A memoir of Lady Colquhoun

Chapter I

Sir John Sinclair — Thurso Castle — Lady Janet Sinclair — Nurse Morris — Stoke Newington — The Sisters — Dr. Walter Buchanan, and Wilberforce's " Practical View " .

Chapter II

Rossdhu and Loch Lomond — Sir James Colquhoun — Dr. Stewart, of Luss — Aristocratic society in Scotland long ago — Commencement of the Diary — A Mother's Legacy , . .21

Chapter III

Death of Miss Hannah Sinclair — Letter to Miss Massie — Luss and Arrochar Bible Society — The poor of Scotland thirty years ago — Nelly — "Despair and Hope " — Bell Macintyre — Tract distribution— The School of Industry— The Sabbath School—" Kirkings "—The Diary— Dr. Alex. Stewart— Mr. Legh Richmond — Dr. Chalmers — Miss Jane Farrell . . 67

IV CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. Page

Publications — "Impressions of the Heart" — Dr. Colquhoun, of Leith — Dr. Hamilton, of Strathblane — Dr. Malan — Letter to the Rev. A. Westoby — A Daughter's Marriage — First visit to Brighton — The Pavilion and the Sabbath — "Be not far off: for grief is near " — The Illness and Death of Sir John Sinclair and Sir James Colquhoun 131

Chapter V

Thy Maker is thy Husband " — Class for grown-up Girls — Lady Colquhoun's talent in Expounding Scripture — Visits to Suffolk — Labors amongst the Cottagers of Stutton and the Inhabitants of Thistle-street — Letters to Miss S.- — Sunday Trains — Journal 189

Chapter VI

The Disruption — The Free Church at Luss — Societies — Education in India — Letters to Miss Laing — Irish Mission — Gaelic Schools — Making a friend of the unrighteous Mammon — Piety at Home — Servants — Diary concluded — Death of her Daughter-in-law and Lady Sinclair . . . . .231

Chapter I

O SATISFY US EARLY WITH THY MERCY ; THAT WE MAY REJOICE AND BE GLAD ALL OUR DAYS. PSALM XC. 14.

I do remember them, their pleasant brows So mark'd with pure affections, and the glance Of their mild eyes, when in the house of God, They gather'd up the manna that did fall Like dew around.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

To few of her sons is Scotland more indebted than to the late Sir John Sinclair, of Ulbster. Entering into active life at an early age, for sixty busy years he was constantly spending in the service of his neighbours and his country excellent talents and a good estate. Whilst yet a lad at college he gave earnest of that passion for improvement, and that dauntless enterprise, which distinguished him through life. Among its many wants, his native Caithness wanted roads, and it was in vain that Mr. Sinclair urged his brother landowners to supply the deficiency. There was a steep hill called Ben Cheilt, which ran right through the county, and as an objection to the turnpike, at once witty and fatal, it was always asked, " When will you show us a road over Ben Cheilt ? " But one summer morning, having beforehand provided great store of implements, the young laird mustered on the spot 1,200 labourers, and ere nightfall a good carriage-way was thrown over this terrible mountain.

B 2

LIFE OF LADY COLQUHOUN.

And much of his subsequent career was the same exploit repeated. In every undertaking he knew that he must look for a Ben Cheilt, — a Hill Difficulty, on which all the timid and all the lazy would take their stand ; and he always sought to surmount it by some brilliant and conclusive operation. And by dint of his own heroic exertions, and by the aid of those friends whom his reputation and his good offices were perpetually acquiring, he accomplished many works of enormous labor and of more than national utility. Encouraged by the success of his schemes for improving the husbandry of his own ungenial realms, he founded that Board of Agriculture which has introduced a new era in the tillage of the empire, whilst his untiring labors have left his name associated with the productive fisheries and thriving sheep-farms of Scotland. The list of his publications fills thirty pages of print ; and if the themes be too various, and if fresh projects succeed one another too rapidly, they show the industry of the student who could impart information on subjects so diverse, and the benevolence of the statesman whose only concern was to make other people rich and contented. His " Statistical Account of Scotland " * is a trophy of his unconquerable energy and unwearied good-humour. It was a * In twenty-one volumes, octavo.

task for which, saving the engineer of Ben Cheilt, few

would have had faith or perseverance sufficient. In

order to compile it, he required answers to one hundred

and sixty queries from nearly a thousand ministers. To

many of his correspondents, such topics were strange

or distasteful, and all of them encountered difficulties

in the shiness, and sometimes in the superstition, of

their natural informants. Tenants would not tell the

produce of their farms, for fear that their rents should

be raised ; and Highland shepherds would not count

their flocks, lest their vain curiosity should entail a

judgment on the fleecy people. But, by a judicious

admixture of coaxing and objurgation, the sanguine

Baronet quickened the diligence of the ministers, and

by patience and adroitness, the ministers elicited the

essential facts from their over-cautious parishioners.

