful. " NoRTUAW, by Barnet, Aug. 19, 1862. " My dear William, — . . . Cases like ■- are de- plorable. There should be some self-acting machinery WEAK POINTS OF PRESBYTERY. 511 for suppressing congregations or suspending ministers when they sink so low. We have such cases in England forced upon us by worthy men, sometimes wealthy, but they are at once the suckers of our substance and a scandal to our cause." This short extract contains a very weighty thought. It behoves aU self-supporting Presbyterian churches to ponder it well. A lack of power to deal authoritatively with cases of failure through some incapacitating pecu- liarity of the minister, threatens to check the progress of churches that are otherwise evangelical, vigorous, and free. A few examples of a ministry that is incapable, with possibly here and there one that is chronically dis- creditable, while the Church courts stand idly by, without the will or the power to remedy the wrong, do more to damage the Church at large than all the arguments of its adversaries. It is essential at this day to show before the world that Presbytery does not consist in allowing every man to do as he likes — to show that it is a real govern- ment. FROM THE REV. J. D. BURNS. " Hampstead, x)ec. 18, 1862. " My dear Dr. Hamilton, — Let me thank you very warmly for your kind and acceptable gift. For the donor's sake, as well as for its own, it will take its place, not only on my shelves, but in a more exclusive shrine, side by side with the Mount of Olives. And I believe that num- berless hearts to whom that book has ministered help, guidance, and comfort will feel that you have hence- 512 JAMES BUIINS AND JAMES HAMILTON. forward thrown the same sweet and hallowed charm around the Lake of Galilee. It will always have to me a pleasant association of a personal kind with the first Sab- bath service in our new church ; nor could I have desired a better consecration of our sanctuary to the service of the Gospel than in words of the loving evangelist, or rather words of Him who loved him, so touchingly and wisely expounded. May that ever be the spirit of all the ministrations within its walls. You have given me a more selfish motive for liking the book, by honouring some poor verses of mine with a place in it. On the principle of laudari a laudato, I cannot but be gratified ; and I assure you in all seriousness that I never admired the lines tlLl I saw them so finely set, — preserved, too, for future times, like a fly in amber. Believe me, with heart- felt acknowledgments, yours most sincerely, " James D. Burns." Alas ! in writing these familiar names the biographer feels as if he were walking through a churchyard and counting the tombstones ! James Burns, a true poet and an able minister of Christ, writes a note of polished praise ■ to his brother minister and brother author, James Hamil- ton. Burns is called away first ; Hamilton survives him long enough to compose his Memoirs, portions written during the lassitude of his last iUness ; and liimseK called away before the book reaches the press. The Memoir of Burns by Hamilton is a posthumous publication ; it ap- peared after the grave had closed on its author. At ]\Iancliester, in 1863, the Synod adopted a general THE CHURCH EXTENSION SCHEME. 513 scheme, suggested by Mr. Eobert Lockhart of Liverpool, a zealous and liberal elder, for extinguishing the debt on existing ecclesiastical edifices, and of extending the Church in new fields. It was proposed to raise £25,000 by sub- scription, to be employed as a central fund, at once to aid individual congregations, and to stimulate their own liberality. Not long after its origin, Dr. Hamilton under- took the superintendence of this scheme, as convener of the committee, on condition that Mr. AVilliam Ferguson of Liverpool should consent to be treasurer. Induced by the double motive, zeal for the cause and great personal affec- tion for the convener, Mr. Ferguson undertook the task. Thus encouraged, and set free for a time by his Presbytery from his own pastoral work. Dr. Hamilton threw himself into the effort with all his heart. A series of sermons was preached, and a series of meetings held in Liverpool in June of the same year ; and the Presbyterians of the great sea-port, aided by friends and neighbours, inaugurated the movement by a subscription of £7500. It was an arduous undertaking, but it was successfully carried through. After the successful commencement in Liverpool, a meeting was held in London 15th March 1864, under the presidency of the Earl of Dalhousie, at which Dr. Hamilton gave an eloquent exposition of the plan. The conclusion of his address contained some most cheer- ing announcements, — "Liverpool has already subscribed £7500, and in Sunderland, Newcastle, North and South Shields, at least £2500 more had been promised. They had hoped to have with them this evening Mr. H. M. Matheson, and they all lamented the cause of his absence. 2 K 514 THE CHURCH EXTENSION SCHEME. whilst they rejoiced that he was already getting better But he was prepared to give to the Synod's fund what the Prince of Wales had given to the Bishop of London's fund. Here is his promise of a thousand pounds. Failing Mr. Matheson, we asked Mr. Barbour of Bolesworth, who has long been liimself a central fund to the Church, to come and support our noble chairman. Here is his letter, re- gretting that he cannot so soon return to town, but intimat- ing his intention of also subscribing a thousand pounds." The fund was so managed that in the course of the next four years it had drawn forth local contributions more than three times its own amount for the extinction of debt, and the erection of new churches. In this denominational effort the character of Dr. Hamilton was of great service to the Church at large. Among the members there were resources and zeal sufficient to make the needful contri- bution, but it was necessary that they should all unite ; and in order to such union it was necessary that they should all have confidence ; and in order to confidence it was necessary that there should be one at the head of the organization whom all could implicitly trust. His bright, hopeful way, too, in the actual conduct of affairs, went far to keep up the spirits of his coadjutors, and carry them through. In the conduct of this enterprise he showed himself as well qualified for practical business as for the departments of the scholar and the theologian. The sphere of his gifts was broad and varied. CHAPTEE XIL 1860-1865. On 7tli April 18G0 died James, only son of Mr. Thomas Hamilton of the Eow. He was an accomplished man, a devoted Christian, and a faithful pastor in the Episcopal Church. He had been for many years Eector of Bedding- ton, Surrey. Dr. Hamilton, at the request of his uncle, whose wish was law, prepared a memoir of his cousin, wliich was printed for private use, but not offered to the public. This course was considered more consonant with the gentle retirement of his character ; but both the life delineated and the delineation of the life might have challenged the widest publicity. The following affectionate note was addressed by the bereaved widow to the biographer : — "TuNBRiDGE Wells, July 16, 1863. "My dear Cousin James, — I have been wishing to write to you, to tell you how much satisfied I am with your lifehke sketch of my dear James ; it comes out more and more as I read it over, till it gradually becomes a complete picture, growing upon one ; so far more satisfac- tory than a mere formal stereotyped description of certain qualities apd manner would have been. I have had many 516 "evangelical cheistendom." most affectionate and satisfactory letters about it. I quite believe it will be a blessing and comfort to many, and I feel so very thankful that we thought of having it com- piled, and so grateful to you, dear cousin James, for having done it. You must let me thank you for it, for I know it was carried on in the midst of many other calls upon your time. To my dear father I believe it wiR be a comfort and delight for the rest of his days, and you have made him know what his son was better than he ever did before. I am sure this will be a reward to you. — With our best love to you all, believe me, your affectionate cousin, " Maeui^ne Hamilton." In the autumn of 1863 a proposal was made by the late Mr. Henderson of Park, through Llr. Watson of Berners Street, that he should undertake the editorial charge of Evangelical Christendom, the organ of the Evangelical Alliance. In the first instance he declined, mainly on tlie ground that editorial work constituted in some measure a competing or secondary calling, and so became the rival of his pastorate. At a later date, however, through the persuasion of friends, and the representation made of the necessity and usefulness of the Magazine for the objects of Christian union, which lay near his heart, his objections were over- come. He undertook the work, and carried it on without intermission till the close of his life. This serial, from 1864 to 1867, contains many papers by his hand of general and permanent interest on the various aspects of Cliristianity as it bears on the world and tlie aj^e. LETTER TO PARENTS BEREAVED. 517 " London, Nov. 20. 1863. "]My deae William, — . . . You must exceedingly iniss Jane and AVillie. I am sure it is good for young people to get some of their education away from home ; but I am very soft-hearted about sending any of ours away ; on the other hand it is wonderful how little (here at least) one sees of them at home. Latterly I have allowed them to come more into the study, just as a means of keeping up the acquaintance ; but, after all, it is bodily presence rather than actual intercourse. I am always trying to save time, and always falling again into some scrape. Just now I have agreed to edit Evangelical Christendom for 1864, which will pretty well swallow up the leisure of one year." Thus he was enticed to undertake the work, as Parlia- ment consents to pass the Mutiny Act, by the expedient of undertaking it only for one year. TO MR. AND MRS. FERGUSON, BIRKENHEAD, "London, Jan. 2, 1SG4. " My DEAR Friends, — What a bitter blow to you ! but what a blessed New Year's Day to your beloved child ! How well I remember the dear little fellow with his too good head, and his bright observant ways. I think the last I saw of him was when his mamma and his brother and he convoyed me to the tramway, and in a few days they were to set forth for Kinmundy and the holidays. And now he is beholding the face of his Father who is in Heaven, his thirst of knowledge will be abundantly grati- 518 ON THE DEATH OF LITTLE ONES. fied, and all the traits which made him to you and your friends so endearing will be improved to the utmost, and features will be added which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive. "Most deeply do we both feel for you in this great sorrow ; but the Lord Himself will sustain you with His own strong consolation, and will make all grace abound towards you. With Mrs, Hamilton's sympathizing re- membrance, and my own, to yourself and Mrs. Ferguson, — I remain, my dear friend, ever affectionately yours, "James Hamilton." The death of this child brought up a very interesting circumstance. In June of the preceding year, while Dr. Hamilton was residing with his friend Mr. Ferguson, prosecuting the Church Extension Fund, he occupied some spare hours in preparation for the following Sabbath in London. According to his wont, he dated the sermon, place and time, "St. Aidan's Terrace, Birkenhead, 19th June 1863 ;" its text was, "And he said unto his father, My head, my head," 2 Kings iv. 1 9. It was finished partly on the way and partly at home on the following day. The subject was the death of little children, and the con- solations to Christian parents under bereavement. When, more than six months afterwards, he learned that his friend's bright boy had been suddenly removed, and that his only cry during the illness had been " My head, my head," he turned to the MS, of the sermon, and sent it for perusal, date and all, with an affectionate letter to the bereaved parents. GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 519 FROM DK. M'GEIE. " 23 EocHESTER PtOAD, Feb. 1, 1864. "My dear Dr. Hamilton, — With the pleasant echoes of your morning discourse yesterday still sounding in my ears, will you permit me to make a humble, though very selfish, request. I spoke to you about giving these ser- mons to the public, but I ' earnestly covet ' them for the British and Foreign Evangelical before they are framed into a volume. They would form an admirable sequel to the series on the ' Scottish Philosophy,' from the pen of our friend Dr. M'Cosh. They would furnish a most seasonable and effective antidote to the 'Philosophy,* falsely so called, now poisoning the minds of our young and ingenuous readers. Even as they stand, without putting you to any great trouble, the four discourses would make delightful reading as a series on the ' Grecian Philosophy.' I look to you to help me in establishing the British and Foreign. — Yours very sincerely, " Thomas M'Ceie." These lectures on the sects and phases of the Greek Philosophy in contrast with Christianity, are all that Dr. M'Crie certifies them to be. They have not yet been published, but they ought to see the light. "London, May 17, 1864. " My dear William, — . . . The day after I retm^ned, viz., last Thursday, Mrs. Strong left for Quarter, where she now is. We were quite sorry to part with her. Amidst much suffering, her unselfish, or rather self- con- 520 LITERARY ASPIRATIONS. qiiering cheerfulness, renders lier a delightful inmate, and both Annie and I miss her greatly." Here we again obtain a glimpse of that friendship, more than romantic, having its root in a common relation to the same Eedeemer, which was formed during his brief ministry at Abernyte, and endured without abatement to the end. We shall meet with the family very soon again in the course of our narrative, and learn the value of such sanctified attachments. The need will soon occur which requires and manifests the friend indeed. During this summer an access of the Erasmus fever occurs. As usual in such cases, a small note-book is bought, and duly inaugTirated. The great intention is announced, and entries bearing on it regularly begun. In this in- stance the record extends only over one week. The project, driven out by a whole army of assailing cares, goes out of sight for the time. After a few throbs, each feebler than its predecessor, the conception seems to expire. Some time afterwards, as we shall see, he returns to this fondly cherished scheme, not with the view of executing it, but in order to lay it tenderly in its grave, as a thing greatly desired, but impossible in a life so short and so full. We insert the whole of this record : — "48 Euston Square, London, June 10, 1864. — Last week, a notion which I have long entertained revived on my mind so powerfully as to be for the moment a ruling passion. It is to write a popular sketch of the life and times of Erasmus — a subject of which I took partial pos- session in an Exeter Hall lecture four years ago. I have DAY-BOOK. 521 got the books, and in my memory have some of the materials ; but I must go about it honestly, and not give to it the time which anterior duties claim. The amount of this is small indeed. I have got tliis book in order to mark down for a time how the days are filled up, and see by actual experience how far I am likely to succeed. " On Monday, six hours were consumed by visitors, one and a half hours by a meeting of our district visitors, and then a meeting of Session nearly three hours long left me no energy remaining. " On Tuesday, I started at eight to baptize the child of a good man who had come up for the purpose from Ipswich. Then went to Blackheath, and then to Stratford, to see an invalid old lady who had sent a message saying that she would like to see me, and only got back in time to attend two committees, and finish the day of fourteen hours by speaking at a public meeting. " Wednesday the Sth. — Started at nine for the marriage of Mary Gillespie, and before I returned from that and two visits of friendship at Clapham it was ten at night. " Thursday the 9th. — Worked — interrupted by visitors, for six hours writing letters and documents connected with our Foreign INIissions, the Presbyterian Mission question, the supply of vacant churches, etc. Then three and a half hours calling on Madame Jerichau, Lord Eollo, Mrs. Pati- son, etc. — not one of them belon^inof to the consresation, and finished off with the prayer-meeting. " Friday the 1 0th. — Spent three hours laying the founda- tions of a sermon on 'The Spirit of Christ,' John vi. 65, and gave four hours to visits. In the evening an hour of Erasmus. 522 DR. HAMILTON INVITED " lltJi, Saturday. — Began my sermon de wo^jo, and, inter- rupted only by one needful visit and a funeral, proceeded prosperously for eight hours. " \2th, Sunday. — Preached twice. " \Ztli. — Usual Monday levee. Nine letters, four hours of visiting, and the evening closed with a friend at supper. " lUh. — Four hours Erasmus. Visit to Horticultural Gardens. Presbytery. A committee two and a half hours. Three letters. Ten visitors. "\^th. — Twelve letters, which, with visitors, occupied from breakfast till our one o'clock dinner. Then till tea visited. Thereafter Erasmus three and a half hours, and finished the Colloquies. "IQth. — ^Visits to the sick two hours; visitors two and a half hours. Prayer-meeting and committee three hours. Eead a hundred pages Letters of Miss Cornwallis. " nth. — Prepared a paper for Evangelical Christendom." Alas ! at this rate, when will the eleven Latin folios of Erasmus be read and digested ! Wlien Dr. Guthrie was compelled by infirm health to retire from the conspicuous and honourable position which he had long held in Edinburgh, the eyes of Dr. Hanna, his colleague, and the congregation were first turned towards Dr. Hamilton as the most suitable successor. A corre- spondence accordingly took place, with the view of ascer- taining, in the first instance privately, whether he was disposed to entertain the proposal. His judgment as to duty was from the first clear, and therefore he wisely gave a decisive answer at once, so that the matter was carried TO SUCCEED DR. GUTHEIE. 