tions, are not lost in the religion of revelation. David loved the works of nature, and sang them in hymns of praise. The Son of David loved them: it was not mere convenience, but delight, as well, in the scenes they presented that led him so often to the mountain-side and the sea-shore and it constitutes one charm of his discourses that they are full of such allusions to natural objects. He peoples thus the whole landscape with monitors, makes bird and flower preach to us, and twines immortal truths around the tendrils of the vine. But if aught were needed to defend or urge such love of nature, how could we better put the argument than in Dr. Heugh's own words?

"Why are not God's works studied more? Why are not all who have the means acquainted with His birds, His fishes, His herbs, trees, flowers; the habitudes of His creatures existing around them, the structure of His world and of His universe? Many have access to this volume, and live and die as ignorant of its instructive pages, as if it never had been unfolded to them. Alas! it is so with the Scriptures also."

In the same place where he penned these sentences, he writes as follows; and though the paragraph consists of jottings, not of expanded description, it yet illustrates well his powers of observation, and his habitual care to find "good in every thing."

"What a place is this! . . . Visited a small apartment of this temple, a hidden ravine, little known. An assemblage of precipices, produced by some throe of nature, but now adorned with mosses, grasses, wild flowers, and dense natural wood, oak, fir, mountain ash, &c. Vast caves! Pure streams everywhere, and fish gliding unmolested in the transparent pools. Concert of natural sounds; the breeze sighing through the woods, and on the crags, and along the mountain-sides; the thrush, the blackbird, the linnet, the swallow, the chirping finch; the bleating of sheep and lambs; the lowing of the larger cattle; the shrill bark of the shepherd's dog; and the whistle and call of the shepherd; the tinkling of the streams; the rush of the distant sea, &c. What God does in secret, in nature; analogous to what he does in secret, in grace-giving the water of life-causing the graces of the spirit to spring, and exciting to joyful, tuneful praise. The shooting of the grass and flowers through the decayed vegetation of other years, analogous to each living generation springing up in this world of death. Some old trees quite decayed, yet covered with beautiful mosses; the old adorned though near their fall. A slight push, or incautious touch, breaks off their branches. How little can the aged endure!"—P. 390.

We must append another brief extract, where the description is more extended :

"I cannot particularize the tour to Oban: I am bewildered with this variety. But there are parts of the day, which memory must die ere she can cease to remember. The whole sea was unruffled,

His Practice of Self-inspection.

79

and the islands among which we floated seemed like dark, massive lead, on a bright molten surface. But as you approach them, and observe their outline, rocky, broken, and worn, you perceive that the element amid which they have been reared has often risen in its wrath, and assailed them with dreadful fury. The great whirlpool of Corryvreckan is well known. The island of Jura is here about a mile separated from that of Scarba. Both are lofty and precipitous, and look at each other like two frowning giants. The prodigious whirlpool, whose influence no vessel could resist, but would be feeble like straw before it, works only in certain states of the tides and the wind. This day even Corryvreckan did not disturb that universal tranquillity which the God of nature had commanded. It was still as if it kept Sabbath; and its glassy surface seemed bright, as if it had put on its Sabbath's attire. We passed at the distance of about a league. But to gaze at this bright watery avenue, at this pathway to the vast Atlantic, now so placid, often so terrible, with its huge mountains on either side of it, and all forming but a small part of a corresponding scene, was a luxury of delight, of which every admiring eye spoke, though no tongue was bold enough to attempt to utter it.”—P. 223.