One laid aside his Cicero, and another his "Poli

Synopsis,' ' till he should complete his census of pigs,

archaeological over the " Auld Wives' Lift," and Dr.

Gibb waxed curious in acoustics : * in stately periods,

* Witness the clever and well-bred echo at Mugdock Castle : " Opposite to this tower is heard a very extraordinary echo. It repeats any sentence of six syllables, in the exact tone, and with the very accent, in which it is uttered j wailing deliberately till the sentence is finished before it begins." — Stat. Acct. xviii. 579.

LIFE OF LADY COLQUHOUN.

worthy of a Scottisli Johnson, Mr. Sheriff told howmany pounds of clover, and how many firlots of ryegrass were sown, in order to procure a hundred stones of hay ; whilst the mellifluous cadence of Dr. Mackinlay lent new charms to printed calicoes, duffles, serges, and mancoes, and all fabrics which owed their glory to Kilmarnock and to "creelman's composition." When the mighty work was completed, no country possessed a survey of its internal resources so comprehensive, or local histories so minute, as were contained in its elaborate pages. It greatly helped to create the science of statistics, and to Scottish antiquarians it is a record of ever-growing value. — When to such literary and economic toils, we add that in mellow age he could reckon two hundred of his countrymen who owed their worldly advancement to his friendly interposition, and that he numbered among his correspondents half the renowned names of Europe, we shall convey some idea of his wide acquaintance with his cotemporaries, as well as a specimen of his ceaseless and kind-hearted activity.*

* For interesting memorials of Sir John Sinclair we are indebted to the filial affection of both a son and a daughter. See Miss Catherine Sinclair's " Shetland and the Shetlanders ;" and " Memoirs of the late Right Honourable Sir John Sinclair, Bart.," by Archdeacon Sinclair.

LIFE OF LADY COLQUHOUN.

When the heir of Ulbster was still young, full of the chivalry which through his strong-minded mother, Lady Janet,* he had derived from the ancient house of Sutherland, and exulting in all the possibilities of an existence which he meant to fill with noble deeds, at the residence of Mr. Maitland, at Stoke Newington, he saw a young lady whose rare attractions drew many admirers round her. Of these none could be more ardent than Mr. Sinclair, and he soon won the affections of a congenial mind. But Miss Maitland was an only child and an heiress, and her mother grudged that her future home should be so far away. However, the same love which would fain have kept her daughter near her, could not long gainsay that daughter's deliberate choice; and ere long the sanction of either parent gave to the happy suitor his lovely bride. Nine years passed prosperously. Mr. Sinclair was in Parliament ; his knowledge of finance made him an authority on that great question of the day, and gained him the special favour of the Premier.

* Lady Janet was daughter of William Lord Strathnaver, who, had he survived his father, would have been seventeenth Earl of Sutherland. Her sister, Lady Helen Sutherland, married Sir James Colquhoun, of Luss, grandfather of that Sir James who became the husband of Miss Janet Sinclair. Consequently, Lady Colquhoun and her husband were cousins.

He had received the promise of a Baronetcy,* and was daily rising into higher political influence and public celebrity, when his flattering prospects were shrouded in sudden gloom by the removal of his much-loved partner. Along with the memory of her feminine graces and endearing gentleness, Mrs. Sinclair left her representatives in two little girls, almost too young to miss her, but still so like her, that, in the daughters there was a promise that the mother would appear again. Hannah, the oldest, was five years of age, and Janet, of whom we are now to write, was only four. She was born in London, on the 17th -of April, 1781, and during her infancy her parents resided at Westminster and Whitehall.

The first home of these motherless children was their ancestral seat, Thurso Castle. That stormy mansion looked more like a nursery for a lord of the isles, or like, what at first it was, the ocean-nest of the amphibious Caithness earls, than a retreat for tender orphans, cradled beneath a southern sun. But in that grim old castle the Orphans' Guardian had provided for them all but a mother's care. Not only

* After his wife's death, as Mr. Sinclair had no son, by a very unusual concession to the feelings of his friend, Mr. Pitt made out the patent of Baronetcy in favour of Sir John, with remainder to his daughters and their heirs male.

