VARIOUS ABERDEEN PREACHERS.

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His next move was to join a small anti-burgher congregation, whose minister, Aiken, was, in his own way, as dull as