The truth took a powerful hold of his mind at the period of his conversion, more than forty years ago, and, from the first to the last, it exerted a strong controlling influence over his life and ministry.

So strong was the grasp with which, through grace, he held the blessed gospel of the grace of God, that he knew almost nothing, by experience, of the difficulties and the doubts which often brood over and distress the minds of many Christians. The finished work of the Saviour, the perfect righteousness of the Son of God imputed to the believer through faith, was so clearly apprehended and so tenaciously held as the sole ground of his hope before God, that for the greater part of his career he enjoyed the rare felicity of almost uninterrupted peace and joy in believing. Sometime ago he told myself that he had not had a doubt for thirty years!

The plan of mercy was so distinctly realised by him as laying a firm foundation of hope for the worst of sinners, that his public teaching, uniformly, and in every discourse, presented to the hearer a perfectly luminous view of the way of salvation. Paul's determination to "make known nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified," was his also.

He possessed an admirable capacity of clearing away all the rubbish of selfrighteousness gathering about the only foundation, and of setting it forth in all its divine simplicity and preciousness

auditor might be disposed or not to embrace it, it was impossible for him to leave without a vivid development flashing on his understanding of what a man must do to be saved.

The preacher ferreted out and laid bare the sinner's refuges of lies, detected and exposed the fallacy of his vain hopes, and hedged him up to the sole method of justification by Christ, and either to accept it or perish. The trumpet of the watchman never gave an uncertain sound. It might not always delight the ear with the soft melody of its note, but it did what was infinitely better, it alarmed by its welltimed blast, which bade the sinner flee refuge to the hope set before him; it called the Christian soldier to watch at the point of danger, while it announced to the enemy the reconciling message of the great King.

He was a stout defender of the doctrine of grace. The sovereign purpose of God and the responsibility of man; the sufficiency of the atonement for the "whole world," and its efficiency to "all whom the Father has given to the Son;" the free and unfettered invitation of the gospel to every creature, yet the certainty that no rebel heart will welcome it unless specially wrought upon by the omnipotent Spirit; the holiness of the truth and the final perseverance of all who do truly receive it, and the eternal salvation or damnation of all who believe or reject the message of mercy-these, with their cognate doctrines, were, week after week, and year after year, taught among you with a diligence and a zeal which no discour

and constancy which nothing could arrest but that which lays an interdict on all human effort-mortal sickness.

Our departed friend endured hardness as a good soldier of Christ, in diffusing the gospel, as well as sustaining it, in his own locality. For many years he occasionally undertook long journeys on foot into the destitute parts of our native land, under the auspices of the "Congregational Union of Scotland," with which he then stood connected. Laborious were these efforts, and ill requited in many instances; while, from the field of action he would return thoroughly exhausted in his physical powers, nor can it be doubted that these extra services tended in no inconsiderable degree to impair his strength. Yet his delight in the work of home missions was such, that while he had opportunity, nothing could prevent him from girding himself, and setting forward with an ardour of soul which plainly told the danger to which perishing souls were exposed in his estimation, and his own interest in their recovery.

His attention to the interests of his own church, and to all its members, young and old, rich and poor, without distinction or discrimination, is too well known to you to require remark. He had no idea of being, what too many are now-a-days, a mere preaching pastor. No, he was the shepherd of the flock; visiting from house to house in times of trouble, and sickness, and death; he was the friend of all, the counseller in difficulty, the brother in adversity, whose exhortations and prayers brought balm to the troubled spirit, and courage to the fainting heart. Nay, he carried his benevolent sympathies far beyond the bounds of his own congregation; the houses of the inhabitants of all persuasions, and the prison house itself, were all visited as occasion offered:

was which so endeared him to the community, that they could not let him depart on his last journey till they had evinced their high sense of his character by the presentation of a rich memorial of their esteem and love.

So steadfastly consistent was our beloved brother throughout the course of his protracted ministry, which extended to nearly forty years in this same charge, that, with but one exception, he closed his labours among you the exponent of the very same doctrines with which he set out.

The exception I refer to was the change his mind underwent some fifteen years ago on the ordinance of baptism. I take notice of it now as affording an unequivocal proof of the sincerity and integrity of his character, inasmuch as the step he was required to take in following out his convictions of duty to God, was in the face of temporal sacrifice and trial-the trial of separating from a Christian connexion to which he was warmly attached, and the sacrifice of his interest in the provision it secured to the widow and orphans of its deceased ministers.

It is true the church would not even then part with his services. Much to your honour you invited him to continue the pastoral relation among you; but this was more than he expected, the stand he took for what he regarded as an important part of divine truth was therefore taken in the full view of ejectment from his charge, and the widows' fund as well. Under such circumstances, even such as may not sympathize with his change, cannot fail to admire the moral honesty of his character.