LIFE OP LADY COLQTTHOUN. 9

was it the frequent resort of their fond surviving parent, but it was the permanent abode of their paternal grandmother, a Scottish gentlewoman of the olden school, shrewd, energetic, notable, proud of her ancient lineage, and, as became the descendant of that venerable peer who first affixed his /tremulous autograph to Scotland's Covenant, a firm adherent to the Presbyterian polity • one who looked well to the ways of her household, and indited hortatory epistles to youthful clergymen ; but also one who, amidst all the strictness of a manager, and all the stateliness of a high-born dame, carried about that constitutional kindliness, and those profound affections, which — like a deep well, fenced with rustic masonry — the old mothers of Scotland sometimes hid within a dry or stoic manner. Lady Janet now lived for the daughters of her son, and though perhaps imperfectly acquainted with the distinguishing truths of the Gospel, it was her anxiety to bring up her youthful charge religiously. She constantly took them to the parish church, and then examined them on the sermons they had heard, and required them every Sabbath to repeat to her a Psalm and the Shorter Catechism. At the Castle also resided their father's sister, a kind lady who, throughout her long life, never ceased to be much loved by her nieces.* And there, too, sojourned a judicious and affectionate servant — the English nurse, Morris — to whose warm-hearted counsels and simple Bible lessons her youthful charge were at that period more indebted than to any human influence. Herself a guileless and God-fearing Christian, this faithful attendant imbued their susceptible minds with much of her own truthfulness and reverence for sacred things. One Sabbath Miss Jessie came in with a lapful of shell-fish, which she had gathered on the shore at a great distance from the Castle. " I think, my dear," said Morris, " you should not have gathered them on the Sabbath-day; you had better put them again where you got them." Miss Jessie disappeared, and was late of returning. She had scrambled back the whole way along that rocky coast, till she came as nearly as she could judge to the spot where she had found the periwinkles, and then put them carefully back again. To her latest day she retained the simplicity and ingenuousness, as well as the respect for the Sabbath, which she learned thus early ; and to her latest day, Nurse Morris experienced the gratitude of the Misses Sinclair, who provided her

* She afterwards became Mrs. Baillie, by her marriage to Lord Polkemmet, one of the Senators of the College of Justice.

with an ample annuity, and were careful that in health, as in sickness, she should want no comfort which money could procure.

Prom Thurso Castle it was a grand sight to view the Pentland Frith in its winter's fury — and the sisters often viewed it. On the short December days, — in Caithness extremely short — they would stand and watch as one long wave after another swung home, and exploded beneath them ; till at last some monster billow, with skirmishers streaming before him, rolled up to the charge, and as he burst on the basement, the windows were washed with brine, and the old tower shook like a lighthouse. To gaze on that stormy ocean, and listen to its noisy anthem, were great lessons ; and even in these our days of infant training, it might be well if more provision were made for such bookless education, and the young mind were permitted to commune more freely with nature in her wild and gentle moods. The subject of this memoir often reverted to the solemn and awe-struck emotions with which she used to survey the many waves of that mighty sea. To her it lived. In its gambols it was a familiar and a play-fellow ; in its turmoil it was a preacher of Jehovah's majesty ; and when formal instructions had nearly faded from remembrance, she was still conscious of lofty thoughts, and grave impressions, derived from this august but kindly tutor.

Prom Thurso Castle Lady Janet brought her granddaughters to Edinburgh. There, for three years they dwelt in the ancient Canongate, whose quaint houses were still occupied by such of the aristocracy as had not migrated to the New Town ; and then, to complete their education, they were sent to the school at Stoke Newington, where their own mother had spent her youthful days. Mrs. Crisp, by whom this school was conducted, received the children of her former pupil with a very warm affection, and, in her well-ordered establishment, the business of learning went briskly forward. The different branches were taught by the best teachers ; the Miss Sinclairs enjoyed good health, and were endowed with excellent abilities ; they had already acquired the most essential elements of knowledge before coming to London, and they had every incentive to study which the affection of their governess and the goodwill of their companions could supply. Accordingly they made signal proficiency, and when, at the respective ages of fifteen and sixteen, they returned to Edinburgh, in person and acquirements advanced beyond their years, they found a ready welcome into that brilliant society to which their birth was a passport, and into which their kind

LIFE OF LADY C0LQUH0TJN. 13

mother-in-law, Lady Sinclair,* rejoiced to introduce them.

