“But I must be done. Good-bye, dear G. Remember me to your brother kindly, and believe me your sincere friend,

“R. M. M.”

It is the shepherd's duty (Ezek. xxxiv. 4), in visiting his flock, to discriminate; “strengthening the diseased, healing that which was sick, binding up that which was broken, bringing again that which was driven away, seeking that which was lost.” This Mr M Cheyne tried to do. In an after-letter to Mr Somerville of Anderston, in reference to the people of these parishes, whom he had had means of knowing, he wrote, “ Take more heed to the saints than ever I did. Speak a word in season to S. M. S. H. will drink in simple truth, but tell him to be humble-minded. Cause L. H. to learn in silence; speak not of religion to ber, but speak to her case always. Teach A. M. to look simply at Jesus. J. A. warn and teach. Get worldliness from the B.'s, if you can. Mrs G. awake or keep awake. Speak faithfully to the B.'s. Tell me of M. C., if she is really a believer, and grows. A. K., has the light visited her ? M. T. I have had some doubts of. M. G. lies sore upon my conscience; I did no good to that woman : she always managed to speak of things about the truth. Speak boldly. What matter in eternity the slight awkwardnesses of time!”

It was about this time that the managers and congregation of the new church, St Peter's, Dundee, invited him to preach as one of the candidates; and, in the end of August, chose him to be their pastor, with one accord. He accepted the call under an awful sense of the work that lay before him. He would rather, he said, have made choice for himself of such a rural parish as Dunipace; but the Lord seemed to desire it otherwise. "His ways are in the sea.” More than once, at a later period, he would say, “We might have thought that God would have sent a strong man to such a parish as mine, and not a feeble reed."

The first day he preached in St Peter's as a candidate (August 14th) is thus recorded : " Forenoon--Mind not altogether in a preaching frame; on the Sower. Afternoon— With more encouragement and help of the Spirit ; on the voice of the Beloved, in Cant. ii. 8-17. In the Evening— With all my heart; on Ruth. Lord, keep me humble.” Returning from St Peter's the second time, he observed in his class of girls at Dunipace more than usual anxiety. One of them seemed to be thoroughly awakened that evening. “ Thanks be to Thee, Lord, for anything," he writes that evening; for as yet he had sown without seeing fruit. It

See this characteristic sermon in the Remains

seems to have been part of the Lord's dealing with him, thus to teach him to persevere in duty and in faith, even where there was no obvious success. The arrow that was yet to wound hundreds was then receiving its point; but it lay in the quiver for a time. The Lord seemed to be touching his own heart, and melting it by what he spoke to others, rather than touching or melting the hearts of those he spoke to. But from the day of his preaching in St Peter's, tokens of success began. His first day there, especially the evening sermon on Ruth, was blessed to two souls in Dundee ; and now he sees souls begin to melt under his last words in the parish where he thought he had hitherto spent his strength in vain.

As he was now to leave this sphere, he sought out, with deep anxiety, a labourer who would help their overburdened pastor, in true love to the people's souls. He believed he had found such a labourer in Mr Somerville, his friend who had shared his every thought and feeling in former days, and who, with a sharp sickle in his hand, was now advancing toward the harvest field. “I see plainly,” he wrote to Mr Bonar, “that my poor attempts at labour in your dear parish will soon be eclipsed. But if at length the iron front of uubelief give way, if the hard faces become furrowed with the tears of anxiety and of faith, under whatever ministry, you will rejoice, and I will rejoice, and the angels, and the Father and God of angels, will rejoice.” It was in this spirit that he closed his short ten months of labour in this region.

His last sermons to the people of Larbert and Dunipace were on Hosea xiv. 1, “O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God;" and Jeremiah viji. 20, “ Harvest is past." In the evening he writes, “ Lord, I feel bowed down because of the little I have done for them which Thou mightest have blessed! My bowels yearn over them, and all the more that I have done so little. Indeed, I might have done ten times as much as I have done. I might have been in every house; I might have spoken always as a minister. Lord, canst Thou bless partial, unequal efforts ?”

I believe it was about this time that some of us first of all began our custom of praying specially for each other on Saturday evening, with a reference to our engagements in the ministry next day. This concert for prayer we have never since seen cause to discontinue. It has from time to time been widened in its circle ; and as yet his has been the only voice that has been silenced of all that thus began to go in on each other's behalf before the Lord. Mr M'Cheyne never failed to remember this time of prayer: “ Larhert nnd Dunipace are always on my heart, especially on the Saturday evenings, when I pray for a glorious Sabbath!” On one occasion, in Dundee, he was asked if the accumulation of business in his parish never led him to neglect the season of prayer on a busy Saturday. His reply was, that he was not aware that it ever did. “ What would my people do if I were not to pray ?”.

