prayer-meetings; how to consolidate them; what rules should be followed, if any; whether there should be mere reading of the word and prayer, or free converse also on the passage?  We began to-day a ministerial prayer-meeting, to be held every Monday at eleven, for an hour and a half.  This is a great comfort, and may be a great blessing.  Of course we do not invite the colder ministers; that would only damp our meeting.  Tell me if you think this right.

“And now, dear A., I must be done, for it is very late.  May your people share in the quickening that has come over Dundee!  I feel it a very powerful argument with many:  ’Will you be left dry when others are getting drops of heavenly dew?’ Try this with your people.

  “I think it probable we shall have another communion again before
  the regular one.  It seems very desirable.  You will come and help
  us; and perhaps Horace too.

  “I thought of coming back by Collace from Errol, if our Glasgow
  meeting had not come in the way.

  “Will you set agoing your Wednesday meeting again, immediately?

  “Farewell, dear A.  ’Oh man, greatly beloved, fear not; peace be
  to thee; be strong; yea, be strong.’  Yours ever,” etc.

To Mr. Burns he thus expresses himself on December 19:  “My dear Brother,—­I shall never be able to thank you for all your labors among the precious souls committed to me; and what is worse, I can never thank God fully for his kindness and grace, which every day appear to me more remarkable.  He has answered prayer to me in all that has happened, in a way which I have never told any one.”  Again, on the 31st:  “Stay where you are, dear brother, as long as the Lord has any work for you to do.[16] If I know my own heart, its only desire is that Christ may be glorified, by souls flocking to Him, and abiding in Him, and reflecting his image; and whether it be in Perth or Dundee, should signify little to us.  You know I told you my mind plainly, that I thought the Lord had so blessed you in Dundee, that you were called to a fuller and deeper work there; but if the Lord accompanies you to other places, I have nothing to object.  The Lord strengthened my body and soul last Sabbath, and my spirit also was glad.  The people were much alive in the Lord’s service.  But oh! dear brother, the most are Christless still.  The rich are almost untroubled.”

     [16] Mr Burns was at that time in Perth, and there had begun to be
     some movement among the dry bones.

His evidence on this subject is given fully in his answers to the queries put by a Committee of the Aberdeen Presbytery; and in a note to a friend, he incidentally mentions a pleasing result of this wide-spread awakening:  “I find many souls saved under my own ministry, whom I never knew of before.  They are not afraid to come out now, it has become so common a thing to be concerned about the soul.”  At that time, also, many came from a distance; one came from the north, who had been a year in deep distress of soul, to seek Christ in Dundee.