Mr. Burns returned to Mr. M’Cheyne’s flock on August 8th,—­one of the days when Mr. M’Cheyne was stretched on his bed, praying for his people under all his own suffering.  The news of the work at Kilsyth had produced a deep impression in Dundee; and two days after, the Spirit began to work in St. Peter’s, at the time of the prayer-meeting in the church, in a way similar to Kilsyth.  Day after day the people met for prayer and hearing the word; and the times of the apostles seemed returned, when “the Lord added to the church daily of such as should be saved.”  All this time, Mr. M’Cheyne knew not how gracious the Lord had been in giving him his heart’s desire.  It was not till we were within sight of home that the glad news of these Revivals reached our ears.  But he continued, like Epaphras, “laboring fervently in prayer,” and sought daily to prepare himself for a more efficient discharge of his office, should the Lord restore him to it again.  He sends home this message to a fellow-laborer:  “Do not forget to carry on the work in hearts brought to a Saviour.  I feel this was one of my faults in the ministry.  Nourish babes; comfort downcast believers; counsel those perplexed; perfect that which is lacking in their faith.  Prepare them for sore trials.  I fear most Christians are quite unready for days of darkness.”—­(Mr. Moody Stuart.)

Our journey led us through Moldavia, Wallachia, and Austria,—­lands of darkness and of the shadow of death.  Profound strangers to the truth as it is in Jesus, the people of these lands, nevertheless, profess to be Christians.  Superstition and its idolatries veil the glorious object of faith from every eye.  In these regions, as well as in those already traversed.  Mr. M’Cheyne’s anxiety for souls appeared in the efforts he made to leave at least a few words of Scripture with the Jews whom we met, however short the time of our interview.  His spirit was stirred in him; and, with his Hebrew Bible in his hand, he would walk up thoughtfully and solemnly to the first Jew he could get access to, and begin by calling the man’s attention to some statement of God’s word.  In Palestine, if the Jew did not understand Italian, he would repeat to him such texts in Hebrew as, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David,” etc. (Zech. 13:1.) And one evening, at the well of Doulis, when the Arab population were all clustered round the water troughs, he looked on very wistfully, and said, “If only we had Arabic, we might sow beside all waters!”

At Jassy, after a deeply interesting day, spent in conversation with Jews who came to the inn, he said, “I will remember the faces of those men at the judgment-seat.”  When he came among the more educated Jews of Europe, he rejoiced to find that they could converse with him in Latin.  His heart was bent on doing what he could (Mark 14:8), in season and out of season.  “One thing,” he writes, “I am deeply convinced of, that God can make the simplest statement of the gospel effectual to save souls.  If only it be the true gospel, the good tidings, the message that God loved the world, and provided a ransom free to all, then God is able to make it wound the heart, and heal it too.  There is deep meaning in the words of Paul, ’I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.’”