49^ JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



of modern society ? Let us be thankful of this new proot 

 that such beautiful love can and does still exist. 



Of Duncan's deep and earnest religiousness of nature, 

 we have already had abundant proof. It was an abiding 

 .and essential element in his life, all the truer that it was 

 too holy to be talked about in rude, every- day speech, 

 though expressed in silent action. Sombre and puritanic, 

 .and in some respects stern, uncompromising and Covenant- 

 ing in its character, as his training, early influences and 

 natural earnestness made it, his religion was a living, 

 regulating power and a vigorous element of strength in his 

 solitary homeless life with its hidden sorrows, and had 

 proved a stable support and the source of strong and 

 energising moral power and dignity. 



All the clergymen who knew John bear the same 

 strong testimony to his sincere and abiding devoutness. 

 The opinion of the Rev. David A. Beattie, his first pastor 

 at Cushnie Free Church, is that of all the rest, though less 

 decided than others. " He was," he says, " a regular 

 attendant on the ministry, and always in his place when 

 weather permitted. His attentive and reverend appearance 

 as a worshipper in the house of prayer is still vividly 

 present to me. His full countenance and placid eye are 

 like a picture before my mind. I found, when visiting him, 

 that he was always ready to listen to divine things, and 

 would add a remark or two of his own which showed that 

 he had a manifest personal experience of the power of the 

 gospel in his own breast. I don't know when the incor- 

 ruptible seed of grace was dropped in his heart, but it 

 seemed to be there, and during my acquaintance with him, 

 it appeared to spring and grow up and show fruit in a 



