native village is distant only between three and four miles from the site of the dwelling where he resided for more than halfa-century-its first and only tenant. You might visit afoot his birth-place and burial-place within the same hour. His parents, though of humble station, belonged to the honourable of the earth, as He judges who looketh not 'on the outward appearance,' and whose estimate is according to truth. His father, Andrew Stark, is described by a surviving relative, who himself retains a distinct recollection of him, as a' man who sustained a very high character for sobriety and integrity; and seems to have inherited a large portion of the piety, and perhaps a little of the sternness, of the Scottish Covenanters from whom he was descended.' In illustration of the allusion made in the expression now quoted, the writer of the note from which I cite, mentions the interesting circumstance that Mr Stark's mother-grandmother of the subject of this memoir-by name Isobel Strathearn, was baptized under cloud of night by Donald Cargill in the Torwood, near Stirling-the scene made famous by his excommunication of Charles the Second. The good man whom a single generation thus associated with one of the worthies of the second Reformation, belonged himself to the communion of the Antiburgher Secession, and at the time of his son's birth attended the ministry of the Rev. Walter Leithhead of Cumbernauld, a man whose reputation for 'simplicity and godly sincerity' still survives throughout the neighbourhood. Dr Stark's mother was named Elizabeth Stark, and is spoken of as a pious and excellent woman, but could scarcely be remembered by her son, as she died while he was only about four years of age. It would be wrong, however, to assume that no important influence had already been exerted by maternal affection and nurture in the moulding and development of her child's character. Education, with or without design on the parents' part, begins with the very dawn of intelligence, and in the first few years of life seeds are often implanted that germinate afterwards into blossoming and fruitful trees of virtue, or shoot up into great gnarled trunks of passion and wickedness.

When what has been termed the Smytonite controversy, relating to the question of taking or lifting the elements before prayer in dispensing the Lord's supper, had been issued in the General Associate Synod by an act recommendatory of mutual forbearance, followed by the deposition of Mr Smyton, for contumacy; the Rev. Mr Hunter of Falkirk, adhering to Mr Smyton's views, had withdrawn from the fellowship of that body. After his

secession, he continued to minister to a considerable congregation in Falkirk, and among others who adjoined themselves to it was the father of the subject of this Memoir. At Mr Hunter's death, which took place a few years after, his congregation was broken up, and Mr Stark, returning to his former ecclesiastical connections, attended the ministry of the Rev. Mr Boucher, then recently settled in Cumbernauld. And it was doubtless with his full approbation that his son entered shortly thereafter the Divinity Hall of the Antiburgher Synod. The rudiments of his scholastic education had been previously received in his native village; and an apt pupil he must have proved, since he was deemed prepared to enter the university while he was just completing his eleventh year.

Leaving the university before completing his fifteenth year, appears that he spent a year or two at home, in some uncertainty, perhaps, as to his future course; or shrinking at so juvenile an age from the study of sacred theology. From whatever cause this interruption or pause arose, it was only in the autumn of 1792, when nearing the completion of his seventeenth year, that he entered the Divinity Hall, taught at that time by Professor Bruce of Whitburn, and assembling accordingly in that little country town.

At a meeting of the Presbytery of Stirling held at Falkirk on the 14th of November, 1796, Mr Stark, along with a fellow-student, Mr Archibald Willison, passed the usual examinations, and was entered on trials for license.

On the very day on which Mr Stark obtained license, the congregation of Denny, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. John Walker, had appeared by petition before the Presbytery, soliciting a 'hearing of young men with a view to the election of an assistant to their aged minister.' The Presbytery granted the petition, and in pursuance of their deed, made, among others, the appointments already referred to. Mr Stark's ministrations proved eminently acceptable to the congregation; for on the 11th of April they appear again before the Presbytery craving a moderation, which was unanimously granted, to take place on Monday the first of May, Mr Heugh of Stirling presiding.

