preached on the lamented occasion of this great man's fall: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." We were all astonished at so remarkable a fact, and I question not but that many of my readers will think the memory of it worthy of being thus preserved.

But to return to my main subject. The next day after the sermon and conversation of which I have been speaking, I took my last leave of my inestimable friend, after attending him some part of his way northward. The first stage of our journey was to the cottage of that poor, but very religious family, which I had occasion to mention above, as relieved, and indeed in a great measure subsisted by his charity; and nothing could be more delightful than to observe the condescension with which he conversed with these his humble pensioners. We there put up our last united prayers together; and he afterwards expressed, in the strongest terms I ever heard him use on such an occasion, the singular pleasure with which he had joined in them. Indeed, it was no small satisfaction to me to have an opportunity of recommending such a valuable friend to the Divine protection and blessing, with that particular freedom and enlargement on what was peculiar in his circumstances, which hardly any other situation, unless we had been quite alone, could so conveniently have admitted. We went from thence to the table of a person of distinction in the neighbourhood, where he had an opportunity of showing in how decent and graceful a manner he could unite the Christian and the gentleman, and give conversation an improving and religious turn, without violating any of the rules of polite behaviour, or saying or doing anything which looked at all constrained or affected. Here we took

our last embrace, committing each other to the care of the God of heaven; and the colonel pursued his journey to the north, where he spent all the remainder of his days.

The more I reflect upon this appointment of Providence, the more I discern of the beauty and wisdom of it; not only as it led directly to that glorious period of life with which God had determined to honour him, and in which, I think, it becomes all his friends to rejoice; but also, as the retirement on which he entered could not but have a happy tendency to favour his more immediate and complete preparation for so speedy a remove. To which we may add, that it must probably have had a very powerful influence to promote the interests of religion (incomparably the greatest of all interests) among the members of his own family, who must surely edify much by such daily lessons as they received from his lips, when they saw them illustrated and enforced by so admirable an example, and this for two complete years. It is the more remarkable, as I cannot find from the memoirs of his life, in my hands, that he had ever been so long at home since he had a family, or, indeed, from his childhood, ever so long at a time in any one place.

With how clear a lustre his lamp shone, and with what holy vigour his loins were girded up in the service of his God, in these his latter days, I learn, in part, from the letters of several excellent persons in the ministry, or in secular life, with whom I have since conversed or corresponded. And in his many letters, dated from Bankton, during this period, I have still further evidence how happy he was, amidst those infirmities of body, which his tenderness for me would seldom allow him to mention; for it appears

from them what a daily intercourse he kept up with Heaven, and what delightful communion with God crowned his attendance on public ordinances, and his sweet hours of devout retirement. He mentions his sacramental opportunities with peculiar relish, crying out as in a holy rapture, in reference to one and another of them, " 'Oh, how gracious a Master do we serve! How pleasant is his service! How rich the entertainments of his love! Yet, oh, how poor and cold are our services!" But I will not multiply quotations of this sort, after those I have given above, which may be a sufficient specimen of many more in the same strain. This hint may suffice to show that the same ardour of soul held out in a great measure to the last; and indeed it seems, that towards the close of life, like the flame of a lamp almost expiring, it sometimes exerted an unusual blaze.

He spent much of his time at Bankton in religious solitude; and one most intimately conversant with him assures me, that the traces of that delightful converse with God which he enjoyed in it might easily be discerned in that solemn yet cheerful countenance, with which he often came out of his closet. Yet his exercises there must sometimes have been very mournful, considering the melancholy views which he had of the state of our public affairs. "I should be glad," says he, in a letter which he sent me about the close of the year 1743, "to hear what wise and good people among you think of the present circumstances of things. For my own part, though I thank God I fear nothing for myself, my apprehensions for the public are very gloomy, considering the deplorable prevalence of almost all kinds of wickedness amongst us-the natural consequence of the contempt of the gospel. I am daily offering my

prayers to God for this sinful land of ours, over which his judgments seem to be gathering; and my strength is sometimes so exhausted with those strong cries and tears which I pour out before God on this occasion, that I am hardly able to stand when I arise from my knees." If we have many remaining to stand in the breach with equal fervency, I hope, crying as our provocations are, God will still be entreated for us, and save us.

Most of the other letters I had the pleasure of receiving from him after our last separation are either filled, like those of former years, with tender expressions of affectionate solicitude for my domestic comfort and public usefulness, or relate to the writings I published during this time, or to the affairs of his eldest son, then under my care. But these are things which are by no means of a nature to be communicated here. It is enough to remark in the general, that the Christian was still mingled with all the care of the friend and the parent.

But I think it incumbent upon me to observe, that during this time, and some preceding years, his attention, ever wakeful to such concerns, was much engaged by some religious appearances which happened about this time both in England and Scotland; with regard to which some may be curious to know his sentiments. He communicated them to me with the most unreserved freedom; and I cannot apprehend myself under any engagements to conceal them, as I am persuaded that it will be no prejudice to his memory that they should be publicly known.

It was from colonel Gardiner's pen that I received the first notice of that ever-memorable scene which was opened at Kilsyth, under the ministry of the rev. Mr. MacCulloch, in the month of February,

1741-2. He communicated to me the copy of two letters from that eminently favoured servant of God, giving an account of that extraordinary success which had, within a few days, accompanied his preaching; when, as I remember, in a little more than a fortnight a hundred and thirty souls, who had before continued in long insensibility under the faithful preaching of the gospel, were awakened on a sudden to attend it, as if it had been a new revelation brought down from heaven, and attested by as astonishing miracles as ever were wrought by Peter or Paul, though they heard it only from a person under whose ministry they had sat for several years. Struck with a power and majesty in the word of God, which they had never felt before, they crowded his house night and day, making their applications to him for spiritual direction and assistance, with an earnestness and solicitude which floods of tears and cries, that swallowed up their own words and his, could not sufficiently express. The colonel mentioned this at first to me,

as matter of eternal praise, which he knew would rejoice my very soul;" and when he saw it spread in the neighbouring parts, and observed the glorious reformation which it produced in the lives of great multitudes, and the abiding fruits of it for succeeding months and years, it increased and confirmed his joy. But the facts relating to this matter have been laid before the world in so authentic a manner, and the agency of Divine grace in them has been so rationally vindicated, and so pathetically represented, in what the reverend and judicious Mr. Webster has written upon that subject, that it is altogether superfluous for me to add anything further than my hearty prayers, that the work may be as extensive as it was apparently glorious and Divine.