268 HUGH MILLER 



Meanwhile an important change had taken place 

 in his condition of life. During the year 1834, after 

 having worked for fifteen years in his calling of stone- 

 mason, he was offered the accountantship of the 

 Commercial Bank agency to be opened at Cromarty. 

 This offer, which came to him unasked and unex- 

 pected, was a gratifying mark of the esteem and 

 confidence with which his character was regarded. 

 He accepted it, not without some diffidence as to his 

 competence for the duties required. It would, how- 

 ever, retain him in his native town, enable him to 

 marry the accomplished girl to whom he had for 

 years been attached, and afford him opportunity to 

 prosecute the researches in the Old Red Sandstone 

 of which he had now come to realise the importance. 

 It likewise provided him with leisure to prepare con- 

 tributions to different periodicals, which, though of 

 no great consequence to his reputation, were of service 

 in adding to an income narrow enough for the support 

 of a wife and family. These writings had this further 

 advantage, that they gave him a readier command of 

 the pen, and accustomed him to deal with lighter as 

 well as graver subjects of discussion, thus furnishing 

 a useful training for what was ultimately to be the 

 main business of his later life. 



At this time ecclesiastical questions occupied public 

 attention in Scotland to the exclusion of almost every- 

 thing else. The Church was entering on that stormy 

 period which culminated in the great Disruption of 

 1843. Hugh Miller, who was at once an earnest 

 Christian and a devoted son of the Church, watched 

 the march of events with the deepest sympathy. As a 