The moderation took place accordingly; and at a meeting of Presbytery held at Edinburgh, during the sitting of Synod, on the day following, Mr Heugh reported that the call had come out unanimously in favour of Mr Stark, and laid the same, subscribed by 134 male members-then alone permitted to subscribe-on the Presbytery's table. The call thus sub

scribed was sustained; but as it appeared that on the very same day on which the moderation took place, Mr Stark had received another unanimous call to the congregation of Kinross, the question of preference was remitted to the Synod, then sitting, agreeably to the law obtaining at that time in cases of competition. Contrary to Mr Stark's own predilections, as he often stated afterwards, though he had no reason to regret the Synod's decision, the supreme court gave the preference to Denny.

His ordination took place on the 23d of August, 1779. The interesting services of the day were conducted under the open sky, and had attracted a large concourse of worshippers from the surrounding neighbourhood. I have conversed with one at least, who was present that day in her mother's lap. The Rev. Mr Moncrieff of Muchart-afterwards Mr Stark's brother-in-law-preached from 2 Corinthians vi. 1, and presided in the ordination of the young minister. Immediately thereafter, on his being welcomed by the Presbytery, such of the members of the congregation as were conveniently near tendered him also the right hand of fellowship, the more distant being desired to do so at the close of the meeting, agreeably to the practice now obtaining. In the afternoon there was public worship again, when the Rev. Thomas Blair from the Presbytery of Kirkcaldy gave sermon from the words: We preach Christ Jesus the Lord.' It may well be questioned, whether the introduction of festive social meetings, however unexceptionably conducted, be an altogether profitable substitute for the second diet of public service with which it was then customary to close the solemnities of an ordination-day.

Amidst abundantly pastoral labours, the youthful minister was much in his study. His discourses at this period were generally of an elaborate charactertoo little relievedi ndeed by that simpler and more experimental mode of illustrating divine truth, which distinguished his preaching latterly. But if their somewhat deep and recondite texture made his sermons less fully profitable to the mass of the hearers, a portion found in them a rich feast, and the study they involved was storing the preacher's mind with ample and well-arranged treasures of Scripture knowledge-forming, we believe, a basis without which the superstructure of after and higher excellencies could not have been reared.

But it was not only in careful and even laborious preparation of his discourses, that Dr Stark, in his youth, evinced his diligence in study. He was at this time an eager general reader-and that not

with the desultory aimless appetite which an age of periodicals has done so much to foster as well as to gratify, but with system and purpose. There remains a fragment of a common-place book, belonging to this period, which served to show how he endeavoured to arrange and digest the information which he was acquiring by considerably varied and extensive reading. He made arrangements for procuring books from a well-stocked public library in a provincial town at some distance-and judging from frequent references made in my hearing, he must have perused and profited by not a few rare and valuable works. He seems to have given especial attention to the department of history, and British history in particular; forming, as he studied, those large and liberal views of national policy, and that interest in current national events as illustrating and unfolding the plan of God's providence, which were very marked in his mature character. Of literary works, I think, he read less; nor had his taste been ever great for the beauties of poesy, in prose or rhyme.' To the almost worship of literature, to which the fervid young spirit in these seething days is apt to be seduced, he could scarcely be tempted. And there is a temptation here to the Christian minister -a peril to be shunned. The preacher and pastor have sterner work than the great mass of literary productions can help him much to do. He needs not be insensible to the beauties of the flowery field, but it is his duty to till it. His work is not the weaving of chaplets, or the culling of roses, but to uproot the weed and prune the vine. Give literature, moreover, its right place. It is nobler, we admit, to cultivate the intellectual taste, than to sacrifice to the palate-and the frenzy of the bard is finer than the delirium of the drunkard-yet the two things may be equally godless. The blind eagle striking his wing against the cloud, knows as little of the sun's glory as the blind hedge-sparrow hopping in the dust.

