DR M'COStfS RECOLLECTIONS. 449 



questions at issue, had his spirit aroused as by a trumpet 

 clang by the powerful appeal made to him, and he 

 paused in the midst of writing his sermon on the 

 Saturday to read the leading article. The day labourer 

 or weaver could not afford to take the paper, but he 

 was grateful when some one, minister or elder, lent it 

 to him. The literary men in our Universities had, as a 

 whole, a deep suspicion of the movement, and did not 

 like to be thought readers of the stone-mason's paper, 

 but were glad when they could get furtive glances at it, 

 and were obliged to acknowledge its literary superiority. 

 Erom a very early date Hugh Miller's name became a 

 household one in the best families of Scotland. The 

 common people never called him Mr Miller they 

 would no more have done this than they would have 

 called Robert Burns by the name of Mr Burns ; they 

 identified themselves with him and identified him with 

 themselves by calling him Hugh Miller. They felt as 

 if he still carried his chisel and his hammer, and as if 

 he were now forming and fashioning, by firm and manly 

 stroke, a nobler edifice than ever his mason's tools had 

 constructed. I was in circumstances to know the feel- 

 ing of Scotland at the time, and I am convinced that 

 the old national cause which was defeated in 1843, but 

 which gained the victory in its defeat as, with rever- 

 ence be it spoken, the cause of Christ did when He was 

 crucified was indebted, among the great mass of the 

 people, to Hugh Miller as much as to any other man. 



' I read his paper from the first, but shy as I have 

 ever been to court the great men whom I admired, I 

 was not personally acquainted with him till 1850. That 

 year I published my first work, The Method of Divine 

 Government. I had made up my mind to meet failure 

 as well as success ; and I believe that if the work had 



VOL. ii. 29 



