difficulty in imagining some of the favourite themes of conversation in the families of Independent ministers-shall I be pardoned for saying, especially in the families of the older ministers? They will readily understand the enthusiasm with which Mr. Campbell attended the meetings of the Congregational Union of Scotland for the first time in 1830. That anniversary seems to have been peculiarly solemn. Mr. Hercus of Greenock, who was present and took part in the public meeting, was at that time "living under the habitual anticipation of sudden dissolution;" an anticipation confirmed by occasional slight threatenings of the return of paralysis. This anticipation he expressed strongly at the close of a speech characterised by unusual ardour of feeling. "I live," said he, daily under the sentence of death; the very nature of death is in my disorder." "God," he continued," would soon call him out of time into eternity. He had laboured for Christ twenty-four years; and, during the short time it might now please God to spare him here, he wished to labour with greater earnestness than ever.' The impression produced by the speech of this dying man of God was great. And the coincidence is not to be overlooked that his future successor, then little more than a stripling, was much moved by his appeal, and went home to pour out his full soul in verse. As poetry, indeed, there is nothing in the lines which he wrote on this anniversary to render them worthy of publica

66

Appendix to Sermon by Dr. Wardlaw, on occasion of the death of Mr. Hercus, preached May 23, 1830.

tion, but the coincidence to which I have referred will not allow me to omit his reference to Mr. Hercus

"But there was one-forget it not my heart,
Who in the fulness of his soul burst forth,
And, as a dying man, proclaimed his last
Farewell, to this triumphant glorious cause:
It was indeed a solemn one, and long
May the deep feelings then excited, last,
Urging and cheering on those faithful men-
His fellow-labourers who soon, as well

As he, must drop into the tomb,"

:

It was with similar feelings of delight that Mr. Campbell attended for the first time a missionary ordination-that of Mr. William Harris-and he recorded his feelings in the same form:

66 Stay, golden hour! stay, glorious sight!
Still round my mind in visions bright
Let all thy beauties play:

Stay! for my soul, enraptured, seems
To bask amid millennial beams

In a millennial day."

It will be seen that at this time Mr. Campbell addicted himself to the Muses. He had carried with him a poetic heart and poetic impressions from the Highlands. And though now immured in the crowded and busy warehouse, he was still a child of the mountains. The verses which will be found in his poetical remains, addressed to "Gylen Castle," and to the Prisoned Eagle" at Dunolly Castle, will show the combined influence of the scenery and traditions of the Highlands on his mind, while the last sonnet in these remains will form no incorrect

index of his feelings and character at this period. That sonnet, though written in a less morbid tone respecting" man's pursuits" cannot fail to remind the reader of Henry Kirke White's

"Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild."

It was only during these years spent in Glasgow that Mr. Campbell wrote poetry. After beginning his studies for the ministry he gave it up entirely, and his taste became so fastidious that he would read no poetry which was not of the first order, or of a peculiarly simple and touching character. In his prose composition there will be found no exuberance of imagination; his mind was too well balanced, too exact and logical, to be carried away by his fancy. But the images which he employs are so apt, and natural, and beautiful, and so often struck off as by a single touch of the pencil, that no one can fail to see in them a poet's mind. What, for example, can be more exquisite than the following:-"All that remains of Dunolly Castle is a square tower, which is almost entire, and the fragments of a battlement built along the edge of the rock. These are completely covered with ivy, while long pale grass hangs from the top, and flits to the breeze like the grey locks of a worn-out veteran." When, in after years, he thought it necessary to offer some apology for the interest which he took in movements which were unconnected with his own denomination, a single image, expressed in a single sentence, was quite enough:-"The public mind resembles the ocean; the tempest which agitates

one portion of it, affects more or less the extended mass."

Although his time was much occupied as a warehouseman, Mr. Campbell cultivated his mind most assiduously. He read much, and "never took up any subject for study without making himself master of it." It was in the autumn of 1830 that he first thought of devoting himself to the work of the ministry, and the following sentences, found among his papers, will best explain his motives:-"In August, 1830, I first thought of devoting myself to the ministry. Various causes led to this, particularly the death of so many of the Lord's servants, and a contemplation of the immensity of the field, and the fewness of the labourers, particularly among my own countrymen. I have for the last two years been engaged in teaching a Sabbath school, and for some time back have spent the Sabbath morning in visiting the hovels of the poor, and conversing with them about the things which concern their everlasting peace. These small and unworthy exertions to promote the glory of the Redeemer have also tended to excite in my mind a strong desire to be qualified for a more extensive field of usefulness. I had many struggles before I determined to devote myself to the ministry. These arose from a consideration of the awful respon-sibility of the office, and my own weakness: but the more I reflect on the matter, and view the moral desert around me, the more urgent I hear the call. It is the love of Christ, I trust, that constrains me. It is my heart's desire to promote his glory, and the

good of immortal souls; and it is my earnest prayer to him, night and day, that he may qualify me for his own work, by giving me the teaching of his Holy Spirit."

While these sentences indicate his spiritual character, a few sentences from a letter to his father, in August, 1830, will illustrate the share which his intellect and natural disposition had in leading him to abandon mercantile pursuits:-“I shall now resume the subject of my last letter, and shall, as you wish, discharge my mind freely. However reluctant I might feel in doing so to you personally, in writing I feel no restraint. And why should I? for I only seek counsel where I ought to seek it, and may expect to get the best that parental love, piety, and experience can suggest. I stated that I did not like business; indeed I do not; and since the first day that I entered a shop, I may say that I have been struggling against the current of my inclinations. I always had an eye after some profession, or literary pursuit of some kind, but seeing I had not the means to get myself qualified for this, I was glad to be content with whatever providence might cast in my way, still hoping that I might somehow be enabled to work my way through, and get to college. That hope has been as yet deferred, and this, I must say, has often made my heart sad. All this, together with the nature of the business itself, will account for my not liking it. For a man to succeed even tolerably well as a merchant, it is necessary, in my opinion, that his whole attention be devoted to it, and his heart wholly bent on money-making. This I cannot be, for I detest