to St. David’s, and Mr. Miller to Wallacetown at a later period, are all noticed by him with expressions of thankfulness and joy; and it occasioned the same feelings if he heard of the destitution of any parish in any part of the country supplied.  He writes, Sept. 20, 1838:  “Present at A.B.’s ordination at Collace with great joy.  Blessed be God for the gift of this pastor.  Give testimony to the word of thy grace.”

Busy at home, he nevertheless always had a keenly evangelistic spirit.  He might have written much and have gained a name by his writings; but he laid everything aside when put in comparison with preaching the everlasting gospel.  He scarcely ever refused an invitation to preach on a week-day; and travelling from place to place did not interrupt his fellowship with God.  His occasional visits during these years were much blessed.  At Blairgowrie and Collace his visits were longed for as times of special refreshment; nor was it less so at Kirriemuir, when he visited Mr. Cormick, or at Abernyte in the days when Mr. Hamilton (now of Regent Square, London), and afterwards Mr. Manson, were laboring in that vineyard.  It would be difficult even to enumerate the places which he watered at Communion seasons; and in some of these it was testified of him, that not the words he spoke, but the holy manner in which he spoke, was the chief means of arresting souls.

Occasionally two or three of us, whose lot was cast within convenient distance, and whose souls panted for the same water-brooks, used to meet together to spend a whole day in confession of ministerial and personal sins, with prayer for grace, guiding ourselves by the reading of the word.  At such times we used to meet in the evening with the flock of the pastor in whose house the meeting had been held through the day, and there unitedly pray for the Holy Spirit being poured down upon the people.  The first time we held such a meeting, there were tokens of blessing observed by several of us; and the week after he wrote:  “Has there been any fruit of the happy day we spent with you?  I thought I saw some the Sabbath after, here.  In due season we shall reap if we faint not; only be thou strong, and of a good courage.”  The incident that encouraged him is recorded in his diary.  An elderly person came to tell him how the river of joy and peace in believing had that Sabbath most singularly flowed through her soul, so that she blessed God that she ever came to St. Peter’s.  He adds “N.B.—­This seems a fruit of our prayer-meeting, begun last Wednesday at Collace,—­one drop of the shower.”

It should have been remarked ere now, that during all his ministry he was careful to use not only the direct means appointed for the conversion of souls, but those also that appear more indirect, such as the key of discipline.  In regard to the Lord’s Supper, his little tract explains his views.  He believed that to keep back those whose profession was a credible profession, even while the pastor might have strong doubts as to their fitness in his own mind, was not the rule laid down for us in the New Testament.  At the same time, he as steadily maintained that no unconverted person ought to come to the Lord’s Table; and on this point “they should judge themselves if they would not be judged.”