523 no further. Dr. Hamilton had consecrated his life to the ministry in London, and he would not permit any con- sideration of relief to his wearied spirit, or leisure for literary work, to turn him aside from his purpose. The correspondence between him and Dr. Hanna on that occa- sion need not now be considered private; and on the principle of enabling the reader to consider for his own profit " whatsoever things are lovely" in the intercourse of fellow-disciples, we transcribe it here entire : — FROM DR. HANNA. "Edinburgh, July 14, 1864. " My dear Dr. Hamilton, — You are aware, perhaps, that in consequence of Dr. Guthrie's being permanently laid aside, we are anxious to find some one to fill his place in St. John's. The position is one of such importance that you will excuse my writing to you about it. We have difficulty in finding in Scotland the man we want, and it has occurred to me that there might be some one in Eng- land who might do. Do you know of any such ? Some of our members were so presumptuous as to cherish the fond imagination that the comparative relief from labour and return to your native land might induce even you to entertain the idea of it. It is too much to hope for, but I could state many things about the position you would occupy here which would make it not so Utopian as at first sight it seems; but I presume that I need not do more than simply hint at it. You will pardon my doing so much, as it springs from the earnest desire I have to see Dr. Guthrie's place occupied by one worthy to be his 524 INVITATION TO EDINBURGH successor. It will be my effort to make the position as agreeable in every way to his successor as I have striven to make it to him. — I am ever, dear Dr. Hamilton, very truly yours, Wm. Hanna." FROM DE. HAMILTON. "London, July 23, 1864. " My deae De. Hanna, — You are one of the earliest and dearest of my friends, and in Edinburgh every time I revisit it I feel something of the olden spell, and I am alive, perhaps too keenly, to the consideration which you urged, — the hope of doing some things in a sphere of com- parative leisure which it is very certain will never be done in London. " But the reasons against leaving Regent Square seem conclusive. I cannot suppose that there ever was a mini- ster happier in his people and in his sessional colleagues than I have been, and the thought of parting is what I cannot face ; even to meditate it as a thing possible seems little short of treason. And now it would be more un- grateful than ever, for it is my present flock which has just expended an enormous sum in the purchase and im- provement of our church, and which has done more than enough to make me, as to worldly things, free from care- fulness. The effect, too, on our Presbyterianism generally might be very injurious. To personal friends who have made creat and noble sacrifices for church extension and for missions, I am sure it would be discouraging. Here we are all needful to one another, and although my suc- cessor might be far more suitable, that would hardly CONCLUSIVELY DECLINED. 525 make amends for my going away. With a wonderful dislike to ecclesiastical affairs and to business generally, the course of events, and the misjudging kindness of my brethren, have compelled me to take more than a propor- tional share of our Church's work ; and, although it were for notliing else but the fear of weakening others' hands, I must abide at my post. I assure you it costs me a pang. Fully the half of my time is occupied in doing things which many men could do far better, and which are to me unspeakably irksome. I try to accept them as ' the burden of the Lord,' but often I inwardly rebel, and your proposal revived for an instant the dreams of other days. The right hand which, if I had not cut off, I had at least tied up many years ago, seemed as if it might yet regain its cunning ; and now I feel more effort than I ought in removing a tempting opportunity and returning to the life of a Presbyterian factotum. However, I believe that it is right, and with so many compensations, with congenial friends, an affectionate people, and an abund- ance of all earthly blessings, it would be ridiculous as well as sinful to talk of sacrifice. "Let me in conclusion thank you and those other friends who have thought of me so kindly. In one thing, I am sure, you have judged aright, we should have gone on famously together ; and, although I must not accept your invitation, I shaU always remember it as the crown- ing act in a friendship which began more than thirty years ago, and which I rejoice to believe is unending. "J. H." 526 LETTER TO HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER, " London, July 25, 1864. " ]My deae William, — . . . Ten days ago, Dr. Hamia wrote asking me how I would like to be Dr. Guthrie's successor. This, of course, is what no one can be ; but for some reasons I might have liked very well to be Dr. Hanna's colleague : the one sermon weekly, the leisurely life of Edinburgh, the idea of doing some things which I \ised to dream of, but which it is very certain I can never do in London. All this, however, is countervailed by the necessities of my position. I cannot abandon the cause of Presbyterianism in England, nor can I leave a people who have done what the people of Eegent Square have done within the last four years ; so to-day I sent off my refusal. Although, hke Issachar, I see that rest is good, I have again put my shoulder to the burden." Most touching words, when read in the light of subse- quent events. Alas ! the burden was more than he could bear; and, accordingly, he sank soon under its weight. He would not accept comparative rest in Edinburgh ; he would labour on till he should reach the perfect rest. "London, July 27, 1864. "My dear ]\Iary Isabella, — My last was to Annie, and this is to you. You have both been good coiTe- spondents. " Yesterday I went down to Tiverton in Devonshire, to give my lecture on 'Books and Eeaders.' Devonshire is a beautiful county, abounding in corn and apple-trees, and the green fields all studded with cows of a tawny-red DIALOGUE WITH A PIANO-TUNER. 527 colour, as if they had been dipped in treacle, — and very- nice cows they are, for it is their milk which yields the Devonshire cream. Tiverton is a pretty little town, with a bright stream of water running down every street, like the New Jerusalem, with a river of water clear as crystal on either side of the street. I slept in the hotel, and, by way of distinction, they gave me the rooms which Lord Palmerston occupies when he comes down to be elected Member of Parliament. J. H." "TuNBKiDGE Wells, August 15, 1864. " A man came in to tune the piano, an upright one. "When the front was removed it revealed several rows of dirty cobwebs, which gave rise to the following colloquy. I give it as nearly as possible, word for word. I believe that the tuner now sells pianos as well as makes them ; but he did not profess to be more than a working man, and spoke like one. " ' D.D. What an odd place for spiders to build in ! " ' Musician. But not so bad either, considering their dangers from housemaids' brooms. " ' D.D. But if it is flies they want, they will have long to wait. " ' M. When the weather grows cold the flies will go in. " ' D.D. No doubt ; and if he is sure of a good feast in October, a spider will submit to a two months' fast quite patiently, " ' M. Is that really the case ? " ' D.D. I remember reading of a gentleman who shut up in a pill-box a field-spider and threw it into a drawer. 528 DIALOGUE WITH A PIANO-TUNER. He thought no more about it till half a year afterwards, vvhen he opened the drawer, and, taking off the lid of the box, the spider sprang out as lively as ever, though not quite so jolly. His body had shrunk from the bulk of a pea to the size of a pin's head. It is the same with all creatures who subsist by catching others. A North American Indian can exist without food much longer than an Englishman, who knows that he has only to step into an eating-house when he wants his dinner. And it is the same with all hunters. A horse or cow would die if left two or three days without food, but a lion or tiger would feel it no hardship ! and a spider who lives by his wits, has been constructed so as to survive a period of hunger which would kill off all the leaf-browsing grubs on the face of creation. " ' M. Is it not wonderful how the Almighty fits every creature for the life it has got to lead ? Don't you think, sir, it would be nice if clergymen like you were sometimes explaining these things in their sermons ? " * D.D. Well, it is hardly to hear about these things that people come to church. It is the Gospel, or God's merciful message to sinners, that Christian congregations wish to hear. The works of God are a very proper subject for popular lectures and mechanics' institutes, but people come to church to hear the Word of God explained. "' M. I may as well be candid, and it is not very often that I have been to church, but it is not because I am against religion. It is because at church I either cannot understand, or else it is not the thing that my mind craves for. It is all either denunciation, or doctrines, or phrases FRENCH AND ENGLISH WORKMEN. 529 that I do not know the meaning of. And I think it is the same with a great many working men. I have been among pianoforte-makers in different factories off and on for eighteen years, mostly in London, and although there are some wild fellows enough, I do not think their minds are set against religion. It is different in Paris, where I worked for two years. There they would laugh, at the whole thing. They leave religion to the women, but the men themselves don't really seem to feel to want it. It is different in England. An Englishman is made for re- ligion, and however bad he be, there is always something in him that tells him it is right. In France, the priests keep hold of the people, because they have got hold of the women ; but in England the clergy have not got hold of the working people, either men or women. We never feel as if a clergyman could understand or enter into us. In any trouble, when wanting advice or comfort, it never occurs to us to go to a minister. " ' D.D. Neither the English nor French artisan goes to Church, and so they are practically alike in dispensing with religion. Did you find much difference between them otherwise ? "'M. The French operative has much more taste than the English. Perhaps it is natural to him ; but in Paris everything is so beautiful, and people are so much in the way of going out and in places like the Louvi'e, and making remarks on what they see, that it forms their taste and gives them a delicate judgment about their work.' " He then told me what a nice collection of the mosses and ferns of the neighbourhood his own boy had formed," 2 L 530 mS DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL. " TuNBRiDGE Wells, Aug. 16, 1864. " Dearest Annie/ — Your letter of Saturday and Mon- day— for which a special deputation, consisting of BeU and Tina and cousin Maggie, went to the post-office — was read to an eager auditory, and it was a great joy to us all to hear thus far of your welfare. At first there will be some long days, and now and then some dull ones ; but happily our minds have been so made that anything to which we apply them at last becomes pleasant, and though a little irksome at first, we get inured to system and routine. The hahit is invaluable. People who are prompt, punctual, orderly, methodical, get through their work in the world so quietly and comfortably, and, with least fatigue to themselves, do the most service to others. For the sake of these habits alone, it is worth while to be at school for a time. And now, my dear daughter, I commend you to the care and keeping of your Heavenly Father. It is our great happiness to know that He is ever near you. May He enable you to gain the love of those around you, and give you health and happi- ness. I am sure you will find ]\Iiss Fox good and kind. " J. H." " TuNBE-iDGE Wells, Aug. 20, 1864. " My deae Sissie,^ — This day will finish your first and longest week of school. Mamma and I miss you very much, but are reconciled — at least try to reconcile our- selves— to your absence by the hope of the advantage you will derive from it. Most of the week I have spent in reading the Latin letters of Erasmus. They are very 1 His daughter at scliool. ^ Familiar name for Annie. RETROSPECT OF VACATIONS. 531 amusing. One I read to-day describes a lively tourist on board a vessel on the Ehine, attended by a monkey, with a musket slung to his side, and an itinerary (Murray's Guide) in his hand, in vs^hich he was constantly jotting down the names of the places as they passed, — all so like travellers now- a- days, all except the monkey. *' The Lord bless you and keep you. — Ever your affec- tionate father, James Hamilton." "Brighton, Sept. 1864. — I would like to recall where and how the August recess of these London years has been spent. "1842.— At Tunbridge "Wells, Eock Lodge, now a tumble-down old house on the ascent to Mount Ephraim, with my dear mother and brothers and Jane. Four weeks of wonderful sunshine. Lay most of the time under the trees, and read (among many other books) Hetherington's History of the Church of Scotland, and Haldane On the Romans, and Hodge ; laying the plan of a course of lectures on Eomans, which filled up the Sabbath mornings of nearly three years, with much enjoyment to myself, and I hope not without some benefit to the people. Here also I prepared for the press a tract, Tlie Dew of Hermon. We used to worship with the warm-hearted Wesleyans, and I preached twice in their neat little chapel, and have still a handsome copy of their hymn- book, which they gave me as a remembrance, along with a specimen of their Tunbridge ware. "August, 1843. — Was in Scotland, still tumultuating with all the excitement of the recent Disruption. Partly 532 RETROSPECT OF VACATIONS. at Stonehouse, preacliing to the Free Cburch adherents in a grassy dell by the burn-side, near the village ; partly at Gourock with Mr. William Buchanan, and finally with the Gillespies at Dalblair House, near Ayr, One excursion I remember with much pleasure to the ruins of Crossraguel Abbey, and to Culzean Castle, as well as an evening amidst the woods and waters round the Castle of Mont- gomery. "1844. — Was at Worthing gathering mushrooms with the Gillespies on Chantonbury Eing ; going picnics to Bramber ; reading Ernest Maltravers. " 1845. — Along with Jane and Andrew, joined William and his bride in a trip to Paris. We had pleasant apart- ments in a quiet hotel in the Rue de la Paix, and were the most industrious of sightseers, feeling strong, elastic, and happy. Every morning after breakfast, on the fresh- est of eggs and finest of bread, we sallied forth, and kept dutifully moving through galleries and gardens until it was time to return to our five o'clock dinner. Then, when the lamps were being lighted, we started anew, revolving round the Boulevards, turning in for an ice at Tortoni's or a cup of coffee in the Palais Eoyal. With William's funny stories, and perpetual flow of spirits, or with fits of remorse at his own extravagance, which were still more diverting, it was a joyful time, and, as we drifted along, as gay as the Parisians." "48 EusTOX Squake, Nov. 25, 1864. " My dear Sissie, — Bell has been a prisoner with cold all this week, and has improved her leisure in writing a LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTEll. 5^3 letter w liich, no douLt, contains all tlie news ; so what am I to do ? For you don't want a dissertation ; and what you do want is forestalled. But let me see. Has Bell told you how a tortoise-shell pussy came to the kitchen window, and was taken in ? and how mamma, j Listly fearing for the birds, ordered it away ; and it is gone ? And how the parakeets and cockatoos have been brought up-stairs for fear of the cat, which has gone away ? And has Bell told you how, on Friday, Mr. Fossett sent two pheasants and a hare ? a7id how, on Monday, ]Mrs. Eippon brought two more pheasants ? and how, on Wednesday, Mr. Gillespie sent a barrel of flour ; and how, this very day, Mr. Thomson sent a goose, — a sister of the one he sent last Michaelmas ? Then has she told you how this week I have been reading my old friend Homer, and like him better thaa ever ? and how I have edited the December number of Evangelical Christendom, and written the preface to the volume for 1864 ? And how Sabbath next will be my birthday, when I shall be fifty years old ? If she has not mentioned these things, I can't think what she can have put in her letter ; and if she has told you all these things, you see how nothing is left for me. " A fortnight after this you will be coming home, and the Square, which you left so beautiful, will be dark and sombre, unless the fairies should come and cover it with their frosty filagree ; and Miss Smith, whom you left ' a free and fetterless thing,' you will find a poor, bird-limed canary, just ready to be put into the cage ; and myself, whom you left rejoicing in the year of jubilee, you wf.l 534 BREAD ON THE WATEPuS. find a staid old gentleman on the shady side of fifty ; and Bertie you will find at school in knickerbockers. But we shall all be glad to see you, even though you should be as tall as the lamp-post, and so learned that we must all speak in unknown tongues. — Till then, I remain, your affectionate father, James Hamilton." TO HIS WIFE. "London, Feb. 6, 1865. " Last night I did preach for Mr. Chalmers ; and Arnot had a fine congregation in Eegent Square. On my return from Marylebone, one of the office-bearers, a fine, intel- ligent man, about six-and-thirty, told me that he was one of a dozen of the older boys in the Caledonian Asylum whom I used to have at tea in Lansdowne Place ; and mentioned that the first serious impressions he had were when I visited the school and gave addresses to the boys. These produced no seeming effect at the moment, but he and two or three others would go away afterwards and weep bitterly. They joined togetlier as a little band for prayer and reading the Bible, and most of them have turned out well. This is ' bread on the waters ' found twenty-two years afterwards." "48 EusTON Square, Feh. 17, 1865. " My dearest Annie, — Yesterday afternoon, entertained at tea the Eev. E. M'AU of Leicester, who had come up to be introduced as a r.L.S., along with James Smith and your friend Carruthers. Took the cab-full down to Bur- lington House, where we had a paper on 'Vegetable Monstrosities ; ' then went from the Linnsean to the Eoyal SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 535 Society, where a paper was read on the fimny behaviour of atoms in leucate of zinc, and certain compounds whose very names I never 'heard tell of;' then came out and took a second tea with the Fellows, including Dr. Eaird, Joseph Hooker, and other friends, old and new. Thence to Arthur Kinnaird's ' to meet Lord Dalhousie ' — tea the third." "48 EusTON Square, 3Iarch 10, 1865. " My dear William, — . . . Your dear good Jane is with us again, having returned on Tuesday. She is a bright and pleasant inmate, but I fear will find it much duller than it was at Christmas, when all the children had their holidays. I am never much in the way of com- pany to any one, and the last few weeks, betwixt writing papers for Macniillan on Erasmus, and a set of lectures on hymnology, my thoughts have been for the most part inside the foolscap. . . . "Like ourselves, you have had a severe and trpng winter, with much sickness among your people. In four weeks we lost five elderly members, all mothers in Israel The only one whom you would know was Mrs. Johnstone, of Gower Street. " This is the anniversary of the death of little James Walker, fifteen years ago. Dear child ! I like to look at his bust, there is in it so much of Jane, and so much of those 'whose angels do always behold the face of your Father.'" These papers for Macmillan were only certain feelers put forth in the direction of a great design, to ascertain 536 PllEPARATIONS FOR A WORK for himself whether it might be possible, The desire to write the life and times of Erasmus was a passion, cherished long and cherished deeply. With a view to it, he accom- plished a great amount of congenial reading. The accumu- lations of material for this work are greater than for anj) other, whether actually accomplished or only projected. Besides many items in the ordinary stores of Bibline, a substantial book is dedicated exclusively to this subject, and is, to a large extent, filled with extracts, jottings, thoughts, and references. It is a curious receptacle : it is touching to peep into the workshop, now that the ingenious and busy worker is gone. His net had been spread out in all directions, and frequently drawn : the miscellaneous heaps that it brought up at successive throws are carefully stowed away ; each atom in its own place. The bones piled up in this apartment are very many, and, to the casual observer, they seem very dry ; but if the hand that gathered them had, for a few years longer, retained its cunning, the whole might have been compacted into one symmetric organism, covered with flesh, and heaving with the breath of life. With James Hamilton, however, this passion for a great literary achievement was the strong man overcome and dispossessed by a stronger. The ministry of the Gospel, and such literature as directly sprang from it, dominated, and held other aspirations down. It was "first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," and such other things as the literature of the Eeformation period were compelled to take a secondary place. In these papers for MacmiUan, and in a lecture before ON THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. 