wrote that hymn," They sing the song of Moses." His course was then about to begin; but now that it has ende d,we can look back and plainly see that the faith he therein expressed was not in vain.

CHAPTER II.

HIS LABORS IN THE VINEYARD BEFORE ORDINATION.

"He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."-PSA. cxxvi. 6.

WHILE he was still only undergoing a student's usual examination before the Presbytery, in the spring and summer of 1835, several applications were made to him by ministers in the church, who desired to secure his services for their part of the vineyard. He was especially urged to consider the field of labor at Larbert and Dunipace, near Stirling, under Mr. John Bonar, the pastor of these united parishes. This circumstance led him (as is often done in such cases) to ask the Presbytery of Edinburgh, under whose superintendence he had hitherto carried on his studies, to transfer the remainder of his public trials to another Presbytery, where there would be less press of business to occasion delay. This request being readily granted, his connection with Dumfriesshire led him to the Presbytery of Annan, who licensed him to preach the gospel on 1st July, 1835. His feelings at the moment appear from a record of his own in the evening of the day: "Preached three probationary discourses in Annan Church, and, after an examination in Hebrew, was solemnly licensed to preach the gospel by Mr. Monylaws, the Moderator. Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me be stirred up to praise and magnify his holy name! What I have so long desired as the highest honor of man, thou at length givest me-me who dare scarcely use the words of Paul, Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.' Felt somewhat solemnized, though unable to feel my unworthiness as I ought. Be clothed with humility." An event occurred the week before which cast a solemnizing influence on him, and on his after-fellow-traveller and brother in the gospel, who was licensed by another Presbytery that same day. This event was the lamented death of the Rev. John Brown Patterson, of Falkirk-one whom the Lord had gifted with preeminent eloquence and learning, and who was using all for his Lord, when cut off by fever. He had spoken much before his death of the awfulness of a pastor's charge, and his early death

sent home the lesson to many, with the warning that the pastor's account of souls might be suddenly required of him.

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On the following Sabbath Mr. M'Cheyne preached for the first time, in Ruthwell Church, near Dumfries, on "the Pool of Bethesda;" and in the afternoon, on "the Strait Gate." He writes that evening in his diary: Found it a more awfully solemn thing than I had imagined to announce Christ authoritatively; yet a glorious privilege!" The week after (Saturday, July 11), "Lord, put me into thy service when and where thou pleasest. In thy hand all my qualities will be put to their appropriate end. Let me, then, have no anxieties." Next day, also, after preaching in St. John's Church, Leith, "Remembered, before going into the pulpit, the confession which says* We have been more anxious about the messenger than the message." preaching that day, he states, "It came across me in the pulpit, that if spared to be a minister, I might enjoy sweet flashes of communion with God in that situation. The mind is entirely wrought up to speak for God. It is possible, then, that more vivid acts of faith may be gone through then, than in quieter and sleepier moments."

In

It was not till the 7th of November that he began his labors at Larbert. In the interval, he preached in various places, and many began to perceive the peculiar sweetness of the word in his lips. In accepting the invitation to labor in the sphere proposed, he wrote: "It has always been my aim, and it is my prayer, to have no plans with regard to myself-well assured as I am, that the place where the Saviour sees meet to place me, must ever be the best place for me."

The parish to which he had come was very large, containing six thousand souls. The parish Church is at Larbert; but through the exertions of Mr. Bonar, many years ago, a second church was erected for the people of Dunipace. Mr. Hanna, afterwards minister of Skirling, had preceded Mr. M'Cheyne in the duties of assistant in his field of labor; and Mr. M'Cheyne now entered on it with a fully devoted and zealous heart, although in a weak state of health. As assistant, it was his part to preach every alternate Sabbath at Larbert and Dunipace, and during the week to visit among the population of both these districts. according as he felt himself enabled in body and soul. There was a marked difference between the two districts in their general features of character; but equal labor was bestowed on both by the minister and his assistant; and often did their prayer ascend that the windows of heaven might be opened over the two sanctuaries. Souls have been saved there. Often, however, did the faithful pastor mingle his tears with those of his younger fellow-soldier, complaining,

* 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.

"Lord, who hath believed our report?" There was much sowing in faith; nor was this sowing abandoned even when the returns seemed most inadequate.

Mr. M'Cheyne had great delight in remembering that Larbert was one of the places where, in other days, that holy man of God, Robert Bruce, had labored and prayed. Writing at an after period from the Holy Land, he expressed the wish, "May the spirit be poured upon Larbert as in Bruce's days." But more than all associations, the souls of the people, whose salvation he longed for, were ever present to his mind. A letter to Mr. Bonar, in 1837, from Dundee, shows us his yearnings over them. "What an interest I feel in Larbert and Dunipace. It is like the land of my birth. Will the Sun of Righteousness ever rise upon it, making its hills and vallies bright with the light of the knowledge of Jesus!"

No sooner was he settled in his chamber here, than he commenced his work. With him, the commencement of all labor invariably consisted in the preparation of his own soul. The forerunner of each day's visitations was a calm season of private devotion during morning hours. The walls of his chamber were witnesses of his prayerfulness-I believe of his tears, as well as of his cries. The pleasant sound of psalms often issued from his room at an early hour. Then followed the reading of the Word for his own sanctification; and few have so fully realized the blessing of the first Psalm. His leaf did not wither, for his roots were in the waters. It was here, too, that he began to study so closely the works of Jonathan Edwards-reckoning them a mine to be wrought, and if wrought, sure to repay the toil. Along with this author, the Letters of Samuel Rutherford were often in his hand. Books of general knowledge he occasionally perused; but now it was done with the steady purpose of finding in them some illustration of spiritual truth. He rose from reading "Insect Architecture," with the observation, "God reigns in a community of ants and ichneumons, as visibly as among living men or mighty seraphim!"