In the summer of 1799 Dr Stark commenced housekeeping, the congregation having built for him the manse which he continued to occupy till his death. In the autumn of the same year, he was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Moncrieff, daughter of the Rev. William Moncrieff of Alloa, and grand-daughter of one of the four brethren, good and noble 'old Culfargie.' The union was happy, but, as God would have it, short-lived. In ten years from the date of his marriage, Mr Stark was left a widower and sole parental guardian of five young children, four of whom survived himself. This was not however the first visit of death to the

manse. In the close of his life, as already mentioned, his father had become an inmate of the minister's house, and his remains had been carried thence to their long home. And a solemn thing it is to lose a parent, and step into life's front rank. But it was a new and severer trial, a deeper and closer incision from the vinedresser's pruning knife, when the hand of disease, which proved ere long fatal, was laid on the companion of his bosom, the mother of his yet almost infant children. Dr Stark was shrinkingly unobtrusive of any expression of his domestic affections, but once or twice even in his old age I have observed slight incidents-too slight in themselves for mention-which left no room to doubt how beloved had been to him the wife of his youth.

In December, 1813, he entered a second time into the marriage relation, and by espousing Miss Margaret Heugh, eldest daughter of the Rev. John Heugh of Stirling, cemented yet more closely the intimate friendship already subsisting between her brother and himself. Mr Stark felt himself indebted to this new relationship at once for benefits connected with the economy of the present life, and for higher and more abiding profit. The second union, however, was ordained by the Supreme Disposer of all evtnts to be still less during than the first. In the summer of 1821, the husband became a second time widower, by a sudden stroke of the Father's hand. The circumstances attending Mrs Stark's death were extremely striking. It was the communion-week, and the services of the fast-day had passed; Mrs Stark having attended church in her usual health. On the following dayThursday-she accompanied her husband to the house of a friend at a little distance, and enjoyed there the hospitality of the family circle. On the morning thereafter she was seized with sudden and prostrating illness, under which she lingered, in a state of insensibility, about twenty-four hours, and then passed away into the world of spirits.

The disease of which Dr Stark died was somewhat complicated; but the most painful and dangerous disorder was a cancerous affection of the stomach, from which he had suffered at intervals for years, and which was excited into increased action by anxiety of mind. For a few weeks after the dissolution of our collegiate connection, he bore up well; but about the close of April became suddenly worse, and symptoms of a very alarming nature began to show themselves. By medical skill and care, however, these were gradually subdued, and when I left home for the south, on the 10th of May, he had very considerably rallied, so as to permit me

the hope of seeing him on my return in the possession of somewhat recruited strength. Within a few days, however, the symptoms of betterness disappeared; the distressing irritability of stomach returned, till it became so extreme that the swallowing of a little cold water was followed by violent pain and retching; and his strength ebbed to helplessness. His mind, however, remained unclouded, and till within a few hours of his death he was able to instruct and cheer those about him with wise and elevating words. From a paper drawn up by a member of his family, containing reminiscences of his deportment and conversation during his deathbed illness, I shall here introduce such brief notices as appear fit for the general eye, and as may best illustrate the spirit of Christian patience, meekness, and hope, in which Dr. Stark waited on the river's brink for the summons of his Lord.

'During the latter part of the spring,' say the notes before me,' Dr Stark seemed to entertain a presentiment that he was not long to be spared to us. Occasionally, when feebly walking in the garden (in which he took great pleasure), he would say, "Well, 7, you are digging and pruning and sowing; but we cannot tell if we may live to see the result of your labour;" and would allude to what might happen" when he had gone hence." When confined entirely to the house, and latterly to his room, he looked forward to his coming change as now near at hand. His patience, and composure, and humility, and serenity in the prospect were indeed remarkable; and his kindliness of manner, and affectionateness of look and tone to those around him increased day by day. Speaking one evening to two of the family engaged in ministering to his comfort, regarding the weak and wasted state to which his disease had reduced him, he added, "But it is the disease which my heavenly Father sees to be the meetest for me, and the fittest by which to take me to himself; otherwise he would not have sent it." To a young student connected with his congregation, whom he highly regarded, he said one day, on the week previous to that of his death: "Well, I am just lying here waiting for the summons to be put into my hand; I thought it would have been before this time-but I have been wrong; the Lord's time is best, and His will be done." The Rev Mr. H- called one day, and in the course of his conversation had made some allusion to his long and faithful services in the Church. After he had left, Dr Stark said, " He speaks of my services. My services! they deserve nothing but pardon, pardon!" A member of his session called to see him, and while they talked together, quoted that passage “I,