537 the Young Men's Christian Association, he laid down some lines, and noted some facts ; but the great design died with himself. His own journal, however, which is on this point ex- plicit and full, will tell how fondly the scheme was cherished, and how reluctantly it was abandoned at last. " May 1 7, 1 8 6 5. — For a good many years I have cherished a hope of doing something towards the Life and Times of Erasmus. The subject is very attractive, and with trans- lations of some of his livelier letters and the more amusinsr passages in his colloquies, I fancy it might have been made entertaining. At all events, I should have liked to point out his special position and service. He not only did more than any other man towards the revival of letters, but he has left both religion and philosophy under endless obli- gations as the restorer of good sense. The ' sound mind,' the love of the practical, the true, and the useful, was his distinguishing characteristic, and it was this, as much as the love of the beautiful, which carried him with such ardour into the study of classical antiquity. His first great book was the Adages, an effort to bring together the sagacity and experimental wisdom of all ages ; and his first theological treatise, the Enchiridion, is an admirable attempt to exhibit and enforce practical Christianity, dis- tinct from trivial observances and superstitious adhesions. The same good sense runs through liis Paraphrase, and, blended with exquisite humour, gives enduring value to his letters and more sprightly effusions, " Tor this very cause, some do not like him. They call liim a rationalist, and the father of them. But if they 538 REASONABLENESS NOT RATIONALISM. mean that he was an unbeliever, they are utterly wrong. He lacked moral courage, and his nature was not very emotional ; but within the limits of his pretty large and comprehensive creed, he seems to have had as few doubts as other men. The greater part of Popery he tacitly let go, but this only enabled him to retain with more un- questioning confidence the common Christianity. " From Eationalism, in the sense of an irreverent ignor- ing of the supernatural, I revolt with all my heart and soul ; but I long to see more reasonableness in the spiritual and ecclesiastical domain. Some hints regarding the \oyiKr) Xarpeia might have been given in connexion with Erasmus and the early Reformers. "Besides, it would have been very pleasant to revise that prodigious range of literature, patristic and classical, of which Erasmus was the editor. Owing to a secluded boyhood, and unlimited youthful leisure, without ever attaining accurate scholarship, I have read in these de- partments more than most people ; and, after an absti- nence of a quarter of a century, a strange longing for these books returns. Like the daisies and dandelions that come up in October, it is the feeble revival of an impossible spring. For after giving to the work the spare hours and the autumn holiday of the last two or three years, I am constrained to abandon the task. This last winter had no leisure, and in the congregation a childish feud about the hymn-book was so conducted as to rob me of rest by night and peace by day ; and, perhaps as a consequence of this, I find my elasticity a good deal impaired. So this day, with a certain touch of tenderness, I restored the eleven THE LONG-CHERISHED PEOJECT ABANDONED. 539 tali folios to the shelf, and tied up my memoranda, and took leave of a project which has sometimes cheered the hours of exhaustion, and the mere thought of which has always been enough to overcome my natural indolence. It is well ; if a favourite play, it was also a great tempta- tion. It was a chance, the only one I ever had, of attain- ing a small measure of literary distinction ; and where there is so much 'pride and haughtiness of heart,' it is better to be unknown. Like the congregation of the Gascon preacher who had forgotten his discourse, the world will never know what a treat it has lost ; and not having this absorbent for spare hours, it is possible that to wife and children, and people, there may be a gain in the abandonment of the magnum opus." In all his papers I have not met Ynih. anything more affecting than this farewell. It is a right arm he is cut- ting off : he is wrung to the heart by the deed, and yet with his own hand he deliberately performs it. How sad and tender, in the light of subsequent events, is his allu- sion to the feeble efforts of the flowers to reproduce in October " an impossible spring." Already he felt the vital energies beginning to ebb. Yet, sad though this renun- ciation was, his obituary notice of the magnum opus concludes with a playful allusion — a smile is on his countenance as he announces its decease. FKOM THE REV. DR. M'CRIE. "23 Rochester Road, March 13, 1865. "My dear Dr. Hamilton, — The Church of Scotland contemplated from the beginning the addition to her 540 HYMNS IN REFORMATION TIAIES. psalmody of ' other scriptural sougs.' The proposal was revived in 1645-1648, after the Solemn League had been sworn, showing that they did not consider such an addi- tion would be any infringement of her 'covenanted uniformity.' The proposal, though interrupted by the persecution, was renewed as soon as the Church obtained peace at the Eevolution, and its stoppage then may be traced to the decline of public and personal piety in Scot- land. Meanwhile the people, accustomed only to the Psalms, acquired for our Psalter that veneration with which they regarded all that had been practised by their persecuted ancestors ; and the Seceders in particular re- garded adherence to it as part of the ' covenanted uni- formity,' which was a great mistake. Hence * the con- scientious attachment to the Psalms' — an attachment which none of our fathers in the Scottish Church, at any period of her history, till the middle of last century, would ever have dreamed inconsistent with the introduction of other Scripture songs. — Ever yours truly, " Thomas M'Crie." The testimony of Dr. M'Crie, with the grounds on which his judgment rests, should settle and set at rest the specific question on which it bears. Our Presbyterian ancestors did not consider the use of sacred songs in pub- lic worship, in addition to the Psalms, any dereliction of duty, or any contravention of Scripture. " SuNNYSiDE, Liverpool, April 18, 1865. " My deaeest Annie, — There were five of us — Messrs, Watson, Duncan, Lewis, General Shortrede, and myself^ DK. LIVINGSTONE. 541 besides a gentleman unknown, but who — as he was read- ing Stirling's account of Hegel's philosophy, and gave me a very intelligible account of it — must have been a meta- physician. We arrived at half-past eiglit, in time for half an hour of the Synod ; then here to a hearty supper ; and now, after a famous sleep, the like of which I trust you also had, I am tipping off this telegram at half-past eight, and when they are already waiting for me down-stairs. Adieu. Love to aU. Be good (children), be happy (wife), and believe me, your ever affectionate husband, " James Hamilton." from dr. livingstone. " Burn Bank Road, Hamilton, June 21, 1865. " My dear Dr. Hamilton, — . . . We shall come to London about the middle of next week. I am mucli obliged by your very kind offer, but I am doubtful if I would not be doing you a great injury. I am so irregular in my hours that your house might get a bad name. Agnes and I were out too often past elders' hours, and we finished up at the hotel by getting Punch and Judy ex- hibited before three black boys brought home by Colonel Rigby. Mrs. Storey knew not we were going off next day, or I believe we should have had notice to ' send ourselves.' I shall be delighted to meet Dr. Duff and Lady Pirie, but you must take the matter into consideration. I don't know that we shall misbehave, but you have fuU warning as to what we are capable of — With kind regards to ]\Irs. Hamilton, yours, etc., D. L." 542 DR. LIVINGSTONE Dr. Livingstone accomplished his visit. It was a great enjoyment to both, and resulted in a fast friendship. One sees at a glance, on the face of this familiar note, that the great explorer enjoyed a buoyant, playful, youthful spirit, — indeed, if he had not possessed such a measure of ligld- ness (which is all the heavens different from levity), he would not have been a great explorer. Sprightliness in conversation is often the external expression of the spring within which constitutes the strength of a strong man. Livingstone and Hamilton laboured in very different spheres, but were congenial spirits. FROM DR. LIVINGSTONE, "On board S.S. 'Massilia,' Aug. 25, 1865. "My dear Dr. Hamilton, — I enclose some stuff in accordance with your suggestion, and I fear that you will feel that you have made a bad bargain. It will require no end of polishing, erasure, and transformation, and when you have done all to it that it needs you will say — 'Bless the fellow, it would have been better to have written it all myself.' I am trusting that my friend, Mrs. Hamilton, will interjaculate — 'Serves you right.' " David Livingstone." " p. & 0. S.S. ' Massilia,' Aug. 2G, 1865. " My dear Friend, — I sent you from Malta, or rather sent ashore at Malta, twenty-eiglit pages intended for you. I could not pay the postage, for we were treated like a lot of unclean beasts. The Maltese would not take anything from us except at the end of long poles, and IN THE MEDITEREANEAN. 543 tongs were iised to open the boxes at the end of the same. K'obody durst touch anything "belonging to us. . , . Ten days' quarantine. Cholera was in Marseilles, and we were supposed to be infected. We had a line of boats round us all night and day. The only chance of getting the letters home was by putting them into the ship's boats unstamped; so I hope my letter reached you, if not, it may still be in quarantine in Malta. We shall reach Alex- andria this day, Saturday, about three p.m., and go through to Suez to-night. Cholera was bad there ; sixteen engi- neers died on the line of railway, but it is said to be over now, and we go from the steamer into the railway cars, and off soon after we land, — Yours affectionately, " David Livingstone." The intrepid traveller was then starting on the journey which has not ended yet. Hope of his ultimate return has now revived after it had been almost extinguished. In the middle of 1868 he had been two years in the heart of Africa without a word from home. Of the many tid- ings that will reach his ear, when at last his relations with home are renewed, not the least sad will be the removal of that like-minded brother to whom he sent back these letters from Malta and Egypt. Dr. Hamilton's holiday this autumn was interrupted by a great sorrow, a severe and dangerous accident to his eldest son, a boy about fourteen years of age. One signal providen- tial alleviation he gladly and thankfully recognised, — that the injury, which was critical and painful, and needed much patient watching, was received while they sojourned under 544 ACCIDENT TO DR. HAMILTON'S SON the roof of Mrs. Strong, who with her sister, Miss Margaret Jaffray, contributed from an old deep fund of love such nursing as the wealth of a kingdom could not have bought. The friendship had its root in spiritual instruction imparted and received during that brief but precious ministry at Abernyte. The reciprocal affection that subsisted between the members of that family and Dr. Hamilton was alto- gether paternal ; for him it lasted a lifetime, for his widow and children it survives unimpaired to this hour. Mrs. Strong, with her daughter, and occasionally her sister, occupied the manor-house of Quarter, Stirlingshire, as a country residence. " Quarter House, Denny, Oct. lOtli, 1865. — "We left Lon- don on the 14th of August. Never was there a more perfect holiday. Except two or three trifling engagements there was nothing to invade the leisure here, and at Tigh- nabruaich and Stonehouse we were perfectly at home ; the weather was wonderful, and morning by morning the children woke up to the sunshine and spent in the open air the livelong day ; and many a time had we repeated to one another our amazement at such unbroken health and happiness. We had arranged to return on Friday, September 29 th, and on the afternoon of the previous day we dissuaded the boys (James and his cousin) from going to fish in the Carron, lest they should get damp feet and catch cold on the eve of our home-going. Instead of the river they went to the wood, and at dusk James was carried in by the coachman death-like and pale. He had been climbing the highest of the beech trees, and had fallen from a height of sixty-two feet. His descent had BY A FALL FEOM A TREE. 545 been interrupted by only one small branch, wliich broke away with him, but which so far turned him from the head - long direction that he alighted on the breadth of his back. The preservation of his life is an interposition of Provi- dence to be held by us in perpetual remembrance, and what is still more wonderful no bone has been broken — unless it should prove that one of the vertebrae is fractured. He now lies on his back, with the motor nerves of one side paralysed, and I fear not yet out of danger. As regards plans, our position is one of blank uncertainty. Even should all proceed favourably it must be a long time before the poor invalid can be moved, and a long time of watch- ing and nursing awaits his dear mother. Even in this trial mercies abound. There is no friend under whose roof we could have rather chosen to be. The house is now more ours than Mrs. Strong's ; that good angel, Miss Margaret, is the best of nurses, and servants and all forget fatigue, and I never before felt so deeply the sustaining power there is in sympathy. As regards the sufferer him- self, I trust this will also prove for the best." "Quarter, Oct. 2, 1865. "My dear Minnie/ — This morning James is greatly better. At this moment (10 a.m.) I am writing beside him, whilst he is reading his book, and whilst mamma, who, along with Miss Margaret Jaffray, watched him during the night, is getting some sleep. He has made more progress than I could have hoped after such a fall ; but the bruises on his legs require some one to be always at hand to rub 1 Annie. 2 M 546 SCENE AT DAWN. them or cliange their position, or do whatever the feeling of the moment requires. It is very interesting to watch tlie waking of the creatures — a sight which now-a-days I seldom see ; but yesterday I rose at five, so as to give mamma some sleep. It was a dull, mild Sabbath morning, the trees somewhat tinted, as befits the first of October, but not a leaf stirring in the dim calm air. The oxen in the park were the first to rise, and very diligently did they mouth up the plentiful grass, which was all the wel- comer for being wet with dew, as the early night had been clear, and this season the cattle can scarcely get a drop to drink. It grew a little clearer, and as I looked out at the open window there was a sudden flutter of a sweet- chestnut branch, and a low ' tchuk, tchuk/ as a squirrel jumped out of bed, and called his neighbour, another squirrel, who came slowly and rather sleepily down a tall larch. They soon began to gambol and play Blondin from branch to branch and from tree to tree, scattering leaves and drops of dew, and awakening finches, blackcaps, linnets, thrushes, and no end of little birds, who, although some of them looked a little surprised for the moment, soon commenced twittering and congratulating one another on the new day, and then began to look after their break- fasts. But the post has just come in, bringing me twenty- two letters. If you do not hear till you get mamma's Friday ejDistle, you may conclude that we are going on favourably. Here, as you know, we have all that kindness can provide, and we have only goodness and mercy to sing of — Ever your affectionate father, James Hamilton. " We do not hope to get home this week." TRAVELLING BETWEEN LONDON AND SCOTLAND. 