336 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XT. 



resolved, in God's strength, to speak from my heart to 

 theirs, in the name of Christ, and it pleased the blessed 

 Spirit to give me some utterance for them. I am to pre- 

 side next week at a very different meeting, viz., one of the 

 Burns Centenary meetings. I was asked to take part in 

 two, which I declined. I agreed to become a steward at 

 the Music Hall, as the quietest way of escaping ; but a week 

 ago the Trades' Delegates came to me as Industrial Pro- 

 fessor, to take the chair at their meeting in Queen Street 

 Hall, and I agreed, provided the Music Hall people would 

 let me off. This they reluctantly did. I shall be criticised 

 and condemned by certain religious people for this step, 

 but my conscience approves it. The duty has come in 

 a fourfold way to me. I think it is quite possible to com- 

 memorate the birthday of Burns without being guilty of 

 idolatry, or partaking in his sins. I think, moreover, that 

 I may give the meeting a bias in a direction no Christian 

 will lament, and which another might not do. I have made 

 it matter of solemn consideration, and I hope your prayers 

 for me will not be wanting." Of this meeting he says to 

 his brother, " I believe I may honestly say that, as a con- 

 tinuous success, it was the best meeting in Edinburgh. The 

 only shadow of mishap was occasioned by an ill-timed 

 allusion. . . . Otherwise a more decorous, cheerful, hearty 

 meeting, I never was at, and the old man Glover (a gauger, 

 and now a centenarian), who appeared at it, was a wonder 

 himself. The scene between him and me for to me he 

 addressed all his remarks was described by those who 

 were onlookers as amusing in the highest degree. He 

 asked me, among other things, if I ' kent what a clachan 

 was ; ' and after dating some event by the year of the great 

 storm, suggested interrogatively, ' But that wad be afore 

 your time? ' I asked the year : 1795 ! ' The quiejt manner 