So steady was he in Sabbath preparations, from the first day to the last time he was with them, that though at prayer-meetings, or similar occasions, he did not think it needful to have much laid up before coming to address his people; yet, anxions to give them on the Sabbath what had cost him somewhat, he never, without an urgent reason, went before them without much previous meditation and prayer. His principle on this subject was embodied in a remark he made to some of us who were conversing on the matter. Being asked his view of diligent preparation for the pulpit, he reminded ns of Exodus xxvii. 20 : “ Beaten oil—beaten oil for the lamps of the sanctuary.” And yet his prayerfulness was greater still. Indeed, he could not neglect fellowship with God before entering the congregation. He needed to be bathed in the love of God. His ministry was so much a bringing out of views that had first sanctified his own soul, that the healthiness of his soul was absolutely needful to the vigour and power of his ministrations.

During these ten months the Lord had done much for him, but it was chiefly in the way of discipline for a future ministry. He had been taught a minister's heart; he had been tried in the furnace ; he had tasted deep personal sorrow, little of which has been recorded; he had felt the fiery darts of temptation; he had been exercised in self-examination and in much prayer ; he had proved how flinty is the rock, and had learnt that in listing the rod by which it was to be smitten, success lay in Him alone who enabled him to lift it up. And thus prepared of God for the peculiar work that awaited him, he had turned his face towards Dundee, and took up his abode in the spot where the Lord was so marvellonsly to visit him in his ministry.

CHAPTER 1ll.

FIRST YEARS OF LABOUR IN DUNDEE.

* Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have

been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and

with many tears and temptations." -Acts xx. 18, 19. The day on which he was ordained pastor of a flock, was a day of much anxiety to his soul. He had journeyed by Perth to spend the night preceding under the roof of his kind friend Mr Grierson, in the manse of Errol. Next morning, ere he left the manse, three passages of Scripture occupied his mind. 1. “ Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is siayed on Thee ; because he trusteth in Thee."--Isaiah xxvi. 3. This verse was seasonable ; for, as he sat meditating on the solemn duties of the day, his heart trembled. 2. “ Give thyself wholly to these things.”—1 Tim. iv. 15. May thai word (he prayed) sink deep into my heart. 3. “ Here am I, send me.”—Isaiah vi. 8. “To go, or to stay,—to be here till death, or to visit foreign shores, whatsoever, wheresoever, whensoever Thou pleasest.” He rose from his knees with the prayer, “Lord, may thy grace come with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery."

He was ordained on November 24, 1836. The service was conducted by Mr Roxburgh of St John's, through whose exertions the new church had been erected, and who ever afterwards cherished the most cordial friendship towards him. On the Sabbath following he was introduced to his flock by Mr John Bonar of Larbert, with whom he had laboured as a son in the gospel. Himself preached in the afternoon upon Isaiah lxi. 1-3, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," etc. ; of which he writes, “ May it be prophetic of the object of my coming here!” And truly it was so. That very sermon—the first preached by him as a pastor—was the means of awakening souls, as he afterwards learnt; and ever onward the impressions left by his words seemed to spread and deepen among his people. To keep up the remembrance of this solemn day, he used in all the subsequent years of his ministry to preach from this same text on the anniversary of his ordination."

· The Acceptable Year of the Lord was one of these Anniversary Sermons, preached November 1840.

In the evening of that day, Mr Bonar again preached on “ These times of refreshing.” “A noble sermon, showing the marks of such times. Ah! when shall we have them here? Lord bless this word, to help their coming! Put thy blessing upon this day! Felt given over to God, as one bought with a price.”

There was a rapid growth in his soul, perceptible to all who knew him well, from this time. Even his pulpit preparations, he used to say, became easier from this date. He had earnestly sought that the day of his ordination might be a time of new grace; he expected it would be so; and there was a peculiar work to be done by his hands, for which the Holy Spirit did speedily prepare him.

His diary does not contain much of bis feelings during his residence in Dundee. His incessant labours left him little time, except what he scrupulously spent in the direct exercises of devotion. But what we have seen of his manner of study and selfexamination at Larbert, is sufficient to show in what a constant state of cultivation his soul was kept; and his habits in these respects continued with him to the last. Jeremy Taylor recommends: “ If thou meanest to enlarge thy religion, do it rather by enlarging thine ordinary devotions than thy extraordinary." This advice describes very accurately the plan of spiritual life on which Mr M'Cheyne acted. He did occasionally set apart seasons for special prayer and fasting, occupying the time so set apart exclusively in devotion. But the real secret of his soul's prosperity lay in the daily enlargement of his heart in fellowship with his God. And the river deepened as it flowed on to eternity ; so that he at least reached that feature of a holy pastor which Paul pointed out to Timothy (iv. 15): “His profiting did appear to all.”

In his own house everything was fitted to make you feel that the service of God was a cheerful service, while he sought that every arrangement of the family should bear upon eternity. His morning hours were set apart for the nourishment of his own soul; not, however, with the view of laying up a stock of grace for the rest of the day,—for manna will corrupt if laid by,--but rather with the view of " giving the eye the habit of looking upward all the day, and drawing down gleams from the reconciled countenance.” He was sparing in the hours devoted to sleep, and resolutely secured time for devotion before breakfast, although often wearied and exhausted when he laid bimself to rest. “A soldier of the cross," was his remark, “must endure hardness.” Often he sang a psalm of praise, as soon as he arose, to stir up his soul. Three chapters of the word was his usual morning portion. This he thought little