547 It became now a severe aggravation of the father's trial that his child lay in a critical condition in Scotland, while he could not long be absent from his ministry in London. His plan, to some extent actually executed, was to spend part of each week in London and part in Scotland, — more than 400 miles away, TO MR. WATSON. " Quarter, Oct. 18, 1865. " James I found looking better. He gave an eager wel- come to the grapes which I brought from Mrs. Watson, and as I had also some from Mrs. Marshall, he is now plentifully supplied. They had got on pretty well during my absence, but on Saturday night violent palpitation came on, and at last they all got so anxious that they sent for the doctor. It has twice returned, but yielded to the prescription. There is yet no restoration of nervous activity. " For the remainder of the year I think I must count on mine being mainly a preaching ministry, — that is, after the Communion, for a month or two, I would like to be here as much as possible. I foresee nothing to hinder my going up on the Friday evening or Saturday, preach- ing on Sabbath, and returning on Monday morning or night, thus spending one or two working days each week besides the Sabbath in town, as the case might require. TO HIS WIFE. " October 28, 1865, hi the train. " ]My dear Annie, — I hope that you and Aunt Maggie got no cold from standing so long in the shrubbery, and 548 "words on wheels," waving your envoi. I was surprised to find the roads hard-frozen except in the shade, but passing through Denny there were not a few bare little feet toddling on the icy path. Nearly opposite Dunipace House were six oxen lying dead in a field, and with their drooped heads neither browsing nor ruminating, — most of the survivors looked sickly. I am here all alone in a second class carriage, and liope to post my letter at Carlisle or Preston. It is a lovely day, and I feel so much the better of the journey that I hope Mrs. Strong as well as you will arrange to get an airing. In your sermon on well-being and well-doing you must have a paragraph on this. It is not only the open air — the oxygen — which is exhilarating and strengthening, but the large space gives an amphfica- tion to our existence ; and, like a collier coming up from his mine, it is good to quit the work-room or sick-room for the garden or the public road. It seems to bring us at once nearer our neighbours and nearer God. Your task just now is peculiar and trying ; but if we are enabled to wait the Lord's leisure, I have no doubt that some great enlargement will follow. My love abides with all at Quarter. Mrs. Strong's kindness and Miss Margaret's are something that should never be forgotten in the his- tory of Christian friendship. Like the Ochils, the hills of Lanarkshire and Dumfries are all powdered with snow. And now, my only darling, the God of love be with you. Eat well, and sleep well, and keep well. When I get to town I must make inquiry as to the means of transport for invalids, so that when the time — God's good time — comes, we may know how to proceed. — Your ever affec- HoTiate linsbmKi. J\MES Hamilton." OR SERMONS WRITTEN IN THE TRAIN 549 "Nov. 18, 1865, in the train. " My dearest Annie, — We are nearing Preston, and having had a basin of soup at Carlisle, I am preparing to attack the sandwiches. My neighbour with the broken arm is quiet and peaceable, and does not interrupt me, and there are no more of us. I have finished my sermon with nearly five hours' writing, and think I shall bring out as ' Words on Wheels' a volume of sermons railway- written. The first of this kind which I did was on a very sad day — the Saturday that I left dear Jane dying at Carn- wath under the care of mamma, and the then as ever tender and true Aunt Margaret. It is also twenty-five years to-day, or yesterday, since leaving Abernyte. I returned to Edin- burgh with the purpose of never more leaving that beautiful city. A short-sighted and short-lived purpose ! Had it been adhered to, I should have missed the "reat long happiness of the last nineteen years. You too would have missed nursing a broken-backed laddie, and would not have been bothered mth a husband running up and down to town to preach and attend Church Extension meetings. I hope you will make up to-night for your early rising. It is not nice in winter. Since leaving Lanarkshire the day proves mild and softly bright, and I am very com- fortable. And now, with much love to all around you, and prapng that the God of peace and love may be with you, I remain, dearest, your ever affectionate husband, " J. Hamilton." " Quarter, Nov. 29, 1865. — On Monday I entered my fifty- second year, 3X17 = 51 ; other seventeen years would 550 SYMPTOMS OF OLD AGE. bring me on to sixty-eiglit, and I fancy that this is pretty nearly what an actuary would assign as my ' expecta- tion of life.' Even this I cannot say that I expect, and it is solemn and somewhat mournful to think that three- fourths of existence are past already. Within the last few months I have got a pair of spectacles, and the smaller kinds of print I cannot read without them. Other tokens of on-coming old age will follow ; indeed, they have come already. The figurative language I was once so fond of, I have nearly lost all liking for, and if I were following my own bent in preaching, it would be sober, explanatory, unimpassioned. Ambition has given place to indolence, and the grand projects with which I used to cheat myself I have ceased to cherish. Sydney Smith beguiled his lazy horse into a quicker pace by fastening a sieve of oats to a pole a little in advance of the creature's nose ; and through many a dreary day of calls and committees, and dry as dust documents, have I been carried by the hope that if I could only get through them, I might lawfully commence the Magmon Opus, Christian Ethics, The Life of Erasmus, A Mind, and what to make of it. But now the corn and beans are rattled in vain, and there is no make-believe in the wisp of clover. Eeports, circulars, business letters, forty or fifty a week, I write resignedly, and in the usual dull decent fashion in which such things should be done, and so shall continue till this hand forgets its cunning. " As far as extensive or abiding service goes, and as regards any fitting memorial of my own tastes and pur- suits, the opportunity is gone, and in the regrets of this mo- ment I fear there is quite as much of mortified vanity as ot SELF-INSPECTION. 651 the more appropriate feeling. But wlien I advert to that work of the ministry, wliich was my calling, and such a high one, and when I think of my own walk through the midst of men, I see that my life has been a continual short- coming. No worthy motive, no deed out-and-oiit well done, recurs to my comfort ; and were it not that the possibility of these lines being read by others is a temptation to voluntary humility, I might enumerate many sins wliich did easily beset me, some of which seem only to have strengthened with the years. But whosoever may read these lines, I desire to record as my only comfort the truth which I have proclaimed to others. I believe in the forgiveness of sins. I believe in the mercy of God, and in the exhaustless efficacy of the great Atonement ; and al- though it is difficult to understand how such earthliness can be made at home in heaven, yet moments of a happier experience sometimes enable me to hope for a sphere where God's service will be the true self-indulgence — when in God's purest light there will be nothing to conceal ; where, in the superiority of others to one's-self, will be nothing to awaken detraction or envy ; where love will be pure and gratitude permanent, and amidst just men made perfect, virtues may evolve of which at present I do not see so much as the germ, and evils pass away so old and inveterate that I do not remember their becjinninGf. " Life has been full of God's Q;oodness. A kinder mother, a father of loftier worth and nobler ways of thinking, no one ever had. The first years at college were desultory, but the whole were happy. Coming to Eegent Square, if it was an empty church, it was a noble building, and one known 552 NUMBERING MERCIES. by name to Scotclimen and others ; and there "were rare men in its Session. ]\Ir. Nisbet's ardour Tvas very animat- ing ; there never was a man at once so sagacious and so tender-hearted as William Hamilton ; Mr. Gillespie and others were men of large intelligence and public spirit ; and without much shrewdness of my own, I have usually been able to see ^jhat is wrong and right when propounded by others. A congregation has gathered round me, not such as frequent the popular preacher, but one which I prefer, comprising many interesting and right-hearted young men, many serious and attentive hearers, and not a few of the most delightful and congenial friends. To crown all, I have such a home as I scarcely thought could be realized in a world of sin and sorrow. Children of various dispositions, but only made more interesting by their distinct indi\dduality, all loving and all promising ; and a dear partner, God's best earthly gift, whose only fault is that excessive affection w^hich may lead to overmuch sorrow." "48 EusTox Square, Dec. 9, 1865. "After ten weeks' nursing we obtained a hesitating authorisation from the doctor, and determined to try the removal home of our patient. With the spinal injuries he has sustained, the prospect was very formidable ; but through the kindness of j\Ir. Eussell everything was done to complete and make comfortable the invalid carriage, which we had ordered from Euston Square, and, over and above, INIr. Johnstone had constructed a spring mattress, wliich could be also used as a litter or stretcher in carrying him from the house to the train. It was on "Wednesday THE INVALID BROUGHT HOME. 553 morning, the Gth, tliat the experiment was to be made. Everybody was early astir, and in the lobby and all the rooms of Quarter, the fires had been kept on all night. At seven, when we set forth, the short mid-winter day had not begun to dawn. Mrs. Strong and the servants, all wishing us good speed, yet looking very sad, stood outside the door, and were soon lost in the darkness : and as the porters carried their living freight down the avenue, and Miss Margaret and William Crombie walked on either side, I could not help feeling what a much sadder pro- cession it might have been. Great heaps of fallen leaves lay rotting on the path, which, when we first arrived, was sultry with sunshine ; and from the grass fields the picturesque oxen, black, brown, dun, and dappled had been removed for fear of the rinderpest. It was a. strange sight when we opened the Ingleston station — a passenger carriage, where none such had ever been before, an omnibus in the field beside it, both made visible by their own lamps, and the furnace light of the neighbouring colliery, and a few scarcely discernible figures awaiting our approach in silence. A grimy collier, who, without speaking a word, came forward to help into the carriage our mysterious burden, asked in a whisper, 'How long has he been dead ? ' This most difficult part of the transit was safely effected, and in sixteen hours we were home. Blessings on the dear friends who have done all that the most devoted kindness could do to brighten this sojourn. And blessed be the Lord who has brought back the exiles, and who keeps our company still unbroken. What a strange thing is emotion, and how little we can count 554 "forget not all his benefits." upon ourselves ! After having had to face the possibility of leaving James and his mother, and the whole house- hold, the entire winter in Scotland, not to speak of a sadder alternative to which we could not shut our eyes, I should have expected that Wednesday would have been a day of great elation and excitement ; but beyond the sober certainty, and a quiet thq,nkfulness, there was nothing of that restless joy or overflowing gratitude which ought to have been. And when, at the Euston terminus, the Watsons, and Mr. Johnstone, and Mr. Hill, and others, came round us on the platform, instead of falling on their necks and weeping, I do believe it was less ardent than our usual meeting. Fatigue might have something to do with it, but it looks as if, after a long pressure or weight — a ten weeks' tension — the mind lost something of its spring ; and even when the burden is taken off, it does not necessarily rebound at once to its former level. In- deed, acute feeling or excited emotion of any kind is seldom of long continuance."^ 1 A note addressed at a subsequent date to Mr. D. Maclagan, on the occa- sion of his leaving London to settle in Edinburgh, reveals incidentally the vivid brotherljr love that subsisted between him and his fellow-workers. Mr. Maclagan was associated with him especially in the church-building and debt- extinction movement : — " July 31, 1866. " My dear Mr. Maclagan, — Your abode in London has been a great lift to the good cause in England, and although we have no longer amongst xis your wise counsels, and your wonderful power of working, the good impulse will go on, and it is very pleasant to know that we have in Edinburgh such a friend and ally. I sometimes wish that all the leaders of opinion in Scotland could sojourn here for a time :— Not that England has much to give to Scotland religiously, far less ecclesiastically ; but I do not see how Presbyterianism can ever become oecumenical without taking more into account the tastes and temperaments of different nations. One good result of your change, I trust, may be improve- ment to the health of Mrs.. Maclagan. Please to give her my kind regards. The Lord be with you and yours, and bless you more and more. Believe me ever yours most truly, James Hamilton." CHAPTER XIIL LATEST YEAES. Although Dr. Hamilton's memory had nothing of the prodigious in its character, he was able, through a very vivid association of ideas, to recall events and circum- stances from a deep past, and make them march in line under the light of the present for the purpose of being reviewed and re-judged. These reminiscences, when some current fact called them up, were always lively and pic- turesque, and always turned to some practical account. When an effort was made, a few years ago, by the lead- ing men of Glasgow to collect money for the erection of that superb palace which now crowns an eminence on the western margin of the city, nearly ready to receive from the old dingy tenement in the High Street the whole living corporation of the College, a circular soliciting sub- scriptions was addressed, among others, to the minister of Eegent Square. This was precisely the kind of circum- stance that was fitted to touch the wire, and call forth, as if by telegraphic despatch, all his own experience as a student at Glasgow. The result was a paper, in the form of a leader in a London weekly, commending heartily the 556 GLASGOW COLLEGE. scheme, but also throwing out some caustic hints regard- ing past delinquencies and future reforms. The panorama of the past, which rises here as by the touch of a magician's wand, is an almost startling spec- tacle. This inexorable conjuror compels the spirits to come from the vasty deep, each in the costume and cha- racter he was wont to wear. The brilliant and the dull, the more and the less respectable, must march past in this royal review, and each must be valued at what he is worth. Believing that this paper is of very great historical and critical value, we subjoin all the more important portions of it, omitting only one or two pungent allusions, and some unimportant details at the close. It is valuable equally in a subjective and an objective point of view : in sketch- ing the College he incidentally exliibits himself : — " Oct. 28, 1865. " Thirty years have passed away since we put off the red robe of the Glasgow student, and took a regretful leave of the quaint old quadrangles, where every form was familiar. It was a cosy, warm-hearted College. The students were very clannish. They drew close together, and, amidst all their rivalries, they were proud of one another ; and like most other coteries, had great confidence in their collective destiny. It was the period of the Eeform Bill, and whilst some fore- saw that henceforward patronage would avail little without personal merit, a larger number felt the exhilarating, ani- mating influence which attends a great ejioch, and burned their midnight oil, or declaimed in their mimic parliament, like men on the threshold of a new and brilliant dispensation. " But youthful hopes and sanguine prophecies are not al- ways fulfilled. Over several of the most talented and ardent the grave was soon to close — Perrot and Lamont, Colquhonn EMINENT STUDENTS — PROFESSORS. 557 and Halley, Blackburn and Morell Mackenzie ; and amongst those who survived some lost their health, others missed theii" opportunity, and a few, it is to be feared, grew lazy, or wrong-headed, or careless about their character, and are now somewhere or other buried alive. But Archibald Smith went to Cambridge and became senior -svrangler; Tait went to Oxford and became a first-class man and a bishop ; Joseph Hooker went to the South Pole, or pretty near it, and became the foremost man among British botanists ; Richardson, of Newcastle, Avent to Giessen, and became the favourite pupil of Liebig, and the most comprehensive and encyclopaedic of our chemists ; Cotton Mather went to India, and became one of the most accurate of modern Orientalists; and Philip Bailey went back to England, and although he might have written something better than Festus, we do not think that he became by any means the worst of our poets. " Looking over lists, medical, clerical, civic, it is still flat- tering, amidst our own obscurity, to mark amid the lights of the nation many who were our contemporaries in those dis- tant days at Glasgow College. They were eager, high hearted students, and on the whole had excellent instructors. True, Dr. James Couper was the Professor of Astronomy, and if he had any acquaintance with the heavenly bodies, it was quite unknown to earthly observers ; but as he never attempted to lecture, he was saA^ed from those outbursts of juvenile mischief which converted the class-room of Jamie Miller into a perfect pandemonium. A droning sound from overhead, where M'Turk was maundering through a dreary abridgment of Mosheim, gave the impression that life was rather hum-drum in the garret devoted to divinity. But these were exceptions. Most of the professors were learned men, many of them suc- cessful teachers. Walker loved Latin much and English more ; and, set agoing by a picturesque description in Virgil, or a happy allusion in Horace, it was deHghtful to listen to the parallels which he rejoiced to accumulate from Dryden and Shenstone, from Pope and Cowper and Campbell. If Sandford was too rhetorical for Parliament, and too pedantic for popular authorship, he was a paragon of academic elo- quence ; and stirred by those brilliant orations which opened 558 PROFESSORS. each session, led into the heart of Homer and ^schjdus by the rich and magnificent music which opened every door and re- cess, many of the students became enthusiasts for both the teacher and his topic ; and had he remained true to his first love,' it almost looked as if a passion for ancient literature would have been revived in Scotland, and assuredly a large pervasion of scholarship would by this time have graced and ennobled the wealth of its western metropolis. " With admirable clearness, and affecting no needless origin- ality, Buchanan set forth the elements of psychology, and, treading in the steps of Jardine, his illustrious predecessor, he so conducted his logic class as to make it not only an intel- lectual palaestra, but an excellent school for the neglected art of English composition. As soon as Dr. James Thomson was brought over from Belfast, Euclid found an interpreter, and the chair of Robert Simson was rescued from its long dis- grace. A more gentle, anxious, painstaking teacher could nowhere be found. Any solemn Highlander who appeared deeply exercised about surds and unknown quantities, was sure to enlist his sympathy; and a well-timed question at the close of the hour could scarcely fail to obtain an invita- tion to breakfast, and an explanation of the binomial theorem. And although ' old sensation,' the sobriquet which irreverent affection had fixed on the Rev. James Milne, was too feeble to throw any life into his ingenious lectures, he was regarded as no unworthy successor to Hutcheson and Reid ; and well aware of what was destined to come after him, the students sent a round-robin, begging that, old as he was, he would never think of resigning ; for, whether right or wrong, they preferred the last gleanings of Milne to the first-fruits of Fleming. By the medical students Dr. Harry Rainy was held in high honour, as well as the great oculist, Mackenzie ; but the pride of Glasgow College and the names of European renown were Dr. Thomas Thomson and Sir William Jackson Hooker — the former as gruff and ungainly in the lecture-hall as the other was graceful and polished, but each a mighty master in his own sphere, and consequently enkindling in many a susceptible spirit a kindred enthusiasm. " The very budding had its charms. Half-way between THE NEW COLLEGE. 