444 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



1 Cromarty, 15th July, St Swithin's day (mingled sunshine 

 and shadow, with showers in the distance), 1854. 



' I fear I must have sadly misled you by what I 



said regarding " trying to lend a score of pounds or 



so." From your remark I infer that you think that he 

 wished to borrow. No such thing. I have, since I wrote 

 you, offered him the use of the sum proposed, and he 

 has point-blank refused receiving it. Trusting to be 

 able to work himself out of his present difficulties, he 

 believes that the spur of necessity might come to be 

 very considerably blunted were I his creditor, and so he 

 chooses rather for the present to be indebted to others. 

 We must riot give things wrong names. There is not 

 only honesty but high honour in such a determination ; 



nay, Christian principle of a considerably more genuine 

 kind than that which leads so many vain Christians of 

 the common type to come under unnecessary obligation 

 to their neighbours. Possessed of the necessaries of 

 life, they become beggars for the sake of its gentilities ; 



beggars for the sake of unexceptionable bonnets, and 

 supernumerary frills, and the ability of playing Italian 

 music on the piano ; and fashionable saints charitably 

 minister to their fashionable wants by enabling them in 

 pure charity to enjoy " the vanities of life." Depend on't 

 there is an abyss of humbug in this direction.' 



Some years previously to the period at which we 

 have now arrived, he received a letter from certain 

 students of Marischal College and University, Aberdeen, 

 asking him to permit himself to be nominated as can- 

 didate for the Lord Rectorship. Here is his reply. 



' I am deeply sensible of the great honour you do me 

 in entertaining the purpose you intimate of proposing me 

 as a candidate for the Lord Rectorship of Marischal 

 College and University. In present circumstances, how- 