On a review of that eventful period of your history, I feel assured that neither party had cause of regret; nay, rather, you have experienced the blessedness of entertaining larger and more

by the pressure of his bodily malady; all that he could do, grace enabling, was to "hold fast the faith," and that he did to the last moment.

Expressing his unwavering confidence in the truth of the gospel he had so long and so faithfully preached, he fell asleep in the sure and certain hope of a resur

It were superfluous to say, after this, that Mr. Aikenhead lived among you embodying the religion he taught. No, I might appeal to the whole locality whether he either made an enemy or left one behind him. It was his mercy and of God's free grace, that he was enabled to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour as a private Christian as well as a public teacher.

His last days, as you know, have been days of bitterness. Nearly three years has the servant of the Lord been the subject of protracted suffering. I know not if in all that time he has had one night of perfect ease. The nature of a man's affliction often determines the character of his religious experience. In some kinds of disease the animal spirits remain entire; nay, even light and buoyant; in others they are so depressed by physical and organic changes, that the holiest mind is unable to rise through the superincumbent load of trouble to taste the cup of pleasure; consequently dulness and apparent apathy ofttimes seizes the sufferer. Much of this fell to the lot of our brother. Biliary derangement, combined with acute rheumatism and paralytic affections, so preyed on his naturally lively mind, as in the end fairly to wrench what we call spirit out of him. The scintillations of native wit, which were wont to sparkle through his conversation, were all extinguished

welcome the rest on glory's shore after so boisterous a passage thither.

Our deceased brother was among the last of a class of ministers such as I fear we are not likely soon to see again. Dr. Russel, Mr. Knowles, and Mr. Aikenhead, who were at one time closely knit together, have followed each other in rapid succession to their reward, but alas how few of their standing and character remain! The race of teachers now being raised up we honour as persons, it may be, of profounder acquirements in general literature, but the men whose retirement from the stage we deplore cannot be surpassed in bible lore. Like Apollos, they were "mighty in the scriptures." With less of elegance in their compositions and polish in their periods, they yet brought up great masses of ore from the mine which they wrought out, not into wire work or gold leaf, but "durable riches," which enriched those who waited on their ministry. Their word was with power, for it was the echo of the word of God himself, and through his Spirit was mighty in pulling down strongholds.

The Lord God send us hosts of such men, whose "quiver is filled with those, we shall not be ashamed, but speak with the enemies in the gate."

But it is time to turn to you who have long sat under the deceased minister's instructions, and to ask, what have you made of all your rare advantages? Are there none among you who have been hardened into sermon proof, under the oft-repeated action of the

hammer? None of you who have steeled your guilty hearts against the warnings, the overtures, and beseechments with which for years you have been plied? If there are, say, how shall you appear in judgment? and how can you endure to be confronted with your faithful pastor? Must he stand forth to say, when your true character is disclosed, "Lord, and this is the man into whose ear were poured the notes of the goodly song, and whom I sought, by the terrors of the Lord, and by every kind and winning method as well, to withdraw and to alienate from his carnal society, his vices, and his crimes, to Thee, to happiness, and to heaven, but without success; he would not be moved by ever so little from his refuges of lies; and now I stand here to witness this is the very man, and this the manner he trifled with thy message, or turned away from the mercy I had to offer in thy name?" We say, is there any poor soul whose conscience here upbraids him on this score? If so, his case is deplorable indeed-all but hopeless.

Your teacher has gone before to judg ment, and you are coming up with incredible rapidity. Oh, if you would not have the man of God stand forth against you, do hear him yet again from his tomb, for, "being dead, he yet speaketh;" do, do let the voice of the pulpit, the death-bed, and the grace of such a messenger, once more peal in your guilty ear, interpreted by lips which the silence of the grave will, in turn, speedily seal up also: "Behold, now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation.” "Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save the chief of sinners." "Look unto me, and be saved." "Believe, and live ye!"

house of Israel?"

Oh, let not the sainted minister meet you in the haggard and wobegone form of a lost soul, but as a trophy of vic torious grace won to the Saviour through the sanctified reminiscences of his earnest ministry in this place. May many of you be his joy and crown in that day!

THE language of the law is, "Do this and thou shalt live: cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them." This law is holy, just, and good; its author is good and gracious also. Judgment is his strange work, and mercy is his delight. But his law, to be of force with men, has and must have penalties attached to it, and these penalties must be such as are calculated to influence men, and must be enforced when the law is broken. Many, therefore, may perish. Multitudes not heeding the divine law may incur the Lord's

displeasure, and be for ever cast out from his presence. But it may, nevertheless, be true that God has no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn from his way and live.

The object of the writer of this paper is to bring forward reasons for believing this, which may, under the divine blessing, induce the reader to repent and seek mercy through Jesus Christ.

The first thing I would observe is, that God when speaking to the effect above stated has confirmed his word by