559 tlie Cross and the grand old Cathedral, its dim class-rooms and dusky porticoes, reminiscent of Wodrow and Baillie, Zachary Boyd and Andrew Melville, to us it was no drawback that it lay far to the east, in the depths of old Glasgow. Even the Molendinar, painted many colours by the dye-works which it passed, was not without its charms ; for we were young, and in fancy could recall the time when it flowed through daisied meadows, and gave drink to St. Mungo and his flock before ' Glass-go ' began to flourish. Still, it must be owned that the New Vennel is not a charming neighbour- liood ; and as few students now lodge in the Saltmarket or Gallowgate, it is natural that the College should wish to follow the town to the banks of the Kelvin. " A favourable opportunity has occurred. Some railway, or other company, has given a hundred thousand pounds for the existing site and premises, and on a commanding site it is proposed to build — from plans by Scott, and at an outlay of over £300,000 — the new Glasgow College. To carry out the scheme, subscriptions are invited ; and, with such a spirited chief-magistrate as Provost Blackie, with Mr. Orr Ewing for Dean of Guild, and with a representative of the city so elo- quent and popular as Mr. William Graham, himself an alumnus of the University, and with the well-known munificence of Glasgow merchants, we should not wonder though this large contribution were obtained, and a structure reared fit for the palatial home of learning, and the crowning ornament of Scotland's largest city. " To a share in this subscription it seems that we southerners are to be invited. We feared that Alma Mater had forgotten us. Since we paid our last guineas, and gained our last prizes, we have been toiling on in our various departments, serving our generation to the best of our ability, and trying to do no discredit to the seminary where we studied, any more than to the land which gave us birth. And to all of us, it would have been pleasant to find that a few at least were remembered and recognised. But althougli the shower of honorary degrees has been copious and incessant, and although it happens that the largest Presbyterian congregations in Liverpool, Man- chester, and London are presided over by ministers from 560 INFLUENCE OF THE COLLEGE ON THE CITY. Glasgow College, by a curious coincidence tliey have all escaped. In the same way, in the list, for the last ten years, of those whom the Senate has delighted to honour with ' LL.D.,' we look in vain for such men of European renown as Hooker of Kew, Eichardson of Newcastle, Thomson, late of Calcutta, and the Master of the Mint, Professor Graham. But now that money is wanted, it is not unlikely that the Senate may call to remembrance ' distinguished alumni ' in England.^ " Every seventh year, at least, the member of Parliament must come to his constituents ; but it is at remoter intervals that a college faculty is called upon to give an account of its stewardship. The present is one of those rare occasions. The Glasgow Professors want money ; they appeal to the public ; and the public may tell them a little of their mind, and even try to obtain a pledge or two for the future. And, first of all, whilst we hope that Glasgow will now do a great deal for the College, we deem it a great disgrace that the College has hitherto done so little for Glasgow. There is no city in the empire where a band of enlightened and public- spirited residents might do more to difluse a taste for scholar- ship and science than in the great western capital, where there are thousands of young men available for evening classes, and hundreds of citizens ready to subscribe largely to every scheme of rational improvement. On the other hand, here are more than twenty professors, most of thera undistracted by other occupations, in the enjoyment of a handsome income, with a holiday which lasts half the year ; and what have they done for the intellectual improvement of the community 1 — for its elevation, social, moral, spiritual? The colleges of London have their evening classes, where hard-wrought pro- fessors, returning from their brief recess, when the toils of the day are ended, resume by night, and, to a crowded concourse, 1 Through excess of afTection forjihe historic colleges of Scotland, Dr. Hamilton, we think, errs by overrating the imiwrtance of their procedure on this head. The question has fallen into Such a position that the discussion of it seems altogether prolitless. Through the profuseness and lack of discrimina- tion which have characterized the dispensation of honorary academic degrees. Loth at home and abroad, their value has long been 7iil. Since the first edition was published, the editor has learned that the College of Glasgow has resolved to reform this department of their adiniuistratioa. THE HXJNTERIAN MUSEUM. 661 communicate those truths and princii:)les which go far to expand the minds of their hearers, and make them not sciolists, but enlightened and observant citizens. Which of the Glasgow professors have gone and done likewise 1 And both in London and in Manchester a chief element in every effort at general progress, and a vital element in society, are the men who adorn their academic institutions ; but among all the monks of the Molendinar, which are the men who take the place in Young Men's Christian Associations and Colleges for the Working Classes, in town libraries and institutions for ])opularizing science, which has so long been taken elsewhere by Principal Scott and Dr. Leone Levi, by Professor Masson and Professor Maurice 1 Looking over, in the Almanac, the directorate of the literary and pliilosophical institutions in Glasgow, the College is conspicuous for its absence; and, whatever may be the merits of individual professors, we believe that as far as any express eifort is concerned, as much might have been done for the elevation and refinement of Glasgow society had the University seat been lona. " There is one other point on which we think the million- naires now subscribing to the College should try to get pledges — we mean the College Museum. All the world knows what a noble collection John Hunter's Museum has become under the management of the College of Surgeons in London ; we doubt if any one can conceive the state of dowdyism and neglect into which Dr. William Hunter's bequest has subsided under the management of the Principal and Professors of Glasgow. Last August we paid our shilling, and were ad- mitted by a boy, who appeared as the sole representative of keeper and sub-keeper, to rooms resplendent with Titians, Correggios, and Eaflfaelles, and at the same time ridiculous with trumpery curiosities, and with specimens of natural his- tory named after the style of a penny peep-show. In the lower apartments the odour of dank neglect and incipient decomposition made us tremble for the fate of anatomical pre- parations which we had used to regard as priceless ; and, ascend- ing to the summit, we found ourselves surrounded by dusty piles of books, a moment's glance at which revealed Schweynheims and Caxtons sufiicient to drive a book-worm distracted. It was 2 N 562 THE ACADEMIC STAFF. in vain tliat we endeavoured to obtain a nearer view of those treasures. There was no catalogue; a disconsolate-looking foreigner, who sat transcribing a manuscript, could give us no access ; and the boy, who represented the Professor of Natural History and his deputy, could only take the shilling; he could not open the presses. But if the merchants of Glasgow build apalace for the College, we trust that they will take care that Dr. Hunter's design is carried out, and that, relieved from rubbishy accom- paniments, and no longer a light under a bushel, when re- sidents or strangers go to visit the Museum, they shall see not only a few stuffed skins, and a series of anatomical pre- parations, but a fine picture gallery, a rare series of typogra- phical incunabula and first editions, and a cabinet of coins matchless in Britain, and only surpassed by one Continental collection. " Of the existing professors few are yet known to fame ; but if Drs. William Thomson and Macquorn Rankine, Mr. Veitch, and the Rev. Dr. Caird, may be accepted as representatives, there is in the academic staff no lack of acquirement or in- tellectual power; and, for willingness to accept or initiate improvements. Principal Barclay is surely a great advance on that ' tough old Tory ' his obstructive predecessor. On such a body, if public opinion is brought to bear at this juncture, we are not without hope that a new era may commence in its history. Instead of receiving only a third of its students from Glasgow itself, and emerging from its habitual obscurity only once a year, when a stranger comes to be installed as rector, let us hope that, in its migration to a ncAV locality, it may become so attractive to the youth of the city, and so aggressive on the surrounding society, as to be the light of the Lowlands, and the great source of mental invigoration and sesthetic refinement to the vast population rising round it." In March 18G6, Dr. Hamilton visited Scotland, in the interests of Church Extension in England. From Edin- burgh he writes to his wife : — " It is such a blessing to get good accounts from home, WEST CHURCH BURYTNG-GEOUND, EDINBURGH. 563 and none but good. I suppose you filter or strain the news, and keep the bad to yourself. The congregations yesterday were tremendous, both in St. George's and St. Mary's, but I do not know about the collections. Saw num- berless friends, — Mrs, Alex. Hamilton and her daughters, James Marshall, jun., from Hampstead (who sent his love to James), Lord Cowan, Lord Ardmillan, Sir D. Brewster, Professor Blackie, etc. The singing in St. George's is very fine." "Edinburgh, Saturday, March 17, 1866. "Went into the West Kirk Burying-ground, the little side avenue next to Princes Street, where lie the remains of my gentle sister Mary, and of our faithful old Susan. At the further end was a lady, and, not to disturb her, I lingered near the entrance. I soon saw, however, that it was Mary's grave which she was looking at, and, going forward, my tread on the ground made her turn round. It was Miss Jessie Cameron. She was very much sur- prised. ' Yes, very often on a Saturday, I pay a visit to those blessed ones ; to Mr. Wilkie, and my father in the Greyfriars, and to your sweet sister here. Nor has there been a night these eight-and-twenty years, when I have not named in prayer all that are left of your dear family.' Such a holy love, such truth and tenderness of affection, are unspeakably precious, and I am glad that I can under- stand them. A rare and pleasant home it was in 50 George Square, under my mother's endearing presidency; our- selves still ignorant of the evil in the world, and rich in delightful friends : Mr. Wilkie (minister of Greyfriars), Dr. Huie, James Halley, Braidwood, Smeaton, Arnot, and 664 OBITUARIES. our own and our sisters* contemporaries, — an atmosphere of perfect sincerity and openness, animated by sufficient vivacity and intelligence, and shone through by light from heaven. " My interruption sent Miss C. away, and I copied the inscription : — ' The burying-ground of the family of the Eev. Dr. Hamilton, of Strathblane.' 'Mary Hamilton, his second daughter, born 12th April 1820: died 5tli Nov. 1838.' 'Susan Macfarlane, an attached servant, died nth May 1842, aged 45 years.' " ' Mrs. LiHas Craig, relict of Lieut.-Col. Kernan, died Dec. 1845 ; and her sister, Marion Craig, died 8th June 1849: both of Strathblane, who requested to be buried here.'" "Quarter, March 20, 1S66. " My deaeest Annie, — Accompanied by Miss Jaffray, I arrived safely here at two. It was very interesting to draw near Larbert, Denny, and other places so familiar, and really it was touching to find at the stations every body asking so kindly for ' the son.' " Thank James for his letter. I am delighted to hear of his exploits in the way of sitting up. I went out and visited the wood, saw the now celebrated tree ; called ou the Crombies and their seven children." " 2 Sandyford Place, Glasgow, Ilarch 22, 1866. " My deaeest Annie, — Yesterday the Union Committee ended at one ; so I had time to go and see the Edinburgh Academy Exhibition. It has many nice landscapes, and LETTER TO MR. GEORGE DUNCAN. 565 J. Napier's ' Edith.' After that went to Blair's for lunch, where I showed the two divines your eight-page letter, tak- ing care, however, not to let them read it, and telling them that I had one every other day, so that they were filled with admiration and envy. Came here with Dr. Buchanan and Dr. Duncan in time for dinner, and then had a capital meeting in the Queen's Eooms in the evening. A good sleep followed, and now a most lovely morning. Am going to hear the Inaugural Address of the Lord Eector Inglis." To Mr. George Duncan, an elder of Eegent Square, in a time of family affliction, he writes : — "48 EusTON Square, May 2, 1866. " With two such precious ones invalids under your roof, most deeply do we feel for you, and often do our prayers arise for you and dear Mrs. Duncan ; nor can we cease to hope that He who has so often been the present help will yet in His wonderful goodness interpose and turn this captivity. ' All His saints are in His hand,' and it is a joy unspeakable to think that in any alternative it must be well with herself ; but it is sad to think of such pain and helplessness, — sad, too, to think of the lengthened trial to yourseK and her fond mother, and all the affec- tionate watchers beside her. A few grants were made by the committee yesterday, but there was no business of any difficulty. I am sure that it is far better that Mrs. Duncan should be kept perfectly quiet and uninterrupted, and all those who are around her whom it is best for her to see. But if she were any day fancying a five minutes' 56G LETTER FROM AN visit from her minister, I need not say how gladly I would run down any morning or afternoon. J. H." From time to time I have admitted illustrations, from private letters, of the great affection and esteem with which Dr. Hamilton was regarded by Christians in the United States. I have omitted altogether the eulogiums that I have found scattered throughout the periodical literature of America, in the form of spontaneous reviews, as well as letters from correspondents travelling in England. It is due, however, both to the memory of the departed, and to the many warm-hearted Americans who loved him, to intimate that they did him justice in public as well as in private. In the present day nothing can be more de- lightful than to observe the readiness and generosity with which Christian men on the other side of the Atlantic observe and acknowledge whatever is lovely and of good report on this side. From one letter more let an extract be given ; in this case from a gentleman who resided in the Southern States : — "New Orleans, June 25, 1866. "Rev. James Hamilton, D.D., London. "Dear Sir, — While travelling in England with my family, during the year 1858, 1 had the pleasure of forming your acquaintance, through the intervention of a gentle- man who was then, I believe, a Member of Parhament from Edinburgh. The event has, doubtless, escaped your memory, or been crowded out by more important matters. I also attended your ministry. Since then it has been one AMERICAN BARRISTER. 