even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." " Ay," said Dr Stark, so it is; I, even I, Jehovah, am he that blotteth out transgressions. OJ—(familiarly naming his friend), where were we but for that assurance! And what does he do it for? For his own name's sake." When reading to him on one occasion the 25th psalm, and coming to the 11th verse, "For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity," he stopped me, and said, "Mark the argument that follows, 'for it is great." He remarked one day, that for some time past, especially, he had dwelt with great interest and delight on the thought of Christ as a DIVINE KINSMAN REDEEMER and said, I can call him my Divine Kinsman Redeemer; and frequently would he be heard saying as if to himself, and in heavenly contemplation, My Divine Kinsman Redeemer MINE! Once during the night, and when thought by the member of his family who was beside him to be asleep, he broke out, as if in rapture, "O what a precious Refuge my Divine Kinsman Redeemer is!" and a short time after he exclaimed, as if ecstatically, "O it is a glorious thing to be in Christ O yes!"-adding,

"Towards the Lord my waiting eyes

Continually are set."

'Two days before his death, a member of his congregation called, on his way to London; he said many things to him in reference to the circumstances of his people, and in allusion, probably, to the text from which he prepared his last sermon (Psalm lxi. 2), he said, "Christ is indeed a Rock immovable; faith sees that Rock above all the waves; and whoever fixes his anchor there is safe." He said this, leaning on his elbow, and with a most tranquil smile. Reading to him part of the 130th psalm, he interrupted me when I had read the third verse “Ay,” said he, “who shall stand? but there is a Stander between the holy God and the poor sinner, my Divine Kinsman Redeemer." On another occasion, he said repeatedly, "I have been thinking a great deal about the divine plan of salvation; it is so honouring to God, and so condemnatory of sin." At another time, he quoted Jeremiah iii. 19: "How shall I put thee among the children?" adding, "Me, a poor, unworthy, helpless sinner

me! O how wonderful! how wonderful! but the way is-God's Son made a curse for me." On one occasion, Isaiah xi. 5, was quoted to him, "And righteousness shall be the girdle of his lions, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins." Ay," said he, "that's just as if he were girded round and round this way (making a circu

lar motion with his hand) with righteousness-so that if a poor sinner get a grip of him any where, he is safe." His interest in his congregation was very, very deep and it led him to offer up (often audibly) many a prayer to God from his dying bed on their behalf.

'On the morning of the day in the evening of which he died, all the surviving members of his family being around his bed, he breathed this prayer for them, resting on his elbow, "The Lord bless you all,-the Lord keep you all,-the Lord cause his face to shine on you all,-the Lord give peace to you all. Amen." On the forenoon of that day he was heard to repeat, as if in solemn address to his Father, the 41st verse of the 119th psalm, in metre,

"Let thy sweet mercies also come And visit me, O Lord! Even thy benign salvation,

According to thy word;"

repeating with what emphasis he could command the last line-according to thy word. Early in the afternoon, his rapidly increasing weakness overcame all audible speech. His lips were observed moving, as if in endeavour to speak. One of the family stooped and placed his ear close to him and heard him whisper, as if summoning strength for the effort,-" O come and let us worship him!"-And these were his last intelligible, though scarcely audible, words on earth. From that time he sunk into a state of apparent insen. sibility, from which there was no waking in time.'

Dr Stark's death took place on Friday evening, 24th May, 1850, at half-past eleven. On the following Thursday, his remains were borne to the burying-ground adjoining the place of worship, and laid in the grave where they now rest.

I shrink, for many reasons, from the attempt to offer any full or formal delineation of Dr Stark's character. To say nothing else, I feel as if I stood too near him to limn his features accurately. I can only endeavour in a few sentences, to state two or three of his more prominent characteristics as they present themselves to my mind. The valuable though brief portraiture from the pen of another, who knew him intimately, makes it the less necessary that I should do more.

