stward," a diary of travels in Palestine, is
one of the most interesting and instructive works of its kind in our
literature; while his "Far East," in which his Indian experiences are
detailed, is not less full of useful matter. This leads us to mention
the fact that his travels in Palestine were undertaken on his own
account, and solely for the purpose of receiving correct impressions of
the Holy Land, with its hallowed traditions and deeply-interesting
associations. With the same object he has travelled in other lands, and
scarcely a year passes without his visiting some new clime or country,
and thus enriching his great stores of knowledge and observation.

As a preacher Dr. Macleod is great, although lacking some of those
qualities which are essential to a popular and effective pulpit speaker.
Many of his best pulpit efforts, and notably his sermons preached before
the Queen at Crathie, are among the most excellent of their class, and
may be read with as much profit and interest as the discourses of Wesley
and Whitfield. Yet to those who have heard only of his great fame, apart
from the pulpit, and who are naturally led to associate that fame to
some considerable extent with his pulpit utterances, there must, in some
respects, be disappointment in store. His voice is far from musical,
being too much pitched on one key, and that not the most melodious on
the gamut. His discourses lack the fire and finish of Caird or Guthrie;
while his composition and style are neither so graceful nor so polished
as those of Spurgeon or Newman Hall. He makes no attempt at nicely
rounded periods, or subtle verbal distinctions. But he has other
qualities entirely his own. His speech is homely, familiar, almost
conversational. There is no "darkening of counsel with vain words." He
is not only easily understood, but it is difficult, even on the most
recondite points, to misunderstand him. What he states in the plainest
possible phraseology, he renders still more intelligible by some apt
illustration. Herein lies one of the great secrets of his success in the
pulpit. Possessed of a very acute mental faculty and a warm heart, his
sermons are always eminently practical, full of conclusive argument,
appealing directly to the consciences of his hearers, and permeated
above all by strong common sense, called so as _locus a non lucendo_,
because so uncommon even in the pulpit. His thoughts, often strikingly
original, are always expressed in a vig