r-in-law, "that this is a day which has wandered out of
Paradise." "We younger people," wrote his niece, "came nearer to him
than ever before. He was as happy as a child, rejoicing with every
increase of strength. He greatly enjoyed my brother Willie's singing,
especially songs like Sheriff Nicolson's 'Skye' and Shairp's 'Bush
aboon Traquair.' We were astonished to find how familiar he was with
all sorts of queer out-of-the-way ballads. Never had we seen him so
free from care, so genial and even jubilant."[21] The summer Sacrament
took place while he was at Stitchel, and he was able to give a brief
address to the communicants from the words, "Ye do shew forth the
Lord's death till He come," in a voice that was weak and tremulous,
but all the more impressive on that account. One of his brother's
elders, a farmer in the neighbourhood whom he had known since his
schooldays, had arranged that he should address his work-people in the
farmhouse, and to this quiet rural gathering he preached what proved
to be his last sermon.

[Footnote 21: _Life and Letters_, p, 769.]

He himself, however, had no idea that this was the case; and when he
left Stitchel he did so with the purpose of preparing for the work
of another session. But as the autumn advanced and his health did
not greatly improve, another consultation of his doctors was held,
the result of which was that he was pronounced to be suffering
from cardiac weakness, and quite unfit for the work of the coming
winter. He at once acquiesced in this verdict, and, with unabated
cheerfulness, set himself to bring his lectures into a state that
would admit of their being easily read to his classes by two friends
who had undertaken this duty. This done, he wrote out in full the
Greek texts--some five hundred in all--quoted in his lectures on
Biblical Theology. These two tasks kept him busy until about the end
of the year 1891, when he began an undertaking which many of his
friends had long been urging upon him--the preparation of a volume
of his sermons for the press. He selected for this purpose those
sermons which he had preached most frequently, and which he had,
with few exceptions, originally written for sacramental occasions
at Berwick--some of them far back in the old Golden Square days.
These he carefully transcribed, altering them where he thought this
necessary, and not always, in the opinion of many, improving them
in the process.

He found that his strength was not u