A few days after leaving Dundee, he writes from Edinburgh, in reply to the anxious inquiries of his friend Mr. Grierson:  “The beating of the heart is not now so constant as it was before.  The pitcher draws more quietly at the cistern; so that, by the kind providence of our heavenly Father, I may be spared a little longer before the silver cord be loosed, and the golden bowl be broken.”

It was found that his complaints were such as would be likely to give way under careful treatment, and a temporary cessation from all exertion.  Under his father’s roof, therefore, in Edinburgh, he resigned himself to the will of his Father in heaven.  But deeply did he feel the trial of being laid aside from his loved employment, though he learned of Him who was meek and lowly, to make the burden light in his own way, by saying, “Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.”  He wrote to Mr. Grierson again, January 5, 1839:  “I hope this affliction will be blessed to me.  I always feel much need of God’s afflicting hand.  In the whirl of active labor there is so little time for watching, and for bewailing, and seeking grace to oppose the sins of our ministry, that I always feel it a blessed thing when the Saviour takes me aside from the crowd, as He took the blind man out of the town, and removes the veil, and clears away obscuring mists, and by his word and Spirit leads to deeper peace and a holier walk.  Ah! there is nothing like a calm look into the eternal world to teach us the emptiness of human praise, the sinfulness of self-seeking and vainglory, to teach us the preciousness of Christ, who is called ‘The Tried Stone.’  I have been able to be twice at college to hear a lecture from Dr. Chalmers.  I have also been privileged to smooth down the dying pillow of an old school-companion, leading him to a fuller joy and peace in believing.  A poor heavy-laden soul, too, from Larbert, I have had the joy of leading toward the Saviour.  So that even when absent from my work, and when exiled, as it were, God allows me to do some little things for his name.”

He was led to look more carefully into this trying dispensation, and began to anticipate blessed results from it to his flock.  He was well aware how easily the flock begin to idolize the shepherd, and how prone the shepherd is to feel somewhat pleased with this sinful partiality of his people, and to be uplifted by his success.  “I sometimes think,” is his remark in a letter, dated January 18, “that a great blessing may come to my people in my absence.  Often God does not bless us when we are in the midst of our labors, lest we shall say, ‘My hand and my eloquence have done it.’  He removes us into silence, and then pours ’down a blessing so that there is no room to receive it;’ so that all that see it cry out, ‘It is the Lord!’ This was the way in the South Sea Islands.  May it really be so with my dear people!” Nor did he err in this view of the dispensation.  All these ends, and more also, were to be accomplished by it.