object so high or so holy, as that of living to the glory of God. You are not, therefore, to expect that the subject of this memoir, or even the interesting being who forms the subject of that which is to follow it, can be introduced to you in any other character. It is for you, in the exercise of the faculties bestowed on you, to mark well that previous character; to note well the beginning, progress, and increase of grace in the hearts and lives of those eminent individuals, whose histories you are about to peruse; that, in the process of judging them, you may be led to judge yourself; that, in examining their motives of action, you may be brought to examine your own; that, in proving them by their fruits, you may also prove your own self; and if, after such a scrutiny, you unhappily discover no consciousness of a work of grace on your own soul,-then give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, till, with all the importunity which, as a sinner, you are authorized to employ, you have entreated God to begin it; and, once begun, God himself will perfect that which concerneth thee; and

never will he forsake the work of his own

hand.

CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, of whose life we now attempt to present you with a brief memoir, was born at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, on the 12th of March, 1766. His father, Mr. Alexander Buchanan, was a man of respectable learning, and excellent character; a teacher of youth; and, for some months previous to his death, rector of the grammar school at Falkirk. His mother was the daughter of Mr. Claudius Somers, an elder of the church of Cambuslang, at the remarkable period of the great "awakening," there, or at the time when those interesting events took place, which must be familiar to every one who is at all acquainted with the history of Mr. Whitefield's visits to the west of Scotland, particularly in the year 1742.

Among those to whom the ministrations of that celebrated preacher were blessed, was Mr. Claudius Somers, whose piety was imbibed by his daughter; and thus young Buchanan could boast a descent which might

well be deemed most enviable, especially as he inherited, together with a pious, though numble ancestry, the blessing of a religious education. And though the seed sown in the morning did lie long among the clods of the valley-yet also, after many days, it did spring up, and brought forth much fruiteven the beautiful fruits of holiness, which are, "by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."

In the year 1773, Buchanan was sent to the grammar school at Inverary, in Argyllshire, where he made considerable proficiency in the Latin and Greek languages, and where he continued till 1779. In the following year, being then about fourteen years of age, he was engaged as tutor to the two sons of Mr. Campbell of Dunstaffnage, in which situation he remained about two years. When under the paternal roof, Buchanan nad not been without serious impressions, and is said to have recollected the peculiar kindness and pious instructions of his grandfather, long after he ceased to follow his advice. While at Dunstaffnage, he was again

under impressions of a religious nature; and for a few months spent much time in devotion, amidst the rocks on the sea shore, near that place. His convictions, however, appear to have been of short continuance-dissipated and dispersed by idle companions, and, as "the morning cloud and the early dew," soon passed away.

In the year 1782, Buchanan left Dunstaffnage, for the purpose of prosecuting his studies at the College of Glasgow, whither he went, and where he remained that and the following year: but in 1784, he appears to have relinquished his studies at Glasgow; and we find him acting as tutor to the sons of Mr. Campbell of Knockmelly, in the island of Islay. In the following year he appears engaged in the same office, but in a different family, that of Mr. Campbell of Carradale, in Kintyre. In the year 1786 he returned to the College at Glasgow, where, being intended for the ministry, in the church of Scotland, he continued pursuing his various studies during the period of the College sessions; and afterwards returning to Car

radale, he resumed his former employment till the autumn following, when, from the circumstance of an imprudent attachment to a young lady of superior rank and fortune, then on a visit to the family, it probably became expedient for him to change his situation; and, with a romance of feeling, not uncommon to youth, Buchanan resolved, like the Prodigal of old, to take his journey into a far country, not for the purpose of wasting his substance, but, probably, with some kind of indefinite hope of creating a fortune for himself, and thereby, as the attachment was mutual, being enabled, in the course of time, to remove the obstacles which separated him from the object of his affection. While Buchanan, urged by his passion, thus resolved to leave his parents, it would have been well if he had not also resolved to deceive them. We are sorry to add that he did; and that he invented a story, wherein he pretended, that he had been invited by an English gentleman to accompany his son upon a tour to the Continent; and, as Buchanan was intended for the church, his friends thought