rge of his sheep to a companion, he set
out on a midnight journey to St. Andrews, a distance of twenty-four
miles. He reached his destination in the morning, and went to the
bookseller's shop asking for a copy of the Greek New Testament. The
master of the shop, surprised at such a request from a shepherd boy,
was disposed to make game of him. Some of the professors coming into
the shop questioned the lad about his employment and studies. After
hearing his tale, one of them desired the bookseller to bring the
volume. He did so, and drawing it down, said, 'Boy, read this, and you
shall have it for nothing.' The boy did so, acquitted himself to the
admiration of his judges, and carried off his Testament, and when the
evening arrived, was studying it in the midst of his flock on the braes
of Abernethy."--_Memoir of Rev. John Brown of Haddington_, by Rev. J.
B. Patterson.

"There is reason to believe _this_ is the New Testament referred
to. The name on the opposite page was written on the fly-leaf.
It is obviously the writing of a boy, and bears a resemblance to
Mr. Brown's handwriting in mature life. It is imperfect, wanting
a great part of the Gospel of Matthew. The autograph at the end
is that of his son, Thomas, when a youth at college, afterwards
Rev. Dr. Thomas Brown of Dalkeith.--J. B."

I doubt not my father regarded this little worn old book, the sword of
the Spirit which his ancestor so nobly won, and wore, and warred with,
with not less honest veneration and pride than does his dear friend
James Douglas of Cavers the Percy pennon borne away at Otterbourne. When
I read, in Uncle William's admirable Life of his father, his own simple
story of his early life--his loss of father and mother before he was
eleven, his discovering (as true a _discovery_ as Dr. Young's of the
characters of the Rosetta stone, or Rawlinson's of the cuneiform
letters) the Greek characters, his defence of himself against the
astonishing and base charge of getting his learning from the devil (that
shrewd personage would not have employed him on the Greek Testament),
his eager, indomitable study, his running miles to and back again to
hear a sermon after folding his sheep at noon, his keeping his family
creditably on never more than L50, and for long on L40 a year, giving
largely in charity, and never wanting, as he said, "lying money"--when
I think of all this, I feel what a strong, independent, manly nature he
mus