1844-54. STUDIES IN HEAVEN. 345 



will be keenly criticised, and better not written at all, than so 

 as to do no service to the cause of Christ. I have not the fear 

 of man before me, but I have the fear of my own unworthiness, 

 and a sense of responsibility often dispiriting." 



Many remonstrances were made to him as to the undesirable- 

 ness of giving the ' Life ' a religious cast, but he followed out 

 his own convictions of right as to this ; and looking back at the 

 close of his work, he says, " It was written with prayers and 

 tears, not to procure me fame or wealth, but to do good." 

 Though published 1 a year later than the ' Life of Cavendish,' 

 the two were on hand at the same time. The first named being 

 the volume issued for 1851 by the Cavendish Society, he was 

 compelled to finish it within a given time, and not until the 

 winter of 1851-1852 was he able to devote his scanty leisure 

 to the completion of Dr. Reid's Memoir. An extract from a 

 letter referring to the employments of heaven, will be read with 

 interest : " I exceedingly like the allusion to the continuation 

 of physiological studies in the world to come, which seems to 

 have been suggested by Dr. Carpenter, and welcomed by Dr. 

 Reid. Religious men of science too little refer to their studies 

 as not destined to cease with their lives. I do not know why 

 it has been left to Unitarians to insist on this, but so it is ; and 

 Dr. Priestley is the only chemist who has expressed his convic- 

 tion that the study of God's works will proceed under His 

 guidance in heaven. This has always been a favourite belief 

 with myself, and I rejoice to see that Dr. Reid looked forward 

 to prosecuting his acquaintance with the works he had begun to 

 study on this earth. I doubt not that he looked to heaven as a 

 place of holiness far more than as a temple of knowledge ; but 

 the spirits of the just, I cannot doubt, feel no such difficulty 

 in combining faith and reason, moral purity and intellectual 

 labour, as we do. A dying minister, quite ignorant of physical 

 science, said to a brother who made it a great study, ' Samuel, 

 Samuel ! I'll know more of it in heaven in half-an-hour than 

 you have learned all your life.' " 



For the wonderful story of Dr. Reid's gradual preparation for 



i ' Life of Dr. John Reid, late Chandos Professor of Anatomy and Medicine in 

 the University of St. Andrews.' Edinburgh : Sutherland and Knox. 1852. 