But better still than observation of external nature is accurate inspection of the world within. There is an inactivity—a listlessness of mind which permits thoughts and feelings to drift past us, like the thousand objects of a varied landscape gleaming on the eye of a railway traveller; unexamined, unarranged, unremembered; a half-slumbering state of mind in which it becomes passive, and thoughts flit over us, rather than pass through us, like the shadows of clouds over the lake's surface. This is a pernicious habit to be guarded against and assailed with the most resolute energy of will, by every man who would be master of himself, and live a life of advantage to his kind. It is worse than unobservant vagrancy of eye or ear. A man may be something who can pass through the finest external scenery without having his gaze rivetted, and without remembering more than that he rode over so much ground, or at most beheld an assemblage of hills, vales, trees, streams, buildings; but the mind which lets its thoughts glide past thus unobserved and uncontrolled, is fast losing its power for good. The tendency to foster this indolent and feeble habit we regard as one of the worst effects of the light magazine and novel-reading of the present day. Unconstrained, as he devours the sparkling article or stirring romance, to make any effort in the way of chaining his thoughts or defining them, the reader is apt to acquire that passivity of intellect in which the helm of attention is surrendered from the mind's own grasp, and given wholly up to the objects before it, till it is attentive only when something so striking or stirring presents itself that attention cannot be avoided-like an

ear that should hear nothing but the roar of thunder, or an eye sensible to no colour but flaming scarlet.

We find that to promote habits of inward attention, and to correct what it may surprise many to learn beset him in his early years,—a disposition to enervating melancholy, Dr. Heugh prescribed as a specific to himself, effort after continuous meditation on some selected object. And (at page 35) there occurs a paragraph of jottings on the ocean, presenting an illustrative instance of the kind of meditation intended, which we had designed to cite, as exhibiting also some characteristics of the writer's mind his love of nature, for example, already noticed, and the clear, strong, wide survey he was accustomed to take of whatever presented itself to his thoughts. But we must economize our space, and leave room for reference to some other

matters.

It is instructive to note at how early a period Dr. Heugh began to base all his conduct on what he calls "fixed principles," and how highly he rated the importance of such a foundation for each of his actions. There are some useful suggestions on this head even in his youthful diaries. And in the following extract it will be seen how he had discovered the master-spring, and how wisely and minutely he applies to the whole of his deportment the apostolic rule-Do all to the glory of God:

"As the foundation of every plan of conduct, in whatever station I am, I should ever remember, that with all I am, or possess, I am bound to glorify God. This to be always at the foundation of every scheme, and to serve as a rule and spring to the whole. The way in which I have been hitherto professing at least to glorify God, has been by serving him in the gospel of his Son. This should proceed from a desire to honour God in this way, and from pure benevolence to man; and while I continue in my present station, all my exertions of every kind should be subordinated to this great end from these principles. As the foundation to all, then, I must myself believe this gospel, in order to glorify God in the service of it. This will exclude my being brought to the saving knowledge of the truth; my receiving it in the love of it. I must understand it in some degree, and have some aptness to teach it. With these things in view, in order to the grand end, I must uniformly act and arrange every thing in subordination to them. Hence the propriety of habitually cultivating and strengthening by all probable means those dispositions of mind, in the exercise of which the gospel should be delivered,-benevolence, fervour, impression of its importance, &c. Hence, in order to confirm by my example, what I teach, and to prevent any offence at the gospel, from any thing in myself, the necessity of a rigid attention to every point and circumstance of my deportment. Hence the importance of increasing in knowledge of every kind,-of human nature, of myself, of history, of philosophy, &c., in order to fit me the better to adapt

His Conversational Qualities.

81

my instructions to the cases of those who hear me, to enable me to treat every subject in a proper manner, to replenish and strengthen my mind, and for a thousand other purposes. Hence in general, the propriety of doing with the greatest diligence everything having a tendency to gain the great object in view."-Pp. 36, 37.

