selfish ends, and ennobled with real love to God and man, they sunk in the estimation of those, who were disposed before to rate them much above their intrinsic value!

He was now for the first time called away from his parental home to raise men in the remotest part of the north of Scotland. Here some of his relations resided, who by their influence with their tenantry could materially assist him, in procuring at a moderate rate, the number required. An officer of the Dutch brigade accompanied him on the journey, which the state of the roads, the rigorous season of the year, and the want of even tolerable accommodation, rendered very fatiguing and even perilous to a youth of sixteen, who was obliged to travel great part of the way on foot, over frozen and almost trackless wastes. The friendly reception which he met with from his relations, and the service rendered him by the Laird, which enabled him in a short time, and at little expense to raise his complement, could not but affect his grateful mind with strong and lasting sensations of their hospitality and active benevolence. But worldly friendships prove ensnaring, especially to tender and unfortified minds. The vice of drinking, encouraged by the pride of being reputed hospitable, and the comparative cheapness, with which it could be indulged, prevailed much in the Highlands. It was usual to begin the

morning with a dram, and the close of the day seldom left the guest in possession of his reason and his senses. Where the master of the house, a man of years and authority, not only invites his youthful guests by his own example to acts of intemperance, but, as is generally the case, imposes that example upon them as a law, can he be charged with undue severity, who condemns the practice as a conspiracy against virtue, good manners, and genuine hospitality? What hope remains that unripe minds with all their passions and appetites afloat will stem the powerful torrent, unless they are removed ere it be too late, to a sphere of constant employment, or at least to a society, where better principles or fewer temptations are found.

Providentially the stay of our young friend in these parts, was not continued long enough permanently to infect him with this vice, though he did not escape without injury to his health and morals. This he acknowledges and bewails in a review of his past life written many years after. While, however, he laments this pernicious custom, sanctioned by the semblance of hospitality, he dwells with delight on the primitive simplicity of manners which distinguished his Highland friends; and expresses how much he was struck with the faithful and laborious manner in which the minister of the parish discharged his pastoral

duties; visiting from house to house, catechising the younger part of his flock, and admonishing the elder. "It is much to be regretted," he remarks, speaking of England, "that such pastoral visits are not more usual with our clergy, who, when they do visit their parishioners, seldom lead the conversation to topics connected with their ministerial function, while men of secular employments are fond of introducing theirs to the notice of the company. And yet, though self-gratification be their object rather than the entertainment or information of their hearers, they are not thought to transgress the rules of good-breeding. But let a faithful minister of Christ in his social visits to the families of his flock adapt his discourse ever so pertinently and judiciously to their spiritual circumstances, in some who are present it will excite wonder, in others a shrinking from the discourse and a visible disgust, with a hearty wish that the visitation were at an end, and that it may never be repeated. Thus religion, which as the great concern of our lives, ought to be uppermost in our thoughts, and the most interesting theme upon which our tongues can dwell, is treated as an unwelcome intruder whenever it ventures to appear in the social scene. Our quit-rent of Sabbath dues is all we are content to pay to it."

Having now succeeded in the object of his visit to the Highlands, he returned home by the

route of Aberdeen, Perth, and Edinburgh; at which latter place a providential deliverance, then fresh in the grateful recollection of the inhabitants, had recently occurred. It is noticed by him in a letter to a friend, and deserves to be kept in remembrance. The new town of Edinburgh is connected with the old by two handsome bridges of stone. One of these soon after its erection, unexpectedly, and without any previous warning, fell; this took place on the Sabbath, at a time, when the numerous congregations frequenting the places of worship in the old town, had passed over it not more than ten minutes, while the few that were on it at the moment of its fall, perished in the ruins.

Those characters, who habitually disregard the supreme hand, which overrules all events, will not in their hearts ascribe this critical escape of hundreds, who had been engaged in the public worship of their God, to a particular providence, and will be inclined to contemn and pity those who do. But the man, who builds his religious creed on the word of God, will implicitly believe, that the times and circumstances of life and death are in the hands of the Almighty, and are subject to his sovereign, though secret-working, power. To attribute such signal deliverances as these to the necessary operation of second causes, suits indeed the infidelity of the atheist, or the scepticism of

the libertine, who, differing as they do in other respects, perfectly agree in this.

The doctrine of a particular providence however, extending its parental care to individuals, as well as states, is not only asserted in express terms in both scriptures, but is also illustrated in the history of most of the Old Testament worthies. Many circumstances of their lives seem to have been recorded for this very purpose among others, that the people of God might be strengthened in their faith and obedience, under that darker dispensation, by the belief of this important truth in particular. If from revelation an appeal be made to reason, it is not difficult to conceive a variety of ways in which a particular providence may act without any apparent interruption of those general laws, or, to speak perhaps more correctly, of those impelling forces, to which the Almighty has subjected the material universe. And when the dignus vindice nodus, the danger, not to be escaped by human foresight, is undeniable, and the deliverance great, shall we deny the interposition of Him, "who holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to slip?”

And now again for a short season, which was to prove the last, the subject of these memoirs found himself under his father's roof: "I had sipped a little," to use his own expression, "from