667 of the dreams of my life to return to England, and spend the remnant of my days there. " The convulsion through which this unfortunate coun- try has so lately passed, and the sufferings consequent upon it, have greatly increased my desire to leave it. But this wiU be attended with expense, and I have only a limited fortune left. " That you may form an opinion of the sort of society likely to suit me, I would take the liberty of stating that I am a member of the bar, have been for some years a judge in one of the high courts of the State of Louisiana, fond of books, and of the society of literary men. As, however, my fortune is much reduced, I cannot, even were I so disposed, indulge in fashionable life. What I need most now is calmness and quiet, and intercourse and com- munion with cultivated and religious society. "I believe I can find all this in London, and would prefer it among the members of your congregation. " Permit me to say, in conclusion, that you still preach on the banks of the Mississippi, through the precious volumes you have given to the world, and that life has been a more earnest thing to many of us by their perusal. " Earnestly invoking the richest blessing of our common Father upon yourself and your labours, — I am, very truly yours, Jno. LI'Vea." " Oct. 26, 1866. — Yesterday I sent the printer the last sheet of The Parable of the Prodigal Son. It contains the essence of a dozen sermons preached during this month and at midsummer last. Much of it was written in the 568 " THE PRODIGAL SON." early morning before breakfast, — a time which I would not choose for study, because it makes the latter part of the day dull and stupid, but I frequently have no other time available. To visitors I always try to be polite and affable, and they are apt to conclude that I have abund- ance of leisure. And visitors are very numerous. One Monday lately Ann counted the number of times that the door-bell rang, and it was forty- five times before twelve o'clock. In this way, for four or five of the working days, the golden hours from nine to haK-past one are frittered away. At two, after a hasty dinner, I go out to visit, and the evenings are almost invariably bespoken. So I envy the like of my late friend Dr. Morrison, Mr. Jay, Adam Gib, and old Dean Milman, who are or have been early risers. " A curious accident befell the first section of the Pro- digal. I had preached it on the first Sabbath morning of July, and, coming home, laid it on the study table beside another manuscript containing an outline of the intended course, with various topics I meant to touch upon. I suspect it must have been poor little Ada, who, in arranging the study table, thought it best to transfer all such litter to the waste-paper basket ; for two days after I missed the two manuscripts, and asked the servants if they had seen them anywhere. Isabella said she had seen two sermons in the waste-paper basket when she took it down-stairs the day before, and as she had not rescued them, she supposed they had been used to light the kitchen or nursery fire. Next Sabbath I asked for notes, if such there might be. A good many were sent, and with their HIS SON-IN-LAW. 569 help I re- wrote the Fatherland, as now it is printed, but the ' outline ' was beyond recall." On this occasion a member of the congregation taught himself shorthand in order that he might be able to re- port the sermons. The discourses on the Prodigal were first published in a handsome illustrated volume, and afterwards in a smaller and cheaper form. To his brother, on March 12th, he writes : — "We have been greatly saddened by the rumoured death of Dr. Livingstone. As once before, it may turn out unfounded, but I fear. Our people know him so well, that I could not avoid making his life and labours the main subject on Sabbath evening, with the needful caveat, that we may venture to hope his life and labours are not ended yet." A letter to the Eev. H. 1\I. Gunn very pleasantly intro- duces a new member into the family circle. The marriage of his eldest daughter contributed to cheer his heart under his own increasing infirmity, and lighten materially, in prospect of his own departure, his solicitude for those that were left behind : — "London, i^e&. 27, 1867. "jVfY DEAR Friend, — ... I liked Frederick Wills from the first, and now I like him more : indeed, it has got beyond liking. Since his declaration he is more free, elastic, and open, and I feel as if I understood him fully. He is thoroughly noble and unaffected and true, and there is such a fine music in his manners, such a nice way of saying the right thing, as well as of parrying awkward things, that even outsiders are at once taken with him. 570 ORIGIN AND OBJECT OF Now that tlie first flutter is over, tliey both seem jDro- foundly happy, and I trust that in the loving-kindness of the Lord they may have many useful, joyful years together." As Dr. Hamilton took a leading part in the preparation and introduction of the Book of Psalms and Hymns, which was finally adopted by his Church, it becomes necessary to submit some notices of its rise and progress. A small collection of hymns had been introduced as early as 1857 ; but it failed to give satisfaction. The de- mand for a larger and more varied selection increased and prevailed. After several unsuccessful attempts to accomplish the object by the direct action of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court, the promoters constituted themselves into an in- formal committee, and took the matter into their own hands. This was done, however, with the full knowledge, and even with the tacit consent, of the members, but with- out the formal sanction of the Synod. With unflagging zeal and perseverance this voluntary brotherhood prosecuted their chosen task. In a spirit of prayer and love and patience, they persevered until all difficulties were surmounted, and a manual of praise was produced, which is in some respects unique and unrivalled. It contains, first, all the Psalms, according to the version used in the Scottish Churches, and then a collection of five hundred hymns, with appropriate music for each printed at the top of the page. No pains were spared. Notliing was omitted that diligence and skill, and the collision of many competent and independent minds, could achieve. In Dr. Hamilton's correspondence I find letters sent THE BOOK OF PSALMS AND HYMNS. 571 out in all directions, asking suggestions regarding the value of tunes as well as hymns, and permission, where there was copyright, to use them. Several members of that happy band have expressed to me, with enthusiasm, that the time spent in the work, while it was a period of anxious labour, was also a period of rare enjoyment and privilege. As iron sharpeneth iron, these men were quickened and edified by interchange of sentiment on the deep and tender themes with which they were so long and so minutely occupied. The account of their operations submitted to the minis- ters and elders of the Church is couched in these terms : — " Chiefly owing to its limited range, the small collection of hymns supplemental to the Psalmody of the Church of Scotland, which received the sanction of the Synod in 1856, has failed to give general satisfaction, and there is a growing desire within our bounds for a larger command of that sacred minstrelsy which has done so much to enliven the worship of the various evangelical communions in England. Sharing that feeling, and believing that a good manual of psalmody might do much for the extension of our Church, as well as for the elevation of Christian senti- ment and affection witliin it, various ministers and elders combined their labours in the summer of 1865." The first draft was sent in the autumn to all the ministers, and many of the elders. Having considered, and to some extent adopted, the emendations suggested, the compilers presented their revised draft to the Synod in April 1866. The Synod gave it a general approval, and appointed a committee to revise it finally, with authority to publish it o / 2 THE SYNOD S COMMITTEE. wlieii completed for the use of the congregations. The same persons who had prepared the book, with three additional names, constituted the Synod's committee.-^ Dr. Hamilton was convener hoth of the voluntary and the authorized committees. Both before the Synod's act and after it, he devoted himself to this compilation with patriotic zeal. His love of hymns was an early love, and it had grown with his growth. With this department of sacred literature, as with others, he was minutely acquainted. But the hardest part of his task was the necessity of de- fending the work, in its principle as well as its details, from the persevering opposition of brethren within the Church. He and his fellow-labourers were precisely in the position of Nehemiah and the returned captives while they were re- building the walls of Jerusalem : they found it necessary to hold the trowel in one hand and the sword in the other. At one and the same time they constructed their hymn-book and defended their work against brethren who contended against the use of hymns in public wor- ship altogether. It was a conscientious opposition, con- ducted by conscientious men, and therefore it was all the more difficult to meet and overcome it. This was not a matter in which he could consent to be ^ Dr. Hamilton, Mr. Watson. Mr. J. C. Paterson. Dr. ISIunro. Mr. H. M. Matheson. Mr. Luudie. Dr. M'Crie. Mr. M 'Lagan. Mr. Diuwiddie. Mr. Chalmers. Dr. Lorimer. Mr. Keedy. Mr. Ballantyne. Mr. Thomson. Mr. J. Matheson. Mr. Lewis, Mr. J. T. Davidson. Mr. W. Bonar. Mr. Saphir. "the psalter and hymn-book," 573 silent for the sake of peace. Duty and Cliristian liberty- were, in his judgment, directly involved in it, and at all hazards he must go forward. His old wea]30u still lay at hand, and he was still able to wield it. He will again appeal to reason through the press. As a part of his argument was, in the first instance, addressed to Ms own congregation, the whole assumed the form of lectures. In the "Psalter and Hymn Booh, three lectures," he spoke out frankly his whole mind on the subject. An extract from the Preface will explain the occasion and the cir- cumstances : — " Like aU representative government, Presbyterianism offers good security against rash legislation as well as against need- less and empirical changes ; but it is quite possible that con- servatism may be carried too far, and that, ignoring the signs of the times, or laying undue stress on old custom and per- sonal preference, rulers of the Church may resist improvements till the demand shall cease, because the worshippers have gone elsewhere. And admirable as is that principle of mutual con- . cession, which is needful to the harmonious working of any system, it is not always possible to wait till every one gives his cordial consent. If we do not march till aU are ready, we may lose the campaign ; and, whilst the Greeks are coaxing Achilles, the Trojans may be winning the battle. " In the congregation of which the author is minister, the session lately agreed to superadd to the Psalms and Para- phrases of the Church of Scotland a small collection of hymns authorized by the English Synod. In taking this step, the session believed that they were meeting the wishes of their fellow-members and making a welcome addition to our psal- mody. As, however, some remonstrated against any addition to the ' time-honoured paraphrases,' and a few expressed con- scientious objections against using in the worship of God any- thing except the Psalms of David, a discourse was delivered in vindication of the session's procedure, and two further 5 74 OBJECTIONS TO THE USE OF lectures on the subject generally of Christian psalmody, — the substance of which afterwards appeared in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review for April 1865. Nevertheless, as it was still maintained that the session had acted in ignorance of the mind of the people, the minister, on his own responsi- bility, invited the members of the church to express their preference. Of five hundred and fifty-four who sent in their names, five hundred and three were in favour of the hymn- book, and fifty-one against it. Like good Presbyterians, most of the minority have since acquiesced, and, before long, we have little doubt that some of the recent opponents of hymns will be among their warmest admirers. Nay, we venture a little further ; and just as to ' them that are without ' we haA^e found it difficult to make intelligible the point presently at issue, so to a following age we believe that it will be matter of mere amazement that the self-same persons who subscribed for the evangelization of the Jews, should have earnestly con- tended against the Christianization of the only part of worship in which a voice is permitted to the Christian people." Some earnest men in the Presbyterian Churches of this coimtry take the ground maintained by one or two of the smaller communities in America, of opposition to the use of hymns in the public worship of God. They differ a good deal however among themselves, both as to the extent and the grounds of their opposition. Some think it wrong to sing in public worship anything except the Psalter, while others would admit in addition to the Psalms, trans- lations of other portions of Scripture. There is another section who count themselves somehow bound to sit while they sing, and some of these felt constrained to sever their connexion with Eegent Square Church because the con- gregation in singing praise substituted the standing for the sitting posture. This simple statement will show to the general Christian HYMNS AND PARAPHRASES. 575 community the necessity which Dr. Hamilton's position imposed upon him, of contending not only for freedom of expression in praise, as in prayer, against those "who would limit it to the express words of Scripture, but of contend- ing for liberty to sing praise in the very words of the Bible against some who pretend to exclude all but one book of it. The creed which threw itself across his path is a re- markable phenomenon. Because the book of Psalms is a divine supply of matter for praise, you are prohibited from using any other ; but although it is also and as completely a divine supply of matter for prayer, you may employ human language in public prayer to any extent, provided always that the sentiment be scriptural. Again, it holds that you may add in human language as much as you please to the Psalms in praising God, as long as you only say it ; but the moment you presume to sing it you sin. Further, it holds that in private worship you may sing hymns freely as praise to God, but that in public worship you may not ; but it fails to draw a dividing line between what is private and what is public worship for the instruc- tion of the simple. He was distracted between contempt for this narrow and inconsistent creed, and respect for the good men who held it. Through the difficulties he vigorously pushed his way, until his views gained the ascendant in the Church ; but he did not survive to see the improved and enlarged Psalmody actually introduced. The book, however, re- mains as his testimony to the Church. Every line of it passed under his eye. He accorded to it his hearty ap- proval. It has already been the means of enlivening the 576 HIS LATEST PUBLIC LABOUES. praise in many a sanctuary. It has been adopted by tlie Presbyterian Cburches in New South Wales, in Victoria, and New Zealand. It is used by congregations in Ireland, at the Cape, and in India. The Booh of Psalms and Hymns survives as the building on which, along with kindred spirits, he laboured in his latest years; and his three lectures on Psalmody, separately published, remain as the argument by which he justified and defended his course. In view of the great importance he attached to this subject, and the long labour he bestowed upon it, it is interesting to learn that a lecture on psalms and hymns was the latest public act of his life outside the walls of his own church. On Wednesday, 2 2d May 1867, in con- nexion with the adoption of the Synod's Hymn Book, he lectured with all his accustomed felicity and power in Islington Presbyterian Church. Mr. Davidson, the minis- ter, testifies that he exhibited on that occasion even " more than his usual vivacity and humour. It was listened to by a large audience, who were beyond measure delighted. The effort seemed to tell upon his then declining strength ; for I was much struck with his worn-out appearance in the vestry afterwards, and his expressed longing for rest." On the succeeding Sabbath, 26th May, he preached forenoon and evening in Eegent Square. The sermon in the evening was on the Tree of Life, Eev. xxii. 2 ; and therewith his public ministry was closed. He did not put his hand again to the work he loved so well It was the Father's will, though not at that time revealed to his servant, that, after a few weeks of waiting, he should ob- tain the Rest he longed for, and find it a rest for ever. SUGGESTIONS REGARDING A COLLEAGUE. 577 On tlie first tliree working days of the week he attended to his ordinary duties. On Thursday he " struggled with a sermon for the following Sabhath," but was frequently obliged to desist, and throw himself on the sofa for rest. In the afternoon he went out to Hampstead, to visit Mr. James Anderson, and remained there about three weeks. The last official act of his ministry was to preside at a meeting of Session in his own house on the evenincr of Monday 3d May. During this time preparations were going on for the marriage of his daughter; and as he contemplated a journey to the Highlands of Scotland, to visit his friend Mr. Hugh Matheson, he greatly desired to have the union completed before his departure for the North. To Mr. John Grant, one of the deacons, who, living near, and being both loviug and alert, was hand and foot to him in everything he needed concerning the church during the anxious months of his final illness, he writes : — "June 14, 1867. "My dear ]\Ir. Grant, — For both your letters many thanks. The first was very cheering to a disconsolate in- valid, with its Regent Square news, and its chapters of Christian philosophy. If it is the will of God that I should ever return to my post, I own I should like to be released from a portion of my present responsibility ; but there is no plan to which I am wedded. Whatever is best for Eegent Square, and for the cause of the Gospel and our Church in London, will be to me the most satisfactory; but the first requisite is a general and hearty agreement amongst ourselves. I saw ]\Ir. Watson and Mr. Petrie on 2 0 578 RESIDENCE AT ELTHAM. Wednesday evening, and told them, much to the above effect, my views. Perhaps the brethren may not be able all at once to decide what is best ; but to any scheme which generally commends itself, it is not likely that I shall be any obstruction ; and I do feel deeply grateful to those who, like yourself, have so much at heart my own comfort and the welfare of the flock. J. Hamilton." Believing from the first that this illness " was unto death," he urged his friends to take immediate measures for obtaining a colleague who might also be successor.^ About the middle of June he removed from Hampstead and went to reside at Eltham, in Kent, under the hospit- able roof of Mr. Boyd ; but no permanent benefit was de- rived from the change. A turn in the garden, or a short drive in the evening, measured the extent of his exertion. He was languid ; did not like to be looked at ; pointed sometimes feebly to the setting sun, seemed sad, and un- able to enjoy anything; unlike himself. On the 27th of June, a sudden increase of his ailment greatly alarmed his friends, by showing what seemed symptoms of paralysis ; but this feature soon disappeared again. To such am ex- 1 He continued to interest himself in the efforts made hy the congregation to obtain a suitable colleague, but his friends, though they greatly desired it, were never able to cheer his heart by an announcement of success. The plan "of Providence, as interpreted by events, was to give, not a colleague to their beloved pastor in his lifetime, but a successor to take up and carry on his work. When this volume entered the press, a little more than two months ago, the prolonged vacancy was trying their faith and patience ; but before its issue, we are enabled to intimate that such an appointment has been made and consummated as would have lightened the burden of James Hamilton's latest care, if he could have foreseen the event. The congregation have obtained as pastor the Rev. J. Oswald Dykes, who was formerly the colleague of Dr. Cand- libh in Edinburgh, and a ministry of very great promise has already begun. INCREASING ILLNESS. 