1, 1844, he lost his mother--"simple-minded," he says, "as a
child. Oh! what a break of the family circle! It seems as if the last
link which bound us together were broken, and a point vanished round
which we could always rally. I went with Lauderdale to see the poor
remains, so attenuated, and yet the countenance like itself, still
beautiful, and fine features." The funeral made the Dean very sad. She
was followed to the grave by two sons, a son-in-law, two grandsons and
distant cousins. Mr. Alison read the service, and she was buried beside
her old friend of fifty years--poor Mrs. Macdonald.

1844: "Christmas day morning, Communion 78, in all 404; the church so
full. I preached an old but a good sermon." He has a Christmas dinner of
a few friends, but not much Christmas spirit, he says. In 1845, January
12, the journal notices--"I preached my liturgy sermon, and apparently
with much success." Some of his congregation had spoken of it as worthy
to be printed. He saw a good deal of company in his own house, whom I do
not think it necessary to particularise, though they were generally of
distinction for talent or rank, or both together. He heard C. Kemble
read Henry VIII., which "I did much enjoy. Will. Shakspeare when most
known is most admired." On 19th January he preached a sermon, but his
note upon it is not like the last. "I liked it, but it did not seem to
take as I had expected. Have been much meditating this week on many
matters, Church especially: find myself unsettled, I fear, but I think I
have the remedy, which is to keep my attention fixed rather on practical
than on speculative points. We cannot agree on the one; on the other we
may, and good men do." March 2, 1845: "I confess that the Romanising
tendencies so openly avowed in the Church of England alarm me. The
question occurs, Is not this a necessary, or at least a natural tendency
of High Churchism?" Speaking of meetings of his Synod, he says "it is
wretched work, which ended, indeed, in doing nothing." One member had
spoken with much bitterness, which he says, "thank God, I do not feel."
3d April 1845: "We are in a nice mess about this Old Town business. Two
different communion offices in one day in the same chapel. Is it
possible that this could ever have been contemplated by the canon? I do
fear the extreme and Romanising party, and they hurt us here. The Scotch
office is supposed to identify us with them, and certainly the comments
upon it make it spe