One of the acquisitions to the possession of which Dr. Heugh in early life aspired, and in mature days had attained in very uncommon measure, was the power of conversing with facility to himself, and interest and advantage to others. This power he sought not for ostentation, but for usefulness. He by no means over-estimated the importance of the accomplishment he coveted. If persons sufficiently reflect on the influence of speech in ordinary intercourse, surely the efflux of frothy gossip to name no graver classes of offending words were a rarer thing. Who can tell the power for good or evil of but one sentence, falling on a fellow-creature's ear; or estimate the mighty series of emotions, purposes, and actions, of which one articulate breath may be the spring? "A word spoken in season, how good is it!" In another sense than the poet's-all words are winged, and imagination can ill track their flight. Evil or idle words may seem as they are uttered light and trivial things; yet, if light, they are like the filaments of the thistle-down, each feathery tuft floating on the slightest breeze, bears with it the germ of a noxious weed. Good, kind, true, holy words, dropt in conversation, may be little thought of too, but they are like seeds of flower or fruitful tree, falling by the way-side, borne by some bird afar, haply thereafter to fringe with beauty some heretofore barren mountain-side, or make some nook of the wilderness to rejoice. And we know not if there is any thing, viewed either as an element of character, or a means of usefulness, which admits of more thorough reformation, or calls more imperatively for the regulation of fixed and resolute principle, than the ordinary conversation of Christians. The subjugation of the untameable tongue is ranked in the New Testament as the highest achievement of self-control; and judging from the paucity of cases where the conquest has been attained, the difficulty of the task must assuredly be great. Above all, it were well that we could exorcise the spirit of censoriousness, manifesting itself in a thousand ways-the whispered insinuation, the suggested suspicion, the eagerly retailed scandal, the eulogy which prepares the way for some damnatory but, the prejudiced judgment, the undisguised utterance of bitterness and wrath. The reader will find in this biography some important hints for the attainment of the habit of instructive and charitable conversation. In reference to the species of tongue-sin particularly named, take the following resolution :—

VOL. XIV.

NO. XXVII.

F

"Let me have the following maxims always in mind, for the regulation of my conduct :-Never to praise myself, never to speak evil of, or detract from, any other individual. Better not to speak at all, than speak to slander and calumniate. Resolve, never to use such language of any person as I should be ashamed to use in his presence."-P. 29.

Did the Christian world, from a high principle of love and duty, but adopt and practise this determination; implying, as it does, the relinquishment of backbiting on the one hand, and the faithfulness of true affection on the other, by that one result the shadow on the dial-plate of Time would be found advanced by ten degrees, as with a bound, towards the hour marked for the dawn of the millennium.

It is cognate to the subject just adverted to, to notice a beautiful feature of Dr. Heugh's character from his earliest life-his spirit of generous catholicity. There are a hundred instances, scattered over his Life, of his hearty appreciation of the excellencies of good men of every religious communion. At a recent date, the subject of Christian union employed his pen, in a manner which proved how thoroughly congenial to his heart would have been the practical movements towards the closer fellowship of all good men, which are so happily characteristic of the Christian Church in the present day. And in years when the Evangelical Alliance was yet undreamed of, and long ere the lesson of union had been wrought into the history of his own communion, we find his warm and liberal Christianity overflowing the bounds of sectarian distinction, at that time somewhat rigidly maintained and jealously guarded. Some of the dearest friendships of his life were formed with brethren of other sections of the Church; and his exertions were honourably, and with some success, expended to make such sections fewer. We forbear to expatiate on this inviting topic; but there is a letter relating to it, written by him, in 1817, from which we must extract a portion, partly on account of the opinions embodied, and partly as presenting an illustration of the subdued humour which so often enlivens his correspondence, now breaking forth into a single joyous sparkle, and at other times playing and coruscating, aurora-like, through continuous sentences, and even consecutive paragraphs. After referring to the subject of Christian union as one to which his thoughts had often turned, and which he regarded as one of the most important which could occupy the mind, he proceeds :—

"A revolution has in fact been already produced both in men's minds and in practice. It is not long since each religious party was surrounded with lofty walls of its own rearing; partly for separation, partly for defence, and partly for annoyance; and there was little either of ingress or egress, but for its own exclusive friends. If the