258 HUGH MILLER 



tured to question one of the passing townsmen, he 

 would be told promptly and with no little pride 

 ' That is Hugh Miller.' No further description or 

 explanation would be deemed necessary, for the name 

 had not only grown to be a household word in Edin- 

 burgh and over the whole of Scotland, but had now 

 become familiar wherever the English language was 

 spoken, even to the furthest western wilds of Canada 

 and the United States. 



A hundred years have passed since this notable man 

 was born, and nearly half that interval has elapsed 

 since he was laid in the grave. The hand of time, 

 that resistlessly winnows the wheat from the chaff of 

 human achievement, has been quietly shaping what will 

 remain as the permanent sum of his work and in- 

 fluence. The temporary and transitory events in his 

 career have already, in large measure, receded into the 

 background. The minor contests in which, from his 

 official position, he was so often forced to engage are 

 mostly forgotten ; the greater battles that he fought 

 and won are remembered rather for their broad and 

 brilliant results than for the crowded incidents that 

 gave them such vivid interest at the time. His con- 

 temporaries who still survive him — every year a sadly 

 diminishing number — can look back across the half 

 century and mark how the active and strenuous nature 

 whose memory they so fondly cherish, now 



' Orbs into the perfect star 

 We saw not when we moved therein.' 



A juster estimate can doubtless be formed to-day of 

 what we owe to him than was possible in his life-time. 



