About this time, in one of his MSS., there occurs this sentence:  “As I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell.  Oh, how I wished that I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear; or that I had a frame like iron, that I might visit every one, and say, ‘Escape for thy life!’ Ah, sinners! you little know how I fear that you will lay the blame of your damnation at my door.”

He was never satisfied with his own attainments in holiness; he was ever ready to learn, and quick to apply, any suggestion that might tend to his greater usefulness.  About this period he used to sing a psalm or hymn every day after dinner.  It was often, “The Lord’s my shepherd,” etc.; or, “Oh may we stand before the Lamb!” etc.  Sometimes it was that hymn, Oh for a closer walk with God! and sometimes the psalm, “Oh that I like a dove had wings!” etc.  A friend said of him.  “I have sometimes compared him to the silver and graceful ash, with its pensile branches, and leaves of gentle green, reflecting gleams of happy sunshine.  The fall of its leaf, too, is like the fall of his,—­it is green to-night and gone to-morrow, it does not sere nor wither.”

An experienced servant of God has said, that, while popularity is a snare that few are not caught by, a more subtle and dangerous snare is to be famed for holiness.  The fame of being a godly man is as great a snare as the fame of being learned or eloquent.  It is possible to attend with scrupulous anxiety even to secret habits of devotion, in order to get a name for holiness.[20] If any were exposed to this snare in his day, Mr. M’Cheyne was the person.  Yet nothing is more certain than that, to the very last, he was ever discovering, and successfully resisting, the deceitful tendencies of his own heart and a tempting devil.  Two things he seems never to have ceased from,—­the cultivation of personal holiness, and the most anxious efforts to save souls.

[20] How true, yet awful, is the language of Dr Owen (quoted in Bridges’ Christian Ministry, p. 168), “He that would go down to the pit in peace, let him obtain a great repute for religion; let him preach and labour to make other better than he is himself, and in the meantime neglect to humble his heart, to walk with God in manifest holiness and usefulness, and he will not fail of his end.”

About this time he wrote down, for his own use, an examination into things that ought to be amended and changed.  I subjoin it entire.  How singularly close and impartial are these researches into his soul!  How acute is he in discovering his variations from the holy law of God!  Oh that we all were taught by the same spirit thus to try our reins!  It is only when we are thus thoroughly experiencing our helplessness, and discovering the thousand forms of indwelling sin, that we really sit as disciples at Christ’s feet, and gladly receive Him as all in all!  And at each such moment we feel in the spirit of Ignatius, “[Greek:  Nyn gar archen echo tou matheteuesthai]”—­“It is only now that I begin to be a disciple.”