While I revolved these ideas, new warmth flowed in upon my heart.  I was wrong.  These feelings were the growth of selfishness.  Of this I was not aware; and to dispel the mist that obscured my perceptions, a new effulgence and a new mandate were necessary.  From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray that was shot into the room.  A voice spake like that which I had before heard:—­“Thou hast done well.  But all is not done—­the sacrifice is incomplete—­thy children must be offered—­they must perish with their mother!—­”

* * * * *

Thou, Omnipotent and Holy!  Thou knowest that my actions were conformable to Thy will.  I know not what is crime; what actions are evil in their ultimate and comprehensive tendency, or what are good.  Thy knowledge, as Thy power, is unlimited.  I have taken Thee for my guide, and cannot err.  To the arms of Thy protection I intrust my safety.  In the awards of Thy justice I confide for my recompense.

Come death when it will, I am safe.  Let calumny and abhorrence pursue me among men; I shall not be defrauded of my dues.  The peace of virtue and the glory of obedience will be my portion hereafter.

JOHN BROWN

(1810-1882)

John Brown, the son of a secession-church minister, was born in Biggar, Lanarkshire, Scotland, September 22d, 1810, and died in Edinburgh, May 11th, 1882.  He was educated at the Edinburgh High School and at the University, and graduated in medicine in 1833.  For a time he was a surgeon’s assistant to the great Dr. Syme, the man of whom he said “he never wasted a drop of ink or blood,” and whose character he has drawn in one of his most charming biographies.  When he began to practice for himself he gradually “got into a good connection,” and his patients made him their confidant and adviser.  He was considered a fine doctor too, for he had remarkable common-sense, and was said to be unerring in diagnosis.

[Illustration:  JOHN BROWN]

Dr. Brown did not, as is commonly believed, dislike his profession; but later on he took a view of it which seemed non-progressive, and his success as a writer no doubt interfered with his practice.  His friend Professor Masson draws a pleasant picture of him when he first settled in practice, as a dark-haired man with soft, fine eyes and a benignant manner, the husband of a singularly beautiful woman, and much liked and sought after in the social circles of Edinburgh.  This was partly owing to the charm of his conversation, and partly to the literary reputation he had achieved through some articles on the Academy exhibition and on local artists.  Though he had little technical training, he had an eye for color and form, an appreciation of the artist’s meaning, and an instinct for discovering genius, as in the case of Noel Paton and David Scott.  He soon became an authority among artists, and he gave a new impulse to national art.