his flock, to the Established Church of Scotland, to his
friends at home, and to his country. In his altered circumstances,
however--severed as he was by an arbitrary act over which there was no
moral or legal control, cast destitute from the altar at which he had
ministered with usefulness and acceptance, and having no claims to
immediate patronage in the church--he resolved, with a heavy heart, to
betake himself to that field of exertion in a foreign land to which he
had been so courteously invited. Having adopted this resolution, he
did not waste time in idle whining, but prepared to encounter all the
inconveniences and perils of a long voyage across the deep; aggravated,
unspeakably, by the accompaniments of a wife and six young children, and
hampered by the scanty means which remained to him amidst this wreck of
his hopes of happiness at home.

But before his final departure from the cold and rocky shore of Scotland
for ever, he wished to take a public leave of his flock. His own chapel
had been shut up; but a reverend friend, in a closely adjoining burgh,
acceded at once to his request, that he might have the use of his pulpit
on the Sunday after the act of ejection which I have already mentioned.
The villagers of Bellerstown were speedily apprised of their minister's
intention; and they and many others attended to hear his farewell
sermon. The church was crowded with an affectionate and even somewhat
exasperated multitude, and the service of the day was characterised by a
more than usual solemnity. All the energy of the preacher's spirit was
called up to sustain him on so trying an occasion; and the unaffected,
earnest, and native eloquence of his pulpit appearances, were heightened
by the emotions which struggled within his bosom.

His brief but christianlike and dignified address, in which the
tremulous voice of deep emotion was occasionally mingled with the manly
tones of bolder elocution, was listened to in silence deep as death; and
when he descended from the pulpit, Mr. Douglas was surrounded by a
throng of elders, and young men, and humble matrons, who were eager to
manifest their heartfelt reverence for their beloved pastor.

It were tedious and profitless to detail all the painful circumstances
which intervened betwixt the time now referred to and that of the
minister's embarkation. He experienced, on the one hand, all the
petty vexations which the earl's sycophants could devise for his
annoyance--and,