However, it was the great happiness of the sisters that even then they had no love of fashion and no turn for gaiety. And it was their other great happiness that they had an ardent love for one another. Hannah was a student. Even during her childish days at Thurso, she had nearly as many friends as there were books in her father's library. She knew the haunt* of each, and climbing on a chair got hold of her favourite poet or divine, and sat demurely reading whilst the summer tempted her to play. To her it was the great event, not when the carrier brought a package of new toys, but a parcel of new volumes ; and when ministers and learned people visited the Castle, she posed them with hard questions. At school the same tendency was manifested. Her turn was still for thought and knowledge. She was fond of languages; she was an adept in grammar, history, geography, arithmetic ; she could

* The second wife of Sir John Sinclair was the only daughter of Lord Macdonald. She was not more eminent for beauty and accomplishments, than for benevolence and sweetness of disposition. The attachment of the Misses Sinclair towards her was warm and well-deserved, for she was always a kind mother, and a faithful friend to them. She survived her husband ten years, and died in 1845.

calculate an eclipse, or analyze " Reid's Inquiry." And, as might be expected, she was sedate and speculative, and often silent. Prom extreme modesty, reserved, she was still more self-contained, because amongst companions of her own sex she seldom found much sympathy in her intellectual pursuits. But Jessie was more lively. Dutiful and diligent, and considerate of each one's feelings, she was full of merry life and social glee. There was health in her nimble step and a prepossession in her fair and open features, and a peculiar charm in her tuneful voice. To her sister's turn for music she added a remarkable command of the pencil ; and whilst her sister pored over problems and deep authors, Jessie read for information. Their characters had just diversity sufficient to increase their fondness for one another, and to enable the one to supply what the other lacked. For her erudite and thoughtful sister the younger felt an admiring and up-looking deference; whilst the limpid perceptions and true instincts of that younger mind often proved lights in dark places to the more abstract inquirer.

At that period Dr. Walter Buchanan was one of the ministers of Canongate. His warm and affectionate nature had been cast in the mould of the Gospel, and as it shone from his happy countenance and breathed in his gracious words, holiness was very beautiful.* The sisters looked at him with reverence. They had been told a great deal about religion, and they thought of it as something strict and precise ; but they had never met anything so fascinating as they saw in

* Dr. Walter Buchanan was born in 1755. After he was licensed he received an invitation to become the pastor of the Scotch Church at Rotterdam, and was also called to the chapel of South Leith, of which Dr. Colquhoun was for so many years the eminent minister. But instead of either charge he accepted the office of assistant to Mr. Randall, of Stirling, whom he succeeded in 1780. In 1789 he was translated to the Collegiate Church and parish of Canongate, where he remained until his death in 1832. He was a beautiful specimen of Christian urbanity and warm-heartedness, and his house was the natural resort of the pious clergymen and Dissenters who in those days, — the days of Simeon, Rowland Hill, and George Burder, — came to Edinburgh, and who, until the year 1799, were allowed to occupy indiscriminately the pulpits of the Scottish Establishment. Along with Dr. Davidson he was noted for his liberal encouragement of pious students of Theology, and by the books which he lent them, the fatherly advice which he gave them, and the many substantial services which he rendered them, — finding a tutorship for one, and the office of schoolmaster or assistant minister for another, and frequently giving goodly sums to those in straitened circumstances, — he became a general patron to all probationers of Evangelical sentiments in Edinburgh. For many years he edited a periodical which supplied the godly families in Scotland with missionary intelligence and instructive Sabbath-reading, — " The Religious Monitor." With that con-

16 LIEE OF LADY C0LQUH0UN.

their saintly pastor. They were quite arrested. Even amidst gay parties and volatile companions there followed them many a reminiscence of those fervent intercessions and persuasive counsels to which they had hearkened on the previous Sabbath. At last one day Miss Sinclair said to her sister, "If to obtain eternal life, we have only to practise goodness ; if we have only to do what is right in the sight of God and avoid what is evil, I am sure it would be folly not to make the attempt." And the proposal was made to one who had already been pondering the matter in her own mind, and who was beginning to be much impressed with the value of her soul and the uncertainty of life. The two resolved to become religious. They often retired and read the Bible together, and became very exact in devotional exercises. But still they were not satisfied. They saw that their pastor

stancy which was one of her loveliest characteristics, Lady Colquhoun never abated for one hour in the grateful and venerating affection with which she regarded this earthly guide of her youth ; and when, long afterwards, her own daughter was married, she felt it a hallowing and auspicious circumstance that the rite was solemnized by her own spiritual father. And in his widow, who survived for fifteen years, she found one of her most esteemed and congenial friends. The house of Mrs. Buchanan was the last to which Lady C. paid a visit.

