Dec. 18.—­After spending an evening too lightly, he writes:  “My heart must break off from all these things.  What right have I to steal and abuse my Master’s time?  ‘Redeem it,’ He is crying to me.”

“Dec. 25.—­My mind not yet calmly fixed on the Rock of Ages.”

“Jan. 12, 1832.—­Cor non pacem habet.  Quare?  Peccatum apud fores manet.” ["My heart has not peace.  Why?  Sin lieth at my door.”]

“Jan. 25.—­A lovely day.  Eighty-four cases of cholera at Musselburgh, How it creeps nearer and nearer like a snake!  Who will be the first victim here?  Let thine everlasting arms be around us, and we shall be safe.”

“Jan. 29, Sabbath.—­Afternoon heard Mr. Bruce (then minister of the New North Church, Edinburgh) on Malachi 1:1-6.  It constitutes the very gravamen of the charge against the unrenewed man, that he has affection for his earthly parent, and reverence for his earthly master, but none for God!  Most noble discourse.”

“Feb. 2.—­Not a trait worth remembering!  And yet these four-and-twenty hours must be accounted for.”

Feb. 5, Sabbath.—­In the afternoon, having heard the late Mr. Martin of St. George’s,[1] he writes, on returning home:  “O quam humilem, sed quam diligentissimum; quam dejectum, sed quam vigilem, quam die noctuque precantem, decet me esse quum tales viros aspicio.  Juva, Pater, Fili, et Spiritus!” ["Oh! how humble, yet how diligent, how lowly, yet how watchful, how prayerful night and day it becomes me to be, when I see such men.  Help, Father, Son, and Spirit!”]

[1] He says of him on another occasion, June 8, 1834:  “A man greatly beloved of whom the world was not worthy.”  “An apostolic man.”  His own calm deep holiness, resembled in many respects Mr. Martin’s daily walk.

From this date he seems to have sat, along with his friend Mr. Somerville, almost entirely under Mr. Bruce’s ministry.  He took copious notes of his lectures and sermons, which still remain among his papers.

“Feb. 28.—­Sober conversation.  Fain would I turn to the most interesting of all subjects.  Cowardly backwardness:  ’For whosoever is ashamed of me and my words,’” etc.

At this time, hearing, concerning a friend of the family, that she had said, “That she was determined to keep by the world,” he penned the following lines on her melancholy decision:—­

      She has chosen the world,
        And its paltry crowd;
      She has chosen the world,
        And an endless shroud! 
      She has chosen the world
        With its misnamed pleasures;
      She has chosen the world,
        Before heaven’s own treasures.

      She hath launched her boat
        On life’s giddy sea,
      And her all is afloat
        For eternity. 
      But Bethlehem’s star
      Is not in her view;
      And her aim is far
        From the harbor true.