HUGH MILLEK. 



135 



Miller. Miller himself was never a ready leader-writer ; but, 

 as Dr. Chalmers remarked, ' when he did go off, he was a great 

 gun, and the reverberation of his shot was long audible; but he 

 required a deal of time to load.' His biographer. Dr. Peter 

 Bayne, remarks regarding these leaders, that * he meditated 

 his articles as an author meditates his books, or a poet his 

 verses, conceiving them as wholes, working fully out their 

 trains of thought, enriching them with far-brought treasures 

 of fact, and adorning them with finished and apposite illus- 

 tration. ... As complete journalistic essays, symmetrical in 

 plan, finished in execution, and of sustained and splendid 

 ability, the articles of Hugh Miller are unrivalled.' He con- 

 ducted the newspaper, which was published twice a week, for 

 sixteen years, and is said to have written no fewer than a 

 thousand articles for its pages. There was a difference 

 between him and some of the eminent Free Church leaders 

 as to the style of conducting the Witness, which led to a 

 private quarrel, in which Miller triumphed. It, however, 

 made him shy of dealing with purely one-sided church affairs 

 ever afterwards. It left him in proud isolation, and with 

 little recognition from Free Church leaders, who were all the 

 while reaping the benefit of his advocacy of their cause. 



With reference to his powers of memory, Dr. Guthrie told 

 the following story : — ' We were sitting one day in Johnstone's 

 (the publisher's) back shop, when the conversation turned on 

 a discussion that had recently taken place in the Town 

 Council on some matters connected with our church affairs. 

 Miller said it reminded him of a discussion in Gait's novel 

 of The Provost, and thereupon proceeded, at great length, 

 to tell us what Provost this, and Bailie that, and Councillor 

 the other said on the matter; but when he reached the 