The predominant characteristic of Dr Stark's mind, it ever appeared to me, was a certain massy strength; not the strength of impetuous action, of fervid energy gathering force from the very rapidity of its advance, but of repose and impregnability. As his name was, so was he, stark, stout, strong. His character had much of the

rock in it. It was what you could lean on. Your heart safely trusted him. This quality of stable power attached equally to his intellect and his affections. His judgment had a wide grasp; and his convictions, settled on a comprehensive and broad view of truth, took their seats in his soul, like the solid hills. He formed opinions deliberately: and when he gave them utterance, they had the maturity and pith of manhood about them. This mental characteristic was displayed in minor as in greater matters; and often in the course of ordinary conversation I have observed with interest and instruction, the few moments' meditative pause which would precede the expression of a judgment on some question incidentally turning up, calm, exact, and ripe-forged and beaten on the anvil. To shake any of his convictions on important subjects which he had studied and fully weighed, was like breaching a fortress. He was never annoyed by petty objections and difficulties -it was almost as if he could not see them. He had consequently a large amount of mental decision, and stability of purpose. When he adopted a course, he could not readily be turned from it, but he was not rash in taking the first step. Thus it was too with his affections. They were deep, but could scarcely be called fervid. He did not form intimacies hastily-his first salutation to a stranger was often everything but warm-and his strongest attachments had little external display: but his friendship, nevertheless, was true, tender, and tenacious. His feelings flowed like the deep river, quiet from the very fulness of its waters. And in him this strong thought and feeling grew up together. His robustness of intellect did not dwarf his emotions. His mind stood like the firm oak's trunk, but not that trunk, barren, rugged, sapless but branching, virescent, graceful, inviting to rest under its grateful shade. This character of massiveness and power was a predominant quality of his preaching. It might be traced in his very style. In hearkening to his discourses you were ever and anon introduced to some cumulus of clauses, where the huge sentence, forked and branched like a great tree, spread before you in formidable agglomeration. Yet it had unity and symmetry of its own; and the very accumulation lent it great power. It moved with a sort of elephantine cumbrousness, but with elephantine strength

too. Clause succeeded clause, as height surmounts height to him who climbs a hill, -but then each added member of the sentence added a thought, as each successive ridge lifts the pedestrian higher, and the whole was something to rest on, worthy of the effort to reach, and reward

ing it. The same characteristic was conspicuous in his manner. His voice and gesture had singular power about them. In his ordinary conversation, too, you could trace the like quality. He scarcely ever made a remark of which the hearer might not feel that it was worthy of utterance. His very gait and walk were indicative of strength and steadfastness.

Next in prominence to this feature of Dr Stark's character, my mind presents to itself his singular practical wisdom. He had a very wide and discriminating knowledge of human nature. The workings of the endlessly varied motives by which men are actuated he must have carefully studied. He possessed a quick and keen insight into character. That he never formed opinions of men under the influence of prejudice-that he was never swayed by the partiality of friendship in his favourable regards, or influenced by some covert emotion of dislike in his disapproval, would be too much to affirm. But he was probably biassed by such causes as little as most men. And I am persuaded that he found less occasion than the majority to reverse his judgments regarding those of whose character he was called to form an opinion, and was very generally as correct in his estimate as he was somewhat tenacious of it.

A fresh and vivid sympathy with youth was, indeed, another prominent characteristic of Dr Stark's nature even in advanced age. It was interesting to note how, to his latest years, he could be happily and engagingly at home with the very boys and girls. To youthful relatives and friends occasionally visiting his house, his presence, and grave, tender cheerful society, was not the least charm. Young men always found him open, considerate, affable. He put you very soon at ease with him-and in the most natural way led you to feel as if he quite regarded you as an equal. More than one have wondered at the frank condescension-the franker and the greater that it never seemed condescension, and really was but native hearty kindness-which bridged at once the chasm between the wisdom of his gifted age, and their own youthful inexperience. It was the easy work of a genuine and deep humility, than which there was no feature in Dr Stark's whole character more observable or beautiful. And it was the more specially to be noticed to the praise of Divine grace, that, I think, his natural tendencies stretched much the other way.

There was another natural tendency which Divine grace had beautifully restrained in the subject of this sketch. He had originally an exuberant love of the playful, and a buoyance of spirits apt to