EARLY LIFE. 25 



given sometimes word for word without becoming 

 actual prose, as 



" Vive vale. Si quid novisti rectius istis, 



Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecum." * 



Live long, farewell : if better rules you see, 

 Candid impart ; if not, use these with me : 



which, literal as it is, cannot be reckoned more pro- 

 saic than the Latin. 



I have often heard the great historian preach, and 

 though very young at the time, was struck with the 

 excellence and the usefulness of his discourses. His 

 notions of practical moderation, and the wish to avoid 

 the fanaticism of the High Church party (what with 

 us would be called the Low Church, or Evangelical), 

 led him generally to prefer moral to theological or 

 Gospel subjects. Yet he mingled also three themes 

 essential to the duties of a Christian pastor. He loved 

 to dwell on the goodness of the Deity, as shown forth 

 not only in the monuments of creation, but the work 

 of love in the redemption of mankind. He delighted 

 to expatiate on the fate of man in a future state of 

 being, and to contrast the darkness of the views which 

 the wisest of the heathens had with the perfect light 

 of the new dispensation. He oftentimes would ex- 

 pound the Scriptures, taking, as is the usage of the 

 Kirk, a portion of some chapter for the subject of 

 what is called Lecture, as contradistinguished from 

 Sermon ; and in these discourses the richness of his 

 learning, the remarkable clearness of his explanation, 

 the felicity of his illustration, shone forth, as well as 



* Hor. Ep., I. vi. 



