THE REV. MR STEWART. 157 



live for a few years longer, I shall be a Whig when the 

 major may have become a Tory again.' 



The victory clearly remained with . Miller and the 

 clerical and magisterial respectabilities of Cromarty. 

 His friendship with the Rev. Mr Stewart had now be- 

 come close and confidential. Stewart was no writing 

 man. Wholly devoid of ambition, shrinking with the 

 fastidiousness of an intellectual recluse from celebrity on 

 the one hand and from sustained effort on the other, he 

 permitted his fine intellect to work in its own way and 

 at its own time. On one subject he was deeply in earn- 

 est, and on one only the subject of religion. When 

 he spoke to his people from the pulpit every energy of 

 his soul was roused, and the intense, penetrating, subtle 

 spell of his genius enthralled the hearer. I heard him 

 preach once in my boyhood, and no second time ; but 

 the memory of that one sermon will never fade from my 

 mind. His manner was in marked contrast to that 

 which has commonly prevailed among fervid Highland 

 preachers, to that, for example, of Dr MacDonald of 

 Ferintosh. There was little action, no ejaculation ; the 

 fire rose from deep inner fountains, not in a lava torrent, 

 but in keen, concentrated, high-mounting jets of flame. 

 He was an evangelical of the old school in his theology, 

 and it was by a curious combination of qualities that 

 sermons theologically as old as the Shorter Catechism 

 were imbued by him with a true originality. He was 

 biblical, textual, in the highest degree, resting on the 

 infallible inspiration of the ipsissima verb a of Scripture ; 

 but his imagination was so vigorous, his inventive faculty 

 so quick and fresh and fertile, that the words of Scrip- 

 ture suggested to him what would have occurred to no 

 other man. The subject on which I heard him preach 