and Christians like him, " had bread to eat which they knew not of," and they longed for this hidden manna. At this time they found on their father's table a Theological Treatise, newly published and inscribed, " From the Author. " It was " A Practical View of the Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes, by William Wilberforce, M.P." It seemed the very book they wanted. They carried it off to their own apartments and perused it with avidity. They could easily recognise in it the same system of evangelical doctrine which their minister preached, and as one truth after another unfolded in the bland and eloquent expositions of the gifted author, they were transported with delight. In the precision of a printed book, and in the free, inartificial language of a layman, they understood the Gospel. In Christ believed they found their peace with God ; in Christ loved they learned a new morality. It was Dr. Buchanan's scriptural preaching and elevated walk which first prepossessed them in favour of vital godliness, and which long continued to be the chief means of building them up in faith and holiness ; but it was the " Practical View " which first corrected their self-righteous errors and first taught them God's own method, — the religion of receiving and relying.

c

18 LTFE OF LADY COLQUHOUN.

After this the Canongate Church was dearer than ever. With sacred delight they hailed the return of the Sabbath, and to them the most hallowed spots in the world were the dusky pulpit in which re-appeared that man of God, and their own family pew with its faded lining of green baize. With its brown light, its heavy pillars, and clumsy sounding-board, and with an audience becoming rapidly more and more plebeian, that sanctuary had charms which more classical structures and more fashionable resorts could never countervail. It was the Bethel where God first met them, and daring each sojourn in Edinburgh, the youngest sister used always to revisit it, till shortly before the time when she arrived at " her Father's house in peace/'

Now, also, was found the benefit of " two walking together." Miss Sinclair's seriousness and reflectiveness at an earlier period had proved of essential service to Miss Janet; and now that service was requited, for, indulging the metaphysical propensity of her mind, Miss Sinclair was soon involved in perplexity as to the primary truths of revelation.* The doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, the eternity

* We here anticipate the narrative by a few years. It was not till Miss S. had reached her 21st year that she felt the doubts described above.

of future punishment, the Divine sovereignty, all in succession proved stumbling-blocks ; and though much distressed at her own reluctant doubts, she had not within her own resources the means of removing them. In spiritual matters her only confidant was her youngest sister ; but a mind like hers could not have sought a better counsellor. To Miss Janet the Gospel had always been its own witness. She did not " exercise herself in great matters ; " but she saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. To her the religion of the Bible was beautiful. To her, in His revealed character, God was light, and she perceived no darkness at all. To her the Bible was truth, and the Gospel was the wisdom of God. And instead of debating with her sister, she directed her mind to the same objects which had assured herself. That which she had seen of the Word of Life she declared to her disquieted friend; and by dwelling on the fitness of the Gospel, and the loveliness of the Saviour's character, and by urging her to pray, she sought to bring that friend to " fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." And she succeeded. By means of the more prominent and practical truths of Christianity, she conjured away her sister's abstruser doubts and intellectual difficulties, and had the happiness to see that dearest of her

c 2 kindred a sharer of her own ingenuous and healthful piety. Our language contains few summaries of Evangelical Christianity more simple and comprehensive than Hannah Sinclair's " Letter on the Principles of the Christian Faith ; " and in reading it we feel our interest deepened by remembering that this labor of sisterly love is in good measure the result of sisterly prudence and piety ; for, under the blessing of God the Spirit, it was her younger sister's meekness of wisdom and simplicity in Christ which mainly contributed to establish Hannah Sinclair in the " Christian faith."

But an event had now occurred which, whilst it left them attached as ever, interrupted their daily communings. On the 13th of June, 1799, and in the nineteenth year of her age, Miss Janet Sinclair was united in marriage to James, eldest son of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, Baronet.

Chapter II. Grow In Grace, And In The Knowledge Of Our Lord And

SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. — 2 PETER IH. 18.

Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth

Wisely hast shunn'd the broad way and the green,

And with those few art eminently seen,

That labour up the hill of heavenly truth,

The better part, with Mary and with Ruth,

Chosen thou hast.

Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends

To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,

And hope that reaps not shame.

milton's sonnets.

Has the reader ever spent a bright day on Loch Lomond? Has he gone at leisure, and carried to it a spirit free from guilt and foreboding? Rising in health and in prayer, has he opened his soul and consented beforehand to let in all the wonder and delight with which the great Creator may be pleased to fill it? And, in his own hired boat, dropping from isle to isle, has he taken time to gaze and meditate and dissolve into the scene? And was there ever day like that? Not that you can describe the sights unutterable ; though you carry within yourself placid visions and sunny images of which you know that the origin was there : a silvery fulness, and, standing forth from it, mossy rocks and clumps of verdure ; a giant mountain on a throne of empyrean, with a foot-stool of lazulite ; vistas through the hot and flickering air, such as the fire-tinted pencil of Turner only can depict ; pure summits and a polished flood, which made you think of the hills of immortality, and the snowy robes which sweep the sea of glass : whilst, like the music which breaks a dream and then makes it beatific, through all the trance there went and came the sense of a pervading Presence, — the nearness of that Eternal Wisdom which built the mountain and up to its green edging brimmed the flood. But though no words can restore the landscape, you remember how it refined your perception and ennobled all your faculties : the fallow-deer on Inchlonaig and Inchmurrain grew tall as the elk, and you were sure that the hawk was an eagle. The Persicaria in the bays, with its rosy spikes, and the toad-flax on the beach, were new and gorgeous flowers ; and familiar texts and stanzas of favourite hymns thrilled you with excessive emotion. You had put off the commonplace, and were clothed upon with fine and pellucid senses ; and there was no longer aught tame or vulgar in the world, for you yourself were nobler.

With a keen eye for its varied beauties, the subject of our biography now found her home in one of the loveliest regions of all these lovely shores. Surrounded by its stately trees, and sheltered from the blast by the ferny slopes of a Highland mountain, Rossdhu looks out upon Loch Lomond, where its waters are widest and its isles and margins fairest.* And, though encompassed by soft lawns and blossoming parterres, it is near enough to

* A small volume has been compiled, describing the sensations of different travellers in visiting Niagara. A similar volume might be devoted to Loch Lomond. Such experiences are interesting. Be it the perfection of grandeur or the perfection of beauty, the tendency of noble scenery is to concentrate the soul, and nothing can be more revealing of the real character than the genuine utterance of such intensified moments. And, after the lake in all its loveliness had subsided into her calm and daily consciousness, few things were more delightful to Lady Colquhoun than to witness the rapture of a fervent novice. Near the mansion of Rossdhu is the Island of Inchtavanach, from whose elevated crest, tradition says, a great bell used to summon to their several churches the people of four parishes. Of course, this belfry-knoll commands a splendid view ; but, owing to his lameness, it was with some difficulty that they dragged Legh Richmond to the summit. Once there, however, they could not drag him down ; but, slowly revolving his radiant visage, and through his great round-eyed spectacles devouring the landscape, he always hushed his fidgetty companions with the sentence, — " The eye is not satisfied with seeing." But a shorter glance sufficed his friend and cotemporary, Mr. Simeon of Cambridge. "With his usual vivacity he pirouetted round to look at every object as they pointed it out ; then, turning to his hospitable guide, he exclaimed, " Sir James, you turn to this side and you say, ' That is mine ; ' and you turn to the other side and say, ' That is mine ; ' but," lifting both his hands, " I look up and say, Heaven is mine ! " On the same spot Dr. Chalmers exclaimed, " I wonder if there will be a Loch Lomond in heaven ! " And there Dr. Malan knelt down, and poured forth the fulness of his heart in such a the mountains to be constantly visited by breezes from the broom and the heather. Some of the windows look out on a ruined gable of that castle from which the fierce Sir Humphrey used to sally with his followers when he went to fight the Clan Gregor ; and near that Castle, overshaded by ancient yews, is the roofless chapel, where the fierce Sir Humphrey was laid to sleep when all his fights were over. With its pictures and its library and its spacious halls, with three parishes for its manor and the queen of Scottish lakes for its outlook, and with all the self-contained luxury which marks the countryseat of a wealthy Baronet, at the period of life most susceptible of enjoyment, the younger Miss Sinclair found herself the lady of Rossdhu.* But the grace of God had full possession of her mind, and, amidst all the blandishments of smooth-going existence, He Himself was her chiefest joy, and His Word her