579 tent at this time had the disease overcome his powers, that he failed to recognise his host Mr. Boyd when he returned after a few days' absence from home. Letters regarding the church were sometimes read to him ; of these he would Listen to a small portion, and then say, " It is enough, I can bear no more." A letter written at this time by Mrs. Hamilton to Mr. Llatheson, who expected them in the Highlands, sets the scene before us with simplicity and fulness : — "Avery Hill, Eltham, Kent, June 29, 1S67. " My dear Me. Matheson, — Your kind note was brought out to me yesterday. You and Mrs. Matheson will be deeply grieved to hear the turn that my precious husband's illness has assumed — paralysis of the brain, — which has been threatening all these weeks, and the first signs of which positively showed themselves on Wednes- day night. When giving him beef-tea, I found he could not hold the cup, and a few hours after sickness came on, and after that power of speech failed. He said to me, ' Oh, Annie, how curious I should be like this ! I cannot tell you, dear, what I wish to say.' He said it quite calmly and smilingly, and with a look of such pity, added, ' Poor lambie.' I was quite alone with him, and for some time could not leave or move from his side to ring the bell. We remained at Hampstead with our dear friends at Frognall until Thursday of last week, when we went to Euston Square for one night to receive our friend Mrs. Strong, who came up to be at Euston Square to help me and enable me the more easily to remain here with m} husband until the wedding-day. He seemed to feel the 580 RESULTS OF EXCESSIVE WORK. air of London very withering, and was very anxious to come away as soon as possible. On Friday we came here, and we thought the quiet and pure air would soon show their reviving effect, and he certainly seemed more com- fortable, but so weak and exhausted as to be obliged to lie constantly on the sofa, and doze away, taking no inter- est in anything, and being 'quite unable to get up enjoy- ment for anything.' This he said himself. "We were much pleased with Dr. Kidd, and at once commenced his plan for invigorating him, but the being out so constantly as was wished, the driving, etc., were most wearying to him, and he seemed very desirous still to continue it if possible ; but the pain in the back, and then the pain in the head, and almost constant nausea, tried him terribly. And on Dr. Kidd's coming on Thursday morning, he told me the sad state the poor brain was in from over work. All yesterday and the day before he was quite conscious when spoken to, but could not put a sen- tence together, although he evidently understood all that was said, and quite knew those about him. " Yesterday afternoon he became much more tranquil, — for the constant restlessness, whether asleep or not, has been very terrible all along, — and really slept quietly and more naturally, and the same through the night, which are very favourable signs ; though he is, I think, not quite so able to reply to any question asked. On the whole, Dr. Kidd is pleased with the progress made so far, especially as the liver is now acting, and he really looks better than I have seen him for weeks, if not months. He has also great muscular strength. The doctor fears he may become THE CARE CAST ON THE LORD. 581 liable to such attacks even should he rally from this oue. All this "we know is in higher hands, and our Heavenly Father gives us grace and strength according to our need ; and, having through all this sore trial been personally kept so calm and made willing to submit to my God and Father, I do acknowledge and praise Him for all He has done and is doing for me. Nothing but His love and power could make me feel as I do, and I believe He is hearing the many earnest heart-pleadings that are ascending so constantly for us, and He will do whatever is best for us, and make us see it in that light. I have written thus fully, as I well know there are no friends who will be more grieved or are more sympathizingly loving than your dear selves, and because you are so far away and cannot hear often. Your kind, kind wish to have him with you we both felt more deeply than we could at all express. You will be glad to know that here our kind friends do everything in every way for us both. Our God is indeed' very good to us, leading us so gently and tenderly even in the midst of this sorest trial; and what comfort I have in knowing that it has been in his Heavenly Father's work that my beloved husband has become thiis worn out, mentally and bodily ; and He may yet give restoring power, and give him back to us. We must trust Him, and leave all in His hands. With many, many thanks for all your love and kindness, and my true love to you and dear Mrs. Matheson, beheve me, my dear friend, ever yours affectionately, " Annie H. Hamilton." The marriage of his daughter had been appointed to take place at London on July 3d, and he would not permit 582 MARRIAGE OF HIS DAUGHTER. it to be postponed on Ms account. Two brief notes, one to the bride and another to the guests, were dictated to Mrs. Hamilton, and signed by his own hand. It w^as soothing to his spirit in that hour of weariness to know that his wife had obtained a son, and his younger children a brother, whose arm might support their weak- ness when his own should be paralysed or altogether withdrawn. TO THE BEIDE AND BRIDEGEOOM. ''Julys, 1867. " I send my affectionate regards to the bride and bride- groom. I pray for them that they may live in love and in every virtue ; that they may live long, and live for ever. (As a friend said to me the other day), there is nothing before them but goodness and mercy and love. " Jajies Hamilton." to the guests. " I return my grateful thanks to ]\Ir. Gunn and my brother, Eev. W. K. Hamilton. I send my kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. Wills, and my cordial salutations to all the dear friends now assembled. I would fain have been with you myself, but I trust that, beyond all the welcome guests, the Lord Jesus Himself has been present. " James Hamilton." fkom mrs. hamilton. " Avery Hill, Eltham, Kent, Juhj 8, 1867. "My DEAR Mr. Matheson, — I am so thankful to be able still to give you good news of him. The doctor A MEASURE OF REVIVING. 583 thinks he is making daily progress. He himself coimted the days to the wedding, and as after Sabbath he felt him- self getting better, he thought he would be spared ; and as each day showed some improvement, he was well enough to spare me by Wednesday, and at his own especial wish I went to be present at the marriage. This, of course, was a great joy to all in the midst of the dark cloud which hung so sadly over all for days before. He dictated a message of love and blessing to the bride and bridegroom, as well as a message to the dear friends who were there assembled, and signed his name to each. We have, in- deed, felt God's goodness, mercy, and love in very large measure ; and our hearts would be ever filled with deepest gratitude, and love and praise. The true kind love and sympathy of friends, far and near, has been quite over- whelming, and a source of such comfort. I do believe it is an answer to the many prayers which his people have offered, that our God has sent such an abundant blessing on the means used, and thus far restored him, and given good hope that our worst fears regarding his illness will not be reahzed. Of course, it will be very long before the effects of such a serious attack will wear away, and his weakness is very great, and must be, for the remedies have been very severe, and he was so thin and weak before ; but his appetite is returning, and quiet sleep, less restless- ness, and, as he says himself, ' the brain seems to be quieting down,' getting into a more natural state. Oh. how thankful I am for all this I cannot say. He has been able to go into the garden each day since Tuesday, and twice been out for an hour's drive." 584 READY TO DEPART. On the 12tliof July he was removed to the hydropathic establishment at Godalming, Surrey. Shortly after his removal to this place, he suffered a relapse so severe that, both to himself and his family, the hour of his departure seemed at hand. Under this conviction he dictated a solemn farewell to his congregation and his friends. After giving messages of love to all, he added, " If any inquire the ground of my confidence, it is not that I have been a minister of the Gospel, or have been kept from some sins, for I feel utterly unworthy. My hope is in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ, and in that blood which cleanseth from all sin, and I wish to go into God's pres- ence as the rest have gone, — a sinner saved by grace, — a sinner saved by grace." His brother William, who visited him at this time, re- ceived the impression, " from what he said, as well as from the peculiarly loving and earnest way in which he spoke," that they should not meet in this life again. Wlien his brother expressed a fond desire that, if it should please God, he might be spared a few years for the sake of his young children, he replied, " Yes, William, they are, some of them, very young ; but it is not needful. I feel as if I had reached the evening of the week ; and on Saturday night it is far better to have all the work ended, — no ser- mon to write, no lecture to prepare, and to wait for the Sabbath ; and I am waiting. My work to me seems done. You are going back to Clapham : give my kind love to our dear good uncle. His kindness has been unceasing, and is among the most precious of our many mercies. Dear, kind old man ! His letters are very full of tender- LETTER TO THE CONGREGATION. 585 uess, and the fragrance of his sympathy will remain so long as the paper retains the ink." This was a steadfast love; as far back as the year 1849, I find in a letter addressed to Mr. Walk ;r, this confession : — " You will be expecting a visit of Uncle Thomas ; dear uncle, I feel more and more drawn to him for his own sake, and also for the more and more of my father which seems to shine out of him as he grows older." On the 27th of July, and in answer to a resolution of sympathy adopted at a meeting of the congregation, he indited and signed the following reply : — "Hillside, Godalming, Surkey, llth July 1S67. " My dear Friends, — Although almost daily desiring to thank you for your friendly inquiries and affectionate prayers, to which I owe so much, such has been my state of prostration, that even by the hand of another I have not been able to write. " Now, however, your message in the Congregational Minute, which I have received through ]\Ir. Blyth, compels me to make the effort. Yet what can I say % I can only say that my heart is like to be broken by your loving-kindness. " Twenty-six years have passed this week since my ministry in Eegent Square began : it has been full of imperfections ; but your kindness to me and mine has made it full of happi- ness ; and I trust it has not been without tokens of God's blessing. " Should any measure of strength be restored, it is a great joy to me to think that such services as I may be able to render will still be welcomed ; should it be otherwise, good is the will of the Lord : that will be done ! " There is room for us all in the grace of God, and in the provisions of the great Atonement. To that grace I com- mend you and myself j and if not in the dear <5anctuary where 586 FURTHER SYMPTOMS OF IMPROVEMENT. we have so often worshipped together, may we meet in that better world, ' Where congregations ne'er break up, And Sabbaths have no end.' — I remain, your affectionate pastor, " jAiiES Hamilton." "Hill Side, Godalming, July 28, 1867. " My dear Mk. Watson, — Many thanks for your most kind letter received this morning, and its enclosed cheque, as well as for all the kind thought you and dear Mrs. Watson have given us, in doing so much to save us thought and anxiety just now. On Monday I received from Mr, Blyth a most kind letter, and the congregational minute of the meeting held on Monday week. These I ventured to tell my husband of on Thursday, when I hoped he might be able to bear it. He asked me to read them to him, and it was quite too much for him ; he wept in a way I never saw before. And after a little he wished to dictate a reply, which I felt it best he should be allowed to do, and so set his mind free ; this he did, and signed, lying in his bed (which must account for the sad shakiness of the signature and his want of sight). This you will see and hear to-morrow, so I need only now give you to-day's report, which is very good, after a night of very good sleep — I think the best there has been yet. The terrible boil which has caused so much suffering and feverishness is beginning to subside and heal, so we are now hoping to see the nourishment w^hich he now takes with relish going to cover the poor emaciated frame. It would be a great trial to 3'-ou and other dear friends to see how sadly altered CHURCH IN THE HOUSE FOR THE LAST TIME. 587 he is in body, but the mind is quite as clear and bright as ever. We do not let it give out much of its brightness just now. He heard your letter, and desires me to give you his ' kind love and best thanks for all his benefactions ; the payment on account of authorship is a perfect windfall' With our united warmest love to Mrs. Watson and your- self, and loving remembrances to inquiring friends and our dear people, — I remain, my dear Mr, Watson, ever yours affectionately, Annie H. Hamilton." Having remained under the care of Mr. IMaberly for more than a month, on the 26th of August, under the direction of his physician, the invalid was removed from Godalming to lodgings on the sea-side at Margate, where he remained three weeks. At first some symptoms of improvement appeared. Writing to Mr. Grant on Sep- tember 1st, Mrs. Hamilton says, " This morning my hus- band came in to breakfast with us, and after it we had family worship together! It is now more than two months since we met together as a family. Yesterday afternoon, quite unexpectedly, Fred, and Sissie came down, and Andrew is still with us, so we make a good party. Our hearts overflow with joy and thankfulness for the goodness and mercy our gracious God has showered on us. I believe you will know better than I can tell how we felt, — what I felt, as I again heard his voice at our famUy altar. He is very much better on the whole." As the season advanced, however, without any decisive gain, about the middle of the month he conceived suddenly 588 AT MARGATE. a strong longing for home. To Mr. Grant, who had sent weekly reports from London during the whole period of his absence, and otherwise shown a manifold and inventive kindness, he addressed the following note : — "5 Fort Paragon, Margate, Sept. 17, 1867. 3 p.m. "My dear Friend, — Cold blustery weather has so thrown back the cure, and so aggravated the home -sick- ness, that we are coming to town on Friday or Saturday, with the doctor's full permission. One advantage will be the nearness to the best skill ; another will be the com- forts of our own abode, and, perhaps the most influential of all, nearness to our dearest friends. I find that affection does not lessen by lapse of years, and it is with deepening gratitude that I read what the dear Eedeemer says about the many mansions and the society in the Father's house. For your most interesting, and some- times entertaining — often tenderly sympathetic — letters, I can return no equivalent. I must leave that to my better-half. The receiving of your and ]\Irs. Grant's letters has done much to sweeten the long solitude, and I cannot tell how grateful I am, especially on her behalf. It is hard to say which of us is the most to be envied ; hasn't the Lord been very kind to all of us ? Let us magnify His holy name together. Let us trust Him, and thank Him, and try to get others to come under the shadow of His wings. I felt it a very great kindness your going to Helensburgh to see James. Give my kind love to Mrs. Grant. The Parisian dressing-case stands CHARACTER UNCHANGED. 589 on tlie mantelpiece, in curious contrast to present circum- stances, but a precious keepsake from dear friends, and a souvenir of the last happy holiday. Wishing for one and all of the Quaternion growth in grace and love and all goodness, — I remain, ever affectionately yours, "James Hamilton." His son, by this time pretty well restored to health, had been placed in a boarding-school at Helensburgh, on the Clyde. On the 19th of September, in compliance with his own earnest desire, he was removed to London, and took possession once more of his own house in Euston Square. In his suffering and weakness he remained the same man that he had been in periods of health and activity. Except in pain and sickness, the latest days of his life were in no way different from its earher days. It is true he was ready to depart — willing rather to depart and to be with Christ ; but this was not a new and peculiar experi- ence imparted to him on his deathbed ; it was an ex- perience that he enjoyed to the full in periods of highest health and prosperity. When his cup was at the fullest, he was wont to entertain, not only with composure, but wdth delight, the prospect of departing. On his deathbed, no feature of his character was in any way changed, except in as far as physical debility impeded its outward manifestation. Through the weary days and nights of his suffering many touching expressions fell from his lips regarding his trust in God and his love for men. But these appeared as in the days of his health, naturally 590 THE SETTING SUN. mingled with a cheerful interest in all that surrounded him. Even the humour that characterized him in his busy days was not extinguished by the languor of his dis- ease. When, by the substitution of a water-bed, he found that instead of being confined to one position he could turn to any side, he expressed his satisfaction at having attained " unlimited liability." In his living years and in his dying days he was all the same man. Being in London towards the close of September, I was permitted to have one brief interview with the patient. There was less change in his appearance and his look than I had expected to find ; there was full activity of mind, and calm confidence of spirit, but great physical lassitude. I intimated, when about to take leave, that we were all praying that he might be spared and restored to us. Indi- cating by look and gesture that he dissented from my judgment in that matter, he whispered, as I bent my ear to receive his word, "Pray for an abundant entrance." This was the attitude of his spirit throughout his illness. His own judgment, after the first stages, never varied. He believed that his work was accomplished, and his outlook now was for rest. At Godalming, in the early autumn, when he was so prostrated that he could not interest him- self in anything, Mrs. Hamilton teUs us that when he had made no sign throughout the day, he pointed with marks of interest towards the setting sun at night. When he could not muster up strength enough to utter a sentence, the great natural symbol was by a gesture, commissioned to express his expectation and desire. By a secret and sure premonition, he knew and an- " BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH." 591 nounced at an eaily stage that the end was coming. Thenceforth he waited with lamp well-trimmed by the wayside, and the sound of the Bridegroom's approach fell on his quick and watchful ear, while loving friends still hoped to enjoy his company for many days. Those who lie in watch for an approaching procession, and especially if they desire its approach as the fulfilling of their own joy, will hear the expected tramp from afar, as the prac- tised African warrior discerns mysteriously the distant footfall of friends or foes, by laying his ear to the ground ; while others whose senses are unexercised, or otherwise occupied, detect no sign. " These are the Bridegroom's footsteps," persisted the ready expectant watcher ; and his eyes strained eagerly forward into the darkness, while friends and family, believing what they wished, endea- voured to persuade him that it was only a rustling among the leaves. His instincts were true ; they did not miss the mark. According to his own glad divining, the soimd he heard proved to be the Lord's coming ; parting willingly from its tabernacle, the emancipated spirit joined the pro- cession, and entered with it into the marriage. The door was shut — shutting the ransomed into rest, and shutting out our view of his subsequent experience. Eye hath not seen — cannot see, what the Lord, after due preparktion on earth, has done within the veil for that disciple who loved Jesus — whom Jesus loved. A brief but clear and thoroughly authentic narrative of the closing scene was drawn up at the time by members of that inner circle who watched most closely over it. The document is subjoined entire. 