manifestation of this kingdom was conspicuously the result of the movement in which Mr. Forsyth took part. The religious development of Scotland has been astounding, and altogether in a healthy direction. The number of churches in the country has been more than doubled since the Disruption, not only by the erection of Free Churches in almost every parish, but by the stimulus given to the other Churches to provide for the growing numbers and the greater diligence in attendance upon divine worship to which the movement has given rise. The Free Church has built manses almost everywhere, established a Sustentation Fund for the support of its ministers, and colleges for the proper education and training of the clergy. It supports home and foreign missions, and takes a prominent part in all the endeavours of the day to grapple with the irreligion and vice which abound in the slums of our large towns. Nor has all this been without its effect on the Established Church. It has been stirred up to go and do likewise. At the Disruption the missionaries of the Church of Scotland almost entirely adhered to the Free Church, and this, while it constrained the Free Church to support them, stimulated the Establishment to open other new fields for missionary efforts of its own.

Could we have a more vivid instance of schism overruled to further the development of the kingdom of God, or better calculated to make men wonder whether minor divisions, which do not touch real unity in Christ, may not be a means to an end of which we have no conception? I feel very certain that, if he had been alive to see it, such would be the view taken by Mr. Forsyth on the present situation of ecclesiastical affairs in this country. He would most assuredly have rejoiced in the clear evidence of the advance of the kingdom of God throughout the length and breadth of the land.

CHAPTER XI.

FAMILY AND DOMESTIC LIFE.

MR. FORSYTH'S MARRIAGE-HIS HAPPINESS IN DOMESTIC LIFEHIS FAMILY-HIS GREAT INTEREST IN HIS GRANDCHILDREN-HIS COLLATERAL RELATIVES.

IN 1801, finding himself well to do, Mr. Forsyth married his cousin, Miss Catherine Forsyth, daughter of William Forsyth of Cromarty who has been already mentioned in the first chapter of this memoir. Alluding to his union with this lady he himself writes: "This connection contributed greatly to my personal happiness and self-respect, and to my general establishment and respectability in life and society; and the affectionate intercourse which subsisted between us, from that moment to the end of her existence, was a source of the highest intellectual and endearing enjoyment to me." Mrs. Forsyth was much beloved by her children, who had the greatest and most tender respect for her memory. She died in 1826. A letter which I have seen of hers, on the occasion of her eldest daughter's going to India in 1820,

shows that she was a woman of considerable powers of mind and great tenderness of feeling. By her Mr. Forsyth had five daughters. The eldest, Elizabeth, went out to India in 1820 to join her uncle John Forsyth of the Bengal Civil Service, who with his wife had invited her to live with them, he holding at the time a high appointment in Calcutta. Unfortunately she caught a fever there and died in less than a year after her arrival in the country. She left behind her an interesting journal of her voyage and early impressions of Calcutta and its neighbourhood, which is doubly interesting to me to whom the scenes are familiar. The journal proves her to have been an amiable and accomplished young woman, spending her time on the voyage in reading and conversing in French and Italian, and even beginning Hindustani after her arrival in India. The second daughter, Anne, married Mr. W. D. Macandrew of Lisbon and Liverpool, and had by him a large family of sons and daughters, who are now the only living representatives of Mr. Forsyth. She died in 1863. But four of her sons and two of her daughters have families, so there are plenty of Mr. Forsyth's descendants alive though they do not bear his family name. The third daughter, Justina, married Mr. Arthur Duff,

Sheriff Clerk of the County of Moray, and left no issue. She died in 1857, two years before Mr. Forsyth, to his great grief. His two younger daughters, Isabella and Catherine, survived him, and were well known and much respected in Elgin, where they died, the elder in 1870 and the younger in 1874, to the great grief of their nephews and neices, to whom they were united, not only by relationship, but by a long intimacy illustrated by the most tender affection. The domestic life and hearty hospitality of Mr. Forsyth was gladdened and adorned by these ladies, and the charm of their social circle was well known and is still remembered by some of the older inhabitants of Elgin where they lived the whole of their lives.

The confidence and affection which existed between Mr. Forsyth and his grandchildren was of the warmest and most intimate nature. He corresponded regularly with all of them, and took the greatest interest in their doings. One of them, Æneas, had gone out to South America to his brother William, who had prospered there as a merchant, and he died there in 1853 at the age of twenty. He was a most promising young man, and his early death was the greatest grief to his aged grandfather, who thus wrote to William on the occasion:-"Though late, I