1862.] 13 [Dunglison. 



Patterson, read before this Society, that imagination could conceive 

 or reality picture. 



In these meetings none participated with more genuine and proper 

 abandon than Dr. Bethune, and much of their geniality and instruc- 

 tiveness were ascribable to his beaming cordiality and richly stored 

 intellect. 



Amongst the earliest productions of his prolific pen, after his re- 

 moval to Philadelphia, were those comprised in two volumes, which 

 contain, in the language of one already cited, who well knew their 

 value, " delightful, practical works, which will perpetuate his use- 

 fulness along with the best devotional writers of the century." 

 " They exhibit," says Dr. Taylor, " to every reader some of the most 

 remarkable traits of the public ministry of Dr. Bethune, embracing 

 every variety of subject matter and style, from the most simple and 

 severely Scriptural declarations of his ' Guide for the Inquiring,' 

 through the gentle pages in which he deals with the bruised hearts 

 of bereaved parents; and from the calm beauties and exquisite de- 

 lineations of the ' Fruit of the Spirit,' up to the magnificent periods 

 and resounding eloquence of his best pulpit efforts." 



These volumes were respectively entitled: ''The Fruit of the 

 Spirit;" "The History of a Penitent, a Guide for the Inquiring;" 

 and "Early Lost, Early Saved." 



In the year 1846, Dr. Bethune published a volume of " Sermons," 

 in accordance, as he remarks, with " the wishes of some friends," 

 and " a selection made out of the discourses preached by him 

 from his own pulpit, with some regard to variety, but principally to 

 the practical character of their subjects." He modestly adds : " The 

 prospect of their being widely read, when there are so many better 

 books, is small; yet the attempt to serve the cause of our beloved 

 Master is pleasant, and if He smiles upon it, it will be successful, 

 not in the proportion of our talent but of His grace." 



In 1847 he edited a new issue of a work of a very different char- 

 acter, which was undertaken as a pleasing relaxation from his se- 

 verer studies, and executed at intervals, as he said, when others 

 might have idled away their time. This was the " Complete 

 Angler" of Isaac Walton, and the "Instructions" of Charles Cotton, 

 with copious notes, for the most part original ; a bibliographical pre- 

 face, giving an account of fishing and fishing-books from the earliest 

 antiquity to the time of Walton, and a notice of Cotton and his 

 writings ; to which he added " an appendix, including illustrative 