His desire to grow in acquaintance with Scripture was very intense; and both Old and New Testament were his regular study. He loved to range over the wide revelation of God. "He would be a sorry student of this world," said he to a friend, "who should forever confine his gaze to the fruitful fields and well-watered gardens of this cultivated earth. He could have no true idea of what the world was, unless he had stood upon the rocks of our mountains and seen the bleak muirs and mosses of our barren land; unless he had paced the quarter-deck when the vessel was out of sight of land, and seen the waste of waters without any shore upon the horizon. Just so, he would be a sorry student of the Bible, who would not know all that God has inspired: who would not examine into the most barren chapters to

collect the good for which they were intended; who would not strive to understand all the bloody battles which are chronicled, that he might find 'bread out of the eater, and honey out of the lion.'"-(June, 1836.)

His anxiety to have every possible help to holiness led him to notice what are the disadvantages of those who are not daily stirred up by the fellowship of more advanced believers. "I have found, by some experience, that in the country here my watch. does not go so well as it used to do in town. By small and gradual changes I find it either gains or loses, and I am surprised to find myself different in time from all the world, and, what is worse, from the sun. The simple explanation is, that in town I met with a steeple in every street, and a good-going clock upon it; and so any aberrations in my watch were soon noticed and easily corrected. And just so I sometimes think it may be with that inner watch, whose hands point not to time but to eternity. By gradual and slow changes the wheels of my soul lag behind, or the springs of passions become too powerful; and I have no living time-piece with which I may compare, and by which I may amend my going. You will say that I may always have the sun: And so it should be; but we have many clouds which obscure the sun from our weak eyes."-(Letter to Rev. H. Bonar, Kelso.)

From the first he fed others by what he himself was feeding upon. His preaching was in a manner the development of his soul's experience. It was a giving out of the inward life. He loved to come up from the pastures wherein the Chief Shepherd had met him-to lead the flock entrusted to his care to the spots where he found nourishment.

In the field of his labor, he found enough of work to overwhelm the Spirit. The several collieries and the Carron Iron-works furnish a population who are, for the most part, either sunk in deep indifference to the truth, or are opposed to it in the spirit of infidelity. Mr. M'Cheyne at once saw that the pastor whom he had come to aid, whatever was the measure of his health, and zeal, and perseverance, had duties laid on him which were altogether beyond the power of man to overtake. When he made a few weeks' trial, the field appeared more boundless, and the mass of souls more impenetrable, than he had ever conceived.

It was probably, in some degree, his experience at this time that gave him such deep sympathy with the Church Extension Scheme, as a truly noble and Christian effort for bringing the glad tidings to the doors of a population who must otherwise remain neglected, and were themselves willing so to live and die. He conveyed his impressions on this subject to a friend abroad, in the following terms: There is a soul-destroying cruelty in the cold-hearted opposition which is made to the multiplication of ministers in such neglected and overgrown districts as these. If one of our Royal Commissioners would but consent to undergo the bodily fatigue

that a minister ought to undergo in visiting merely the sick and dying of Larbert, (let alone the visitation of the whole, and preparation for the pulpit,) and that for one month, I would engage that if he be able to rise out of his bed by the end of it, he would change his voice and manner at the Commission Board."

A few busy weeks passed over, occupied from morning to night in such cares and toils, when another part of the discipline he was to undergo was sent. In the end of December, strong oppression of the heart and an irritating cough caused some of his friends to fear that his lungs were affected; and for some weeks he was laid aside from public duty. On examination, it was found that though there was a dulness in the right lung, yet the material of the lungs was not affected. For a time, however, the air-vessels were so clogged and irritated, that if he had continued to preach, disease would have quickly ensued. But this also was soon removed, and, under cautious management, he resumed his work.

This temporary illness served to call forth the extreme sensitiveness of his soul to the responsibilities of his office. At its commencement-having gone to Edinburgh "in so sweet a sunshine morning that God seemed to have chosen it for him"-he wrote to Mr. Bonar-"If I am not recovered before the third Sabbath, I fear I shall not be able to bear upon my conscience the responsibility of leaving you any longer to labor alone, bearing unaided the burden of 6000 souls. No, my dear Sir, I must read the will of God aright in his providence, and give way, when he bids me, to fresh and abler workmen, I hope and pray that it may be his will to restore me again to you and your parish, with a heart tutored by sickness to speak more and more as dying to dying." Then, mentioning two of the sick-" Poor A. D. and C. H., I often think of them. I can do no more for their good, except pray for them. Tell them that I do this without ceasing."

The days when a holy pastor, who knows the blood-sprinkled way to the Father, is laid aside, are probably as much a proof of the kindness of God to his flock as days of health and activity. He is occupied, during this season of retirement, in discovering the plagues of his heart, and in going in, like Moses, to plead with God face to face for his flock, and for his own soul. Mr. M'Cheyne believed that God had this end in view with him; and that the Lord should thus deal with him at his entrance into the vineyard made him ponder these dealings the more. "Paul asked," says he, "What wilt thou have me to do?' and it was answered, I will show him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake.' Thus it may be with me. I have been too anxious to do great things. The lust of praise has ever been my besetting sin; and what more befitting school could be found for me than that of suffering alone, away from the eye and ear of