gregation, and, moreover, that he had to fight the battle alone, for
he was too much identified with the 'Methodists' to receive any help
from the 'Orthodox,' his difficult position will be understood. But the
brave man cared little for obloquy or desertion, or even the prospect of
absolute starvation, when the cause of practical religion was at stake.
There is very little doubt that it was. Many who called themselves
Calvinists were making the doctrines of grace a cloak for the vilest
hypocrisy; and the noble stand which Scott made against these deadly
errors gives him a better claim to the title of 'Confessor' than many to
whom the name has been given.

In spite of opposition, the good man worked on, with very small
remuneration. His professional income (and he had little or nothing
else) hardly exceeded 100_l._ a year. For this miserable stipend he
officiated four times every Sunday in two churches, between which he had
to walk fourteen miles, and ministered daily to a most disheartening
class of patients in a hospital. To eke out his narrow income he
undertook to write annotations on the Scriptures, which were to come out
weekly, and to be completed in a hundred numbers. The payment stipulated
was the magnificent sum of a guinea a number! This was the origin of the
famous Commentary. There is no need to make many remarks on this
well-known work. As a practical and devotional commentary it did not
perhaps attain to the permanent popularity of Matthew Henry's
commentary, and in point of erudition and acuteness it is not equal to
that of Adam Clarke. But it holds an important place of its own in the
Evangelical literature of its class, and its usefulness extended beyond
the limits of the Evangelical school. Its immediate success was
enormous, perhaps almost unparalleled in literary history, or at least
in the history of works of similar magnitude; 12,000 copies of the
English edition and 25,250 of the American, were produced in the
lifetime of the author. The retail price of the English copies amounted
to 67,600_l._ and of the American 132,300_l._ One would have been glad
to learn that the author himself was placed in easy circumstances by the
sale of his work. But this was not the case; on the contrary, it
involved him for some time in very serious embarrassments. Scott died,
as he lived, a poor man. But one is thankful to know that his old age
was passed in comparative peace. His change from London to Aston
Sandford,