ugh
death he might destroy him that had the power of death,--that is, the
devil." The old man, leaning on his favorite pupil, said, "John, my man,
you need not have said '_that is the devil_;' you might have been sure
that _He_ knew whom you meant." My father, in theory, held that a
mixture of formal, fixed prayer, in fact, a liturgy, along with
_extempore_ prayer, was the right thing. As you observe, many of his
passages in prayer, all who were in the habit of hearing him could
anticipate, such as "the enlightening, enlivening, sanctifying, and
comforting influences of the good Spirit," and many others. One in
especial you must remember; it was only used on very solemn occasions,
and curiously unfolds his mental peculiarities; it closed his
prayer--"And now, unto Thee, O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the one
Jehovah and our God, we would--as is most meet--with the church on earth
and the church in heaven, ascribe all honor and glory, dominion and
majesty, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world
without end. Amen." Nothing could be liker him than the interjection,
"as is most meet." Sometimes his abrupt, short statements in the Synod
were very striking. On one occasion, Mr. James Morison having stated his
views as to prayer very strongly, denying that a sinner _can_ pray, my
father, turning to the Moderator, said--"Sir, let a man feel himself to
be a sinner, and, for anything the universe of creatures can do for him,
hopelessly lost,--let him feel this, sir, and let him get a glimpse of
the Saviour, and all the eloquence and argument of Mr. Morison will not
keep that man from crying out, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' That,
sir, is prayer--that is acceptable prayer."

There must be, I fear, now and then an apparent discrepancy between you
and me, especially as to the degree of mental depression which at times
overshadowed my father's nature. _You_ will understand this, and I hope
our readers will make allowance for it. Some of it is owing to my
constitutional tendency to overstate, and much of it to my having had
perhaps more frequent, and even more private, insights into this part of
his life. But such inconsistency as that I speak of--the co-existence of
a clear, firm faith, a habitual sense of God and of his infinite mercy,
the living a life of faith, as if it was in his organic and inner life,
more than in his sensational and outward--is quite compatible with that
tendency to distrust himself,