592 NARRATIVE OF THE CLOSING SCENES. " Once more in his own home, and surrounded by his family and the familiar objects which his presence had always lighted up as by a sunbeam, he felt greatly comforted ; but no abatement of his symptoms could be perceived. Subject to the almost hourly alternations of nervous prostration, and severe and protracted hepatic disease, he lingered on, greatly emaciated and exhausted, but patient and submissive; his mind clear and beautiful as ever it had been, while his hope and confidence were without a cloud. " During his long and trying illness, those who had the privilege of being much Avith him could not fail to remark how sickness and suffering deepened into prominent relief the features of his beautiful character. Towards his Divine Master there could be no change : his faith and confidence in Him did not for a moment waver. As he had delighted to render Him loving service while in health, in sickness he was content obediently to suffer ; having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, yet leaving without question the issue of his illness in the Lord's hands. If it was His will, for the sake of his beloved wife and their little ones, to whom his care seemed so needful, he would patiently wait ; but for him- self he had no such wish. ' The sweetest sound I could hear,' he said to a friend, ' would be the Master's voice calling me home.' And to another, ' Do not ask life for me, but pray for an abundant entrance.' " Nor could there be any change in his loving affection for the dear flock the Chief Shepherd had given him to feed. He had devoted himself to that blessed work in the prime of his early manhood ; and when, after twenty-six years of earnest service, sickness and disease were sent, they did not — for they could not — separate his people from his love. Often during the night, and when unaware that wakeful ears were near him, he would be heard asking for his ' dear people' the blessings of God's grace. And when the conversation would I'evert, at other times, to Eegent Square, it was touching to recognise how true to its gracious instinct was the affection of the absent pastor. No subject, however unimportant, was a matter of indifference to him, while even to the last- he maintained the same loving interest in each member of his GRATEFULNESS AND CHEERFULNESS. 593 flock that he had manifested while able to mix freely with them. ' My preaching-days are over,' he said to a friend ; * but, if it be God's will to prolong my life, I would like to be, for the rest of my days, where I could go in and out among my dear people.' And he was without carefulness. ' I am not anxious about Eegent Square,' he said to one of the elders ; ' God will surely send them a man after His own heart.' " To those who had the pleasure of ministering to him in his sickness, he was peculiarly grateful. To Mr. Anderson, Mr. Boyd, and the members of their families, with whom he had spent some of the earlier days of his illness, and to Mr. Hugh Matheson, to whom he had intended to pay a lengthened visit in the autumn, at his house in Eoss-shire, he was espe- cially grateful ; while no kindness, however minute, shown to himself or to any member of his family, was overlooked, or failed to receive a cordial acknowledgment. " Though suffering from a disease peculiarly depressing, his bright cheerfulness rarely forsook him. With a mind filled with the peace and love of God, there could be no room for despondency or gloom. Even to the last, he maintained his characteristic genial equanimity; while his radiant, loving smile, in recognition of the smallest attention, made the work of those who waited on him not a task, but a service of love. And in nothing was he more remarkable than for his delicate consideration for the comfort and the feelings of others. During the whole of his illness, his anxious care that his be- loved wife and family should be spared the painful anticipa- tion of their impending bereavement, was very marked. While to others he spoke without reserve of his conviction of the unfavourable issue of his illness, that apparently from the beginning had filled his mind, and not unfrequently gave utterance to his longing desire to be at rest, to his wife and family he either avoided the subject, or, recognising their efforts to cheer him, he would himself suggest hopeful con- siderations, or acquiesce in theirs. Even a few days before his death, he begged that his illness should not deprive the dear little ones of the family of any opportunity of childish mirthfulness or recreation ; so anxious was he to the last that 2 P 594 DIRECTIONS FOR FUNERAL. his home should be a happy one, and his presence impart to all who came within its influence, not gloom and sadness, but happiness and joy. " Early in the week preceding the Sabbath morning on which he died, he requested that at the next consultation he might see the physicians alone. Although — doubtless, for wise professional reasons — the decided information he desired was not fully afforded, he was evidently convinced that he would not much longer be denied the change he longed for. Next morning, to his dear wife he spoke out all his loving heart, comforting her with the assurance that they would be parted only for a little time, while the same dear Saviour that he was so soon to see face to face, would remain to be her gracious Protector and loving Friend. On being told that during all these weary months, though they had not spoken to each other of the parting, now apparently so near, God had been gradually preparing her, making her willing to resign him, he exclaimed, ' Oh, praise the Lord ! praise the Lord ! that He has made you willing.' This gave him great relief, and from that time to the end he spoke freely and fre- quently of the future, always importing into a subject, other- wise sorrowful and sad, his own bright hopefulness and joy. " On Wednesday, and again later in the week, to his brother, Mr. Andrew Hamilton, who, from the time of his removal to Margate, had been constantly with him, he gave directions respecting his funeral, expressing a wish, that should a service be thought useful or desirable, a minister of some denomination other than his own should take part ; ' I have always,' he said, ' loved those who love the Lord Jesus.' And thus in death, as in life, he testified that his affection for the followers of Jesus was broader than the limits of his own denomination. " On the evening of Thursday, he took leave of his son-in- law. About seven o'clock, the hour of the weekly prayer- meeting, after speaking tenderly to his daughter, Mrs. Wills, Mrs. Hamilton read to him the paraphrase — ' Where high the heavenly temple stands ; ' and afterwards, at his request, they sang Mrs. Cousins' beauti- " ALL THINGS ARE NOW EEADY." 595 ful paraphrase of the dying words of Samuel Rutherford. When they reached the last verse, as if the words had touched a chord to which he must respond, he joined, in a voice weak indeed, and feeble, yet distinct — ' I stand upon His merit ; I know no other stand ; Not e'en where glory dwelleth, In Immanael's land.' " On Friday, he spoke little. His symptoms were evidently aggravated ; and, though he still wore the same placid, patient aspect, it was plain that he was much distressed. In the evening, and, indeed, throughout the day, he had become so prostrate, that even the exertion of speaking for a few moments was almost more than he could bear. " Next day, Saturday, was to be his last on earth. In the morning, after an affectionate reference to his son James, then absent at school in Scotland, and who had been sent for, he reverted to the directions he had given earlier in the week, respecting his funeral. On his brother inquiring if he had any other wish that he desired to express, he said, ' I have not an earthly desire ; my only desire is soon to be gratified.' Later in the morning his brother, the Eev. W. Hamilton, arrived from Stonehouse. He was able to receive him with all his old affection, and to converse with him at intervals during the day. Towards the evening he said to him, ' There is one line in that hymn which begins with " The hour of my departure 's come ! " which exactly describes my feelings at this time, — ' I leave the world without a tear, Save for the friends I love so dear.' On his brother reminding him of his father's favourite verse which he frequently repeated in the pulpit, — ' Jesus ! the vision of thy face Hath overpowering charms ; I scarce would feel Death's cold embrace, If thou wert in mine arms ! ' he replied, ' No, I had forgotten it ; but there is no cold embrace, William ; there is no cold embrace.' " About ten o'clock, he grew rapidly worse, again complain- 596 THE DEPARTURE. ing of oppressive tightness in his chest. To his brother William he said, ' Would you feel my pulse and tell me if it has stopped, for I feel that I am sinking very fast ; perhaps, as it is getting late, it might be well to send for Dr. Williams, for I should not like to disturb him if he were once in bed.' " A little after this he took an affectionate farewell of his dear wife, adding, ' The Lord bless you and keep you, and be ever with you ! ' to which she replied, ' As He is with you.' A sweet smile of assent lighted up his features as he said, * And with you ! ' After a short interval he clasped his hands upon his breast, saying, ' Come, Lord Jesus, COME QUICKLY.' " After this he spoke little, save to recognise gratefully the little attentions rendered to him in his extreme weakness, and to express his anxiety that his dear wife should not suffer through her loving care of him. By-and-by the shadows gathered ; but with them came the Master, and carried away His dear servant to his rest and his reward. " He fell asleep in Jesus on Sabbath morning, Nov. 24th, at a quarter past three."^ As the living was greatly beloved, the memory of the dead was greatly honoured. All sections of Protestants conspired to bear affectionate testimony that the Church of Christ had gained much by his life, and had lost much by his removal From many countries and from all ranks, some earlier, some later, reduplicated expressions of reve- rential grief came rolling in like the varied and successive echoes of thunder among the hills. I bear witness briefly of the fact in not exaggerated terms ; for, besides the honour conferred on the memory of the deceased brother, a glory thence accrues to the Lord who combined so many gifts in one life, and lent that life a while to the world. It is due to the Christian community to acknowledge and record here that they intelligently appreciated the worth 1 Extracted from " In Memoriam,'" a small volume print».d for private dis- tribution. FUNERAL HYMK 597 of the " pastor and teacher " whom the Head had bestowed upon the Church. While in some respects our own day is evil, in others it is better than any of the past ; herein especially appears a favourable feature of the age, that such gifts and graces as were combined in the life of James Hamilton, are frankly and affectionately recognised by the whole Christian brotherhood. A great company of " devout men " assembled to com- mit the dust reverently to the dust/ Among other appro- priate devotional exercises, a simple hymn was sung, translated by himself from the German, as he had heard it sung at a peasant's funeral in the Black Forest. Thus — •' Neighbour, accept our parting song, The road is short, the rest is long ; The Lord brought here, the Lord takes hence, This is no place of permanence. The bread, by turns of mirth or tears, Was thine these chequer'd pilgrim years ; Now, Landlord World, shut-to the door, Thy guest is gone for evermore — Gone to a realm of sweet repose, Our convoy follows as he goes ; Of toil and moil the day was full, A good sleep now ! — the night is cool. Ye village bells, ring, softly ring, And in the blessed Sabbath bring. Which, from the weary work-day tryst, Awaits God's folk through Jesus Christ. And open wide, thou Gate of Peace, And let this other journey cease ; Nor grudge a narrow couch, dear neighbours, For slumbers won by life-long labours. Beneath these sods, how close ye lie, But many a mansion 's in yon sky ; * In Higbgate Cemetery. 598 THE MEMBERS OF HTS FAMILY, E'en now, beneath the sapphire throne. Is his prepared through God's dear Son. ' I quickly come ! ' that Saviour cries ; Yea, quickly come ! this churchyard sighs. Come, Jesus, come ! we wait for thee — Thine now and ever let us be," Funeral sermons were preached in the church on the following Lord's Day, in the forenoon by the Eev, Dr. Candlish, and in the evening by the Eev. Henry Allon. A monument, consisting of a marble medallion likeness, with an appropriate inscription, has been erected in the interior of Eegent Square Church. Besides his widow, Dr. Hamilton's family consists of — ' Anne, born 12th March 1849, married, 3d July 1867, to Frederick, fourth son of H. O.WiUs, Esq. of Gotham, Bristol; James, bom 20th October 1850, now restored to health, and employed in a house of business in London ; Mary Isabella, born 5th August 1853 ; Christina Jean, bom 11th July 1856; Herbert WiUiam, born 1st February 1861; and Ada Frances, born 25th February 1864. Grace, like sunlight, though in its nature and source the same for all, becomes of various hues, bright or sombre, according to the mental medium through which it shines. In some it is grave, careful, pensive, sad. This species is precious to the possessor, but not radiant and hopeful for the benefit of a neighbourhood. In Dr. Hamilton the hope of the Gospel appeared in a peculiarly bright and lively colour. There was nothing in his faith to repel a child ; and there was much in it to conciliate the worldly, and gain their ear for his message. Nor let any brother who indulges in peevish ways, HIS PREACHING, HIS BOOKS, AND HIS LIFE. 599 comfort himself with the thought that James Hamilton's cheerfulness flowed from a spring of constitutional hilarity. The reverse was in a great measure the truth. It was the result of prayers and pains. He perceived that cheerful- ness and affability in a Christian pastor are eminently fitted to commend Christ to men ; and he strove for these graces accordingly. Some evidence has been submitted to the reader, and more has met the editor's eye, proving that, instead of merely following nature in this matter, he was engaged in a life-long conflict to overcome obstacles which lay in his constitution, and to attain the habit which became a second nature, of being all things to all men, that he might gain some. According to the best judgment I am able to form, after a friendship long and intimate, I should be disposed to arrange the three instruments with which he served the Lord, — his preaching, his books, and his life, — in the relations of good, better, best. Owing to a constitutional weakness in some of the organs on which the voice de- pends, his spoken instructions, in the very large church where he ministered, lost a portion of their power ; hence his books have been, perhaps, more highly valued than his preaching. Again, owing to the peculiar depth and con- sistency and uniformity of his character, his life, as far as it came into contact with others, was fitted to exert a more powerful influence for good than either his printed works or his spoken discourse. James Hamilton was one of the few good men of whom I should venture to say clearly and advisedly, that I was more sharply reproved, more deeply impressed, and more 600 A FRAGRANT MEMORY. powerfully drawn to good hj intimate contact with the man in private, than by any form of his public ministry. I know not a severer test of character than this ; and I know not a greater triumph of grace than is implied in passing successfully through it. A life more solemnizing and more winsome under the microscope than at a dis- tance is peculiarly valuable. These memorials of a precious life are now submitted to the Christian community at large, with the prayer that through means of them the dead may yet speak instruction and reproof to some whom his living voice never reached. All is not lost to the world when a good man dies : his character remains behind to enrich the community, as certainly as the rich man's wealth remains behind to increase the estate of his heir. We watch with expec- tant interest the swelling of a rose-bud in the spring ; we luxuriate in the possession of the full-blown flower while it lasts, and we sigh in sadness when its' glory departs. But, moved by a prophetic instinct, we gravely gather the shed leaves from the ground, and deposit them in a place of safety ; and soon we make the glad discovery that in these leaves, even when withered, we retain for enjoyment the fragrance of the rose in the duU winter days that follow, when we can no longer look upon the living flower, fresh and dewy on its leafy stem. .f Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 01024 5795