one of the best blessings
of his life,--it made him more of a blessing to others, than it is
likely he would otherwise have been. By her cheerful, gracious ways, her
love for society as distinguished from company, her gift of making every
one happy and at ease when with her, and her tender compassion for all
suffering, she in a measure won my father from himself and his books, to
his own great good, and to the delight and benefit of us all. It was
like sunshine and a glad sound in the house. She succeeded in what is
called "drawing out" the inveterate solitary. Moreover, she encouraged
and enabled him to give up a moiety of his ministerial labors, and thus
to devote himself to the great work of his later years, the preparing
for and giving to the press the results of his life's study of God's
Word. We owe entirely to her that immense _armamentarium libertatis_,
the third edition of his treatise on Civil Obedience.

One other source of great happiness to my father by this marriage was
the intercourse he had with the family at Thornliebank, deepened and
endeared as this was by her unexpected and irreparable loss. But on this
I must not enlarge, nor on that death itself, the last thing in the
world he ever feared--leaving him once more, after a brief happiness,
and when he had still more reason to hope that he would have "grown old
with her, leaning on her faithful bosom." The urn was again empty--and
the only word was _vale!_ he was once more _viduus_ bereft.

"God gives us love; something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.
This is the curse of time"--

But still--

"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."

It was no easy matter to get him from home and away from his books. But
once off, he always enjoyed himself,--especially in his visits to
Thornliebank, Busby, Crofthead, Biggar, and Melrose. He was very fond of
preaching on these occasions, and his services were always peculiarly
impressive. He spoke more slowly and with less vehemence than in his own
pulpit, and, as I often told him, with all the more effect. When driving
about Biggar, or in the neighborhood of Langrig, he was full of the
past, showing how keenly, with all his outward reserve, he had observed
and felt. He had a quite peculiar interest in his three flocks, keeping
his eye on all their members, through long years of ab