God for them; but added, "that as his account was increased with his income, power, and influence, and his cares were proportionably increased too, it was, as to his own personal concern, much the same to him whether he had remained in his former station, or been elevated to this; but that if God should by this means honour him as an instrument of doing more good than he could otherwise have done, he should rejoice in it."

I perceived that the near views he had taken of eternity, in the illness from which he was then so imperfectly recovered, had not in the least alarmed him; but that he would have been entirely willing, had such been the determination of God, to have been cut short in a foreign land, without any earthly friend near him, and in the midst of a journey undertaken with hopes and prospects so pleasing to nature; which appeared to me no inconsiderable evidence of the strength of his faith. But we shall wonder the less at this extraordinary resignation, if we consider the joyful and assured prospect which he had of a happiness infinitely superior, beyond the grave; of which that worthy minister of the Church of Scotland, who had an opportunity of conversing with him quickly after his return, and having the memorable story of his conversion from his own mouth, as I have hinted above, writes thus in his letter to me, dated January 14, 1746-7: "When he came to review his regiment at Linlithgow, in summer, 1743, after having given me the wonderful story as above, he concluded in words to this purpose: Let me die whenever it shall please God, or wherever it shall be, I am sure I shall go to the mansions of eternal glory, and enjoy my God and my Redeemer in heaven for ever."

While he was with us at this time he appeared deeply affected with the sad state of things as to religion and morals, and seemed to apprehend that the rod of God was hanging over so sinful a nation. He observed a great deal of disaffection, which the enemies of the government had, by a variety of artifices, been raising in Scotland for some years; and the number of Jacobites there, together with the defenceless state in which our island then was with respect to the number of its forces at home, of which he spoke at once with great concern and astonishment, led him to expect an invasion from France, and an attempt in favour of the Pretender, much sooner than it happened. I have heard him say, many years before it came so near being accomplished, that "a few thousands might have a fair chance for marching from Edinburgh to London uncontrolled, and throw the whole kingdom into an astonishment.' And I have great reason to believe that this was one main consideration which engaged him to make such haste to his regiment, then quartered in those parts, as he imagined there was not a spot of ground where he might be more likely to have a call to expose his life in the service of his country: and, perhaps, by appearing on a proper call early in its defence, be instrumental in suppressing the beginnings of most formidable mischief. How rightly he judged in these things, the event too evidently showed.

The evening before our last separation, as I knew I could not entertain the invaluable friend who was then my guest more agreeably, I preached a sermon in my own house, with some peculiar reference to his case and circumstances, from those ever-memorable words, than which I have never felt any more

powerful and more comfortable, Psa. xci. 14-16: "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life (or, length of days) will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation." This scripture could not but lead our meditations to survey the character of the good man, as one who so knows the name of the blessed God, has such a deep apprehension of the glories and perfections of his nature, as determinately to set his love upon him, to make him the supreme object of his most ardent and constant affection. And it suggested the most sublime and animating hopes to persons of such a character; that their prayers shall be always acceptable to God; that though they may, and must, be called out to their share in the troubles and calamities of life, yet they may assure themselves of the Divine presence in all, which shall issue in their deliverance, in their exaltation, sometimes to distinguished honour and esteem among men, and, it may be, in a long course of useful and happy years on earth; at least, which shall undoubtedly end in seeing, to their perpetual delight, the complete salvation of God, in a world where they shall enjoy length of days for ever and ever, and employ them all in adoring the great Author of their salvation and felicity. It is evident that these natural thoughts, on such a scripture, were matters of universal concern. Yet had I known that this was the last time I should ever address colonel Gardiner as a minister of the gospel, and had I foreseen the scenes through which God was about to lead him, I hardly know what considerations I could have suggested with more peculiar

propriety. The attention, elevation, and delight, with which he heard them, was very apparent; and the pleasure which the observation of it gave me continues to this moment. And let me be permitted to digress so far as to add, that this is indeed the great support of a Christian minister, under the many discouragements and disappointments which he meets with in his attempts to fix upon the profligate or the thoughtless part of mankind a deep sense of religious truth; that there is another important part of his work, in which he may hope to be more generally successful; as by plain, artless, but serious discourses, the great principles of Christian duty and hope may be nourished and invigorated in good men, their graces watered as at the root, and their souls animated both to persevere and improve in holiness. And when we are effectually performing such benevolent offices, so well suiting our immortal natures, to persons whose hearts are cemented with ours in the bonds of the most endearing and sacred friendship, it is too little to say it overpays the fatigue of our labour, it even swallows up all sense of it in the most rational and sublime pleasure.

An incident occurs to my mind which happened that evening, which, at least for the oddness of it, may deserve a place in these memoirs. I had then with me one Thomas Porter, a poor, but very honest and religious man, who is quite unacquainted with letters, so as not to be able to distinguish one from another, yet is master of the contents of the Bible in so extraordinary a degree, that he has not only fixed an immense number of texts in his memory, but merely by hearing them quoted in sermons has registered there the chapter and verse in which these passages are to be found. This is attended with

a marvellous facility in directing those that can read to turn to them, and a most unaccountable talent of fixing on such as suit almost every imaginable variety of circumstances in common life. There are two considerations in his case which make it the more wonderful: the one, that he is a person of a very low genius, having, besides a stammering which makes his speech almost unintelligible to strangers, so wild and awkward a manner of behaviour, that he is frequently taken for an idiot, and seems in many things to be indeed so; the other, that he grew up to manhood in a very licentious course of living, and an entire ignorance of Divine things, so that all these exact impressions on his memory have been made in his riper years. I thought it would not be disagreeable to the colonel to introduce to him this odd phenomenon, which many hundreds of people have had a curiosity to examine: and, among all the strange things I have seen in him, I never remember any which equalled what passed on this occasion. On hearing the colonel's profession, and receiving some hints of his religious character, he ran through a vast variety of scriptures, beginning at the Pentateuch and going on to the Revelation, relating either to the dependence to be fixed on God for the success of military preparations, or to the instances and promises occurring there of his care of good men in the most imminent dangers, or to the encouragement to despise perils and deaths, while engaged in a good cause, and supported by the views of a happy immortality. I believe he quoted more than twenty of these passages; and I must freely own, that I know not who could have chosen them with greater propriety. If my memory do not deceive me, the last of this catalogue was that from which I afterwards

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