to your memory with a touching and tender impression that might well-nigh overwhelm your feelings all the goodness you have experienced at the hands of your earthly parents, their longing earnestness for your well-being, their efforts, and attentions, and sacrifices to make you happy. It is on these sure premises that the argument of our blessed Savior must come to your heart with resistless demonstration"If ye that are earthly parents know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened unto you."

My kindest sympathies and regards to Major Darroch and to the general, whom I love; and believe me, my very dear Mrs. Darroch, yours with sincerest affection,

No. CXXIII.

THOMAS CHALMERS.

EDINBURGH, MORNINGSIDE, 2d February, 1845.

MY DEAR MRS. DARROCH-How the visions of the past flit on my remembrance while writing to you. It is a matter of very great thankfulness in regard to your brother that an outgoing has at length been opened for him. But when one thinks of the shortlivedness of all that is earthly, and looks back on the days both of Blochairn and Fairley as now to be numbered with the times before the Flood, it makes us sit loose to the prospects of this world, and to acquiesce in the sentiment of the poet, that there is nothing bright but Heaven; or, rather, to present it in a more authentic form, that the fashion of this world passeth away, but that He who made the world endureth forever.

I most thoroughly sympathize with feelings so naturally awakened, and so touchingly expressed on the occasion of this sorrowful yet sacred anniversary. It is good to recall the memory of the righteous, for it is a memory which is blessed.

I have not seen Winslow's work, but I am reading with the greatest interest our old friend E. B. Elliott's work on the Revelation. I will do him the justice to say that I think it far the completest and most satisfactory exposition of the prophecy which I have read, though he does our Free Church the very grossest injustice by his rash and most ignorant deliverance upon our question.

Do give my best regards to Mrs. Cardwell when you write to her. Ever believe me, my dear Mrs. Darroch, yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CXXIV.

FAIRLEY, 15th June, 1845.

MY VERY DEAR MRS. DARROCH-I have been here for several days, and much both in the house and grounds, which are so familiar to me. I never felt such an experimental impression of the precariousness of all things here below as now, when the scene of my brightest recollections is so transformed by the disappearance of her who gave its chief interest to the village and neighborhood, and to all their society. Yet I can not say how thankful I am that I am so kindly, nay, urgently entreated to make as much a home of the house as possible. Our head-quarters are with Miss M'Call, but my forenoon study is your dear mother's bed-room; and I can evidently see that both Mr. and Mrs. George are disappointed if I do not follow it up by dining with them, which I am all the more inclined to do, that it gives me the opportunity of talking and taking an afternoon round with them. I rejoice to find that he is obviously progressing in health and strength, though I think he is perhaps inclined to exert himself too much, and not to make a sufficient use of his sofa. You may well believe that the well-known relics and memorials of other days inspire a pensiveness which is melancholy no doubt, but still which I love to indulge in. Let me die her death, that I may share in her blessed resurrection.

We remain here till Wednesday the 25th, or other ten days.

We thence go in a body to Arran, and are, besides, engaged to spend some time at Tillichewan. I think it better to transport my family by one movement from Arran to Tillichewan; either during my visit there, or at the termination of it, I must spend some time, though it should only be one day, at Gourock. I know not how it is with younger people, but I confess that the twenty-eight years of converse and correspondence with you and yours have established in my heart a most intense and steadfast feeling of relationship to you all. my best regards to Major Darroch, and to the general, whom I love. I am reading to-day a book which I am sure would have been rich and precious as marrow to the dear and departed saint who is now in Heaven, "Owen on the Glory of Christ." He died at sixty-seven,* and it is his last work— the work of one who writes as on the borders of eternity. I am only two years behind him, and four years behind what her age was when, seventeen months ago, she entered into rest. I am, my dearest Mrs. Darroch, yours very affectionately and truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

Monday morning.

Since writing the three last pages, I called on your brother yesterday evening (Sunday). He asked me to conduct family worship, which brought to me the vivid and affecting recollection of similar occasions. The identical form was brought in, and the identical man-servant sat on it, along with four maid-servants. These things tell powerfully on my memory, as do the pictures in the dining-room, and the paper in the drawing-room. I am glad I have come here; and what makes it all the more satisfactory is, that I am on such pleasant and kind terms with your brother, who begs that, over and above my study and my dinner, I should also take my siesta in his house.

I have not yet thanked you for the great enjoyments which my family had in Gourock House, and more especially my little grandson. T. C.

*The age at which Dr. Chalmers also died.

No. CXXV.

WISHAW, 29th July, 1845.

MY VERY DEAR MRS. DARROCH-We arrived here to-day, at twelve, by the railway. Nothing could exceed the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Tennant, with whom we spent a very pleasant evening, and had a very delightful-and to me all the more so that it was a small-party, consisting of themselves along with Drs. Forbes and Rainy, both of whom I hold in high estimation.

I am at present with my brother here, and expect, if God will, to reach home on Thursday.

This excursion to the West has given me a higher opinion than I ever had before of the Christian worth and friendship which we have so abundantly experienced in the various quarters that we have visited. And certainly there is no place which stands dearer to all my recollections and regards than Gourock. I love the general, and my next letter will be addressed to himself some time next week, I hope. May the Spirit work effectually in him and in all of us. I shall never forget those words of death-bed experience and manifestation uttered by her who has gone before him, and which read so impressively upon her tombstone-"Let me die the death of the righteous, let my latter end be like theirs."

It was proposing a great deal too much that I should take east with me the precious MS. which you had intrusted to my keeping for a few weeks. I had looked it all over, but had not read it all thoroughly. I hope, however, that my next visit will be one of greater quietness than I was permitted to enjoy in any other house than your own. It were altogether delicious to read with you within doors the sentences that flowed from the pen and were dictated from the earnest heart of her who is now enshrined in blessedness and glory among the spirits of the just made perfect. Oh that, like her, I could live a life of faith on the Son of God, and then should I live a life both of love and of holiness. May the Giver of

all grace sanctify and elevate my affections, and save me from all those evil influences which war against the soul. I ever am, my dearest madam, yours with the greatest affection, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CXXVI.

MONZIE, 13th August, 1845. MY VERY DEAR MRS. DARROCH-You must not forbid my writing to you, for I have great pleasure in keeping up a correspondence that originated in the most precious recollections of other days, and is fitted to perpetuate and to foster them.

I omitted to leave the inclosed with you (copy of a marriage service), having reserved to myself a short-hand copy of it, which I shall put in the portfolio of dear Mrs. Parker, along with the precious death-bed sayings of Mrs. General Darroch. The blank paper which you have left me of that truly valuable record can just accommodate in short-hand the other record, which I have only read this day for the first time since I uttered it in the drawing-room at Fairley. I am glad to observe that there is no want of keeping between them, and that on that occasion I spoke in the degree I did of the coming death and the coming eternity.

Have the goodness to tell Mr. East* how thankful I am for his work, with which I hope to make myself acquainted soon. It will give me the greatest pleasure to see him on his way through Edinburgh. When I am at home, his best chance for seeing me is at nine to breakfast. I fear, however, that I shall be a good deal from home all this month, and also part of the next. I am to make a point, however, of remaining at home afterward for many months. Believe me, my very dear Mrs. Darroch, yours most sincerely, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CXXVII.

EDINBURGH, 5th February, 1847.

MY VERY DEAR MRS. DARROCH-This is very, very sad. I *The Rev. Timothy East, of Birmingham.