The Late Hugh Miller. 71 



Miller last year, in tlie genial and kindly intercourse of the Bri- 

 tisli Association, that we were to see his face no more; and that 

 at the early age of fifty-four, he would be lost to the Church 

 which he loved, and to the cause of Christian science, which owes 

 so much to his example and labours. Death has made sad in- 

 roads of late years upon the ranks of the cultivators of natural 

 science. Dr. Landsborough, Professor Edward Forbes, Dr. Johns- 

 ton of Berwick, Mr. Yarrell, and now Mr. Hugh Miller, have passed 

 away in rapid succession, — and Forbes and Miller have left behind 

 them no equals." 



"We conclude our extracts with the following from the pen of 

 the Rev. Dr. Hanna, in " The Wftness," Mr. Miller's newspaper. 

 " But Mr Miller was far more than a Free Churchman, and did for 

 the Christianity of his country and the world, a far higher service 

 than any which in that simple character and office was rendered 

 by him. There was nothing in him of the spirit and temper of 

 the sectarian. He breathed too broad an atmosphere to live and 

 move within such narrow bounds. In the heat of the conflict there 

 may have been too much occasionally of the partizan ; and in 

 the pleasure that the sweep and stroke of his intellectual tomahawk 

 gave to him who wielded it, he may have forgotten at times the 

 pain inflicted where it fell; but let his writings before and after the 

 Disruption be now consulted, and it will be found that it was 

 mainly because of his firm belief, whether right or wrong, that the 

 interests of vital godliness were wrapped up in it, that he took his 

 stand, and played his "conspicuous part, in the ecclesiastical con- 

 flict. It is well known that for some time past, — for reasons to 

 which it would be altogether unseasonable to allude, — he has ceas- 

 ed to take any active part in ecclesiastical affairs. He had retir- 

 ed even, in a great measure, from the field of general literature, 

 to devote himself to the study of Geology. His past labours 

 in this department, — enough to give him a high and honoured 

 place among its most distinguished cultivators, — he looked 

 upon but as his training for the great life-work he had 

 marked out for himself, — the full investigation and illustration of 

 the Geology of Scotland. He had large materials already collect- 

 ed for this work; and it was his intention, after completing that 

 volume which has happily been left in so finished a state, to set 

 himself to their arrangement. The friends of science in many 

 lands will mourn over the incompleted project which, however 

 ably it may hereafter be accomplished by another, it were vain to 



