a world-wide fame for the eloquence and
beautiful diction of his sermons, and although his pulpit appearances
are now few and far between, they are sufficiently important to draw
together larger congregations than any Church in Glasgow could possibly
accommodate; to find a prominent place in the newspapers of the day; and
to realise for the author a handsome _honorarium_ for the copyright of
his sermons.

The Rev. Dr. John Caird was born at Greenock, where his father was an
engineer, in 1820. After following out a course of study at the
University of Glasgow, he was licensed as a preacher in 1844. In the
following year he was ordained minister of Newton-upon-Ayre, from which
in 1846 he was translated to Lady Yester's Church, Edinburgh. The
patronage of this appointment lay with the Town Council of the
Metropolis, and Dr. Caird was nominated almost unanimously. Here Dr.
Caird was building up a great reputation--his popularity being quite
extraordinary, and his church habitually crowded--when he found it
necessary to retire to the country to get rid of the demands made upon
his physical energies by a metropolitan congregation. He soon found what
appeared to be a more congenial sphere at Errol in Perthshire, to which
he was translated in 1850, and where he ministered with much acceptance,
drawing to his church strangers from far and near, for a period of
about eight years. It was while at Errol that Dr. Caird fell out with
the more orthodox Calvinists of his church, his breadth of sympathies
failing to meet with approbation from the older members who were still
leavened with the leaven of "persecuting and intolerant principles in
religion." It is related of one old lady that on leaving the church,
after hearing Dr. Caird deliver one of his most powerful and
characteristic sermons, she exclaimed, "What's the use o' gaun to hear
that body preach; ye never get a word o' gospel frae his lips." During
the period of his pastorate at Errol, Dr. Caird preached, in 1865, a
sermon, entitled "The religion of common life," before the Queen at
Crathie. This sermon was subsequently published by her Majesty's
command, and secured a very large sale. Indeed, it is recorded, in an
article on the book trade in Chambers's Cyclopaedia, as an evidence of
the kindness which publishers sometimes show to authors, that the Messrs
Blackwood, of Edinburgh, made Dr. Caird a present of L400, in addition
to the L100 which they had agreed to pay him for