ROBERTSON. 269 



written and published before the appearance of the 

 ' Essai sur les Mceurs ;' though, as has been already 

 said,* detached portions of that work had appeared in 

 a Paris periodical work. 



As a preacher he was most successful. His lan- 

 guage, of course, was pure, his composition graceful, 

 his reasoning cogent, his manner impressive. He spoke 

 according to the custom of the Scottish Church, hav- 

 ing only notes to assist his memory. His notions of 

 usefulness, and his 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 monu- 

 ments of creation, but the work of love in the redemp- 

 tion 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 heathen 

 had, with the perfect light of the new dispensation. He 

 oftentimes would expound the Scriptures, taking, as is 

 the usage of the Kirk, a portion of some chapter for 

 the subject of what is called lecture as contradis- 

 tinguished 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 the cogency and elegance of his practical 

 application to our duties in life, the end and aim of all 

 his teaching. I have heard him repeatedly, occupying 

 as he did from 1759 to his death the pulpit of the Old 



* Life of Voltaire. 



