schoolmaster)
told me that years had not effaced from his heart and his memory the
kindly affection which he bore to my father and all his children, who
were the objects of his careful tuition, and that he had sought and
found me to give utterance to that feeling. I need not say he got a warm
welcome. He had then retired from the laborious duties of his office,
with a moderate competency, and in a green old age. He has since paid
the debt of nature. Peace to his ashes! It would be well if our
parochial clergy would thus cultivate, not the vulgar arts of wordly
popularity, but, by acts of real kindness, the confidence and the
respect of their flocks. It is thus that the human heart is to be won;
and it is thus that a Christian pastor most effectually

"Allures to brighter realms, and leads the way."

There was a peculiarity in the village of Muirden which I must not omit
to notice. It was, perhaps, the first locality in Scotland, so entirely
rural, that had a library established in it. I do not know precisely
the history of that institution; but its supporters were the general
community of the place, who were, in different grades, employed chiefly
in the working of some mines in the vicinity, who devoted a small
portion of their wages, periodically, for the purchase of books for the
library. The fruits of this establishment were visible in the decent and
orderly habits, and in the superior information of the whole population;
presenting a moral picture exactly the reverse of that which too often
characterises the now liberated _ascripti glebae_ who are usually engaged
in such occupations, and who are proverbially the most barbarous and
ignorant class of the community of Scotland--thus furnishing an example,
which is now become pretty general, of supplying an interesting and
improving employment of the hours of relaxation from labour, instead of
misspending the precious intervals at the alehouse or other houses of
debauchery.

The village of Muirden, too, had the advantage of a resident country
gentleman in its immediate neighbourhood--Mr. Sterling. Such an
auxiliary to the clergyman and schoolmaster in a rural district, is
generally of unspeakable advantage to the moral condition of the
locality, more especially when, as in this instance, he was a man
everyway worthy of his rank and position in society. He possessed an
estate of his own in one of the most beautiful provinces in Scotland;
but, being a man distingui