466 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XI. 



at a very different meeting, viz., one of the Burns Centenary 

 meetings. I was asked to take part in two, which I declined. 

 I agreed to become a steward at the Music Hall, as the quietest 

 way of escaping ; but a week ago the Trades' Delegates came to 

 me as Industrial Professor, to take the chair at their meeting in 

 Queen Street Hall, and I agreed, provided the Music Hall people 

 would let me off. This they reluctantly did. I shall be criticised 

 and condemned by certain religious people for this step, but niy 

 conscience approves it. The duty has come in a fourfold way to 

 me. I think it is quite possible to commemorate the birthday 

 of Burns without being guilty of idolatry, or partaking in his 

 sins. I think, moreover, that I may give the meeting a bias in 

 a direction no Christian will lament, and which another might 

 not do. I have made it matter of solemn consideration, and I 

 hope your prayers for me will not be wanting." Of this meet- 

 ing he says to his brother, " I believe I may honestly say that, 

 as a continuous success, it was the best meeting in Edinburgh. 

 The only shadow of mishap was occasioned by an ill-timed al- 

 lusion. . . . Otherwise a more decorous, cheerful, hearty meet- 

 ing, I never was at, and the old man Glover (a gauger, and now 

 a centenarian), who appeared at it, was a wonder himself. The 

 scene between him and me for to me he addressed all his re- 

 marks was described by those who were onlookers as amusing 

 in the highest degree. He asked me, among other things, if I 

 ' kent what a clachan was ;' and after dating some event by the 

 year of the great storm, suggested interrogatively, ' But that wad 

 be afore your time ?' I asked the year : '1795!' The quiet man- 

 ner with which he told of his supplanting thievish carriers who 

 tapped the rum puncheons between Edinburgh and Dumfries, 

 and how ' nae bung started wi' him/ was great, especially when 

 he added, ' but I had a gimlet /' . . . I write this in bed, far on 

 in the night. Here we are all well." 



Of the students' devotional meeting spoken of in a previous 

 letter, a record remains in a few notes, apparently written in 

 haste, and of which only the closing head can be clearly made 

 out. It is as follows, and is suggestive enough : " V. This 

 Blessed and Adorable Saviour, the Elder Brother, the Master, 

 the Redeemer, the Life-Giver, the Judge, the Atoner, the Crea- 



