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Footnotes
[1] He says of him on another occasion, June 8, 1834: "A man greatly beloved of whom the world was not worthy." "An apostolic man." His own calm deep holiness, resembled in many respects Mr. Martin's daily walk.
[2] Son of the minister of Drumelzier,—very promising and very amiable.
[3] It is worthy of notice how often the Lord has done much work by a few years of holy labor. In our Church, G. Gillespie and J. Durham died at thirty-six; Hugh Binning at twenty-six; Andrew Gray when scarcely at twenty-two. Of our witnesses, Patrick Hamilton was cut off at twenty-four, and Hugh M'Kail at twenty-six. In other churches we might mention many, such as John Janeway at twenty-three, David Brainerd at thirty, and Henry Martyn at thirty-two. Theirs was a short life, filled up with usefulness, and crowned with glory. Oh to be as they!
[4] The members of this Society were—Rev. William Laughton, now Minister of St Thomas's, Greenock, in connection with the Free Church; Thomas Brown, Free Church, Kinneff; William Wilson, Free Church, Carmyllie; Horatius Bonar, Free Church, Kelso; Andrew A. Bonar, Free Church, Collace; Robert M. M'Cheyne; Alexander Somerville, Free Church, Anderston, Glasgow; John Thomson, Mariners' Free Church, Leith; Robert K. Hamilton, Madras; John Burne, for some time at Madeira; Patrick Borrowman, Free Church, Glencairn; Walter Wood, Free Church, Westruther; Henry Moncrieff, Free Church, Kilbride; James Cochrane, Established Church, Cupar; John Miller, Secretary to Free Church Special Commission; G. Smeaton, Free Church, Auchterarder; Robert Kinnear, Free Church, Moffat; and W.B. Clarke, Free Church, Half-Morton. Every meeting was opened and closed with prayer. Minutes of the discussions were kept; and the essays read were preserved in volumes. A very characteristic essay of Mr. M'Cheyne's is "Lebanon and its Scenery" (inserted in the Remains), wherein he adduces the evidence of travellers for facts and customs which he himself was afterwards to see. Often, in 1839, pleasant remembrances of these days of youthful study were suggested by what we actually witnessed; and in the essay referred to I find an interesting coincidence. He writes: "What a refreshing sight to his eye, yet undimmed with age, after resting forty years on the monotonous scenery of the desert, now to rest on Zion's olive-clad hills, and Lebanon, with its vine-clad base and overhanging forests, and towering peaks of snow!" This was the very impression on our minds when we ourselves came up from the wilderness as expressed in the Narrative, chap. 2—"May 29. Next morning we saw at a distance a range of hills, running north and south, called by the Arabs Djebel Khalie. After wandering so many days in the wilderness, with its vast monotonous plains of level sand, the sight of these distant mountains was a pleasant relief to the eye; and we thought we could understand a little of the feeling with which Moses, after being forty years in the desert, would pray, 'I pray Thee let me go over,'" Deut. 3:25.
[5] He here refers to the Full and Candid Acknowledgment of Sin, for Students and Ministers, drawn up by the Commission of Assembly in 1651, and often reprinted since.
[6] See this characteristic sermon in the Remains.
[7] The Acceptable Year of the Lord was one of these Anniversary Sermons, preached November 1840.
[8] Compare Zechariah 4:12 with John 15:5.
[9] Baxter (Reformed Pastor) says, "I dare prognosticate from knowledge of the nature of true grace, that all godly ministers will make conscience of this duty, and address themselves to it, unless they be, by some extraordinary accident, disabled."
[10] The first text he gave to be thus hidden in the heart was Isaiah 34:15; Until the Spirit be poured out from on high."
[11] "Gration est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus."
[12] Baxter's words are not less than the truth: "Recreation to a minister must be as whetting is with the mower, that is, only to be used so far as is necessary for his work. May a physician in the plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death?" "Will you stand by and see sinners grasping under the pangs of death, and say, God doth not require me to make myself a drudge to save them? Is this the voice of ministerial or Christian compassion, or rather of sensual laziness and diabolical cruelty?"—Ref. Past. 6:6
[13] Εγω μεν δη κατανοων του ανδρος την τε σοφιαν και την γενναιοτητα, ουτε μη μεμνησθαι δυναμαι αυτου, ουτε μεμνημενος μη ουκ επαινειν. Ει δε τις των αρετης εφιεμενων ωφελιμωτερω τινι Σωκρατους συνεγενετο εκεινον εγω τον ανδρα αξιομακαριστοτατον νομιζω.
[14] It is a somewhat curious occurrence, that the remnants of this Bible were found and drawn up from the bottom of the well, in July 1843, by Dr. Wilson and his fellow-traveller, who employed a Samaritan from Sychar to descend and examine the well.
[15] He alludes here to the decision of the House of Lords in the Auchterarder case.
[16] Mr Burns was at that time in Perth, and there had begun to be some movement among the dry bones.
[17] Reformed Pastor, 4:2.
[18] See the Remains, for some of that day's solemn words.
[19] He afterwards preached the same subject with equal impressiveness in the Meadows at Dundee. It was in the open air and the rain fell heavy, yet the dense crowd stood still to the last.
[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."