although their writings show that they, too, could have loved as nobly as they did all other things.  The extreme of endurance, self-restraint, of “conquest of the flesh,” outward as well as inward, is the life-long lot of these men; and they go through it.  They have their share of injustice, tyranny, disappointment; one by one each bright boy’s dream of success and renown is scourged out of their minds, and sternly and lovingly their Father in heaven teaches them the lesson of all lessons.  By what hours of misery and blank despair that faith was purchased, we can only guess; the simple strong men give us the result, but never dream of sitting down and analysing the process for the world’s amusement or their own glorification.  We question, indeed, whether they could have told us; whether the mere fact of a man’s being able to dissect himself, in public or in private, is not proof-patent that he is no man, but only a shell of a man, with works inside, which can of course be exhibited and taken to pieces—­a rather more difficult matter with flesh and blood.  If we believe that God is educating, the when, the where, and the how are not only unimportant, but, considering who is the teacher, unfathomable to us, and it is enough to be able to believe with John Bethune that the Lord of all things is influencing us through all things; whether sacraments, or sabbaths, or sun-gleams, or showers—­all things are ours, for all are His, and we are His, and He is ours—­and for the rest, to say with the same John Bethune: 

Oh God of glory! thou hast treasured up
   For me my little portion of distress;
But with each draught—­in every bitter cup
   Thy hand hath mixed, to make its soreness less,
Some cordial drop, for which thy name I bless,
And offer up my mite of thankfulness. 
   Thou hast chastised my frame with dire disease,
Long, obdurate, and painful; and thy hand
   Hath wrung cold sweat-drops from my brow; for these
I thank thee too.  Though pangs at thy command
Have compassed me about, still, with the blow,
Patience sustained my soul amid its woe.

Of the actual literary merit of these men’s writings there is less to be said.  However extraordinary, considering the circumstances under which they were written, may be the polish and melody of John’s verse, or the genuine spiritual health, deep death-and-devil-defying earnestness, and shrewd practical wisdom, which shines through all that either brother writes, they do not possess any of that fertile originality, which alone would have enabled them, as it did Burns, to compete with the literary savants, who, though for the most part of inferior genius, have the help of information and appliances, from which they were shut out.  Judging them, as the true critic, like the true moralist, is bound to do, “according to what they had, not according to what they had not,” they are men who, with average advantages, might have been famous in their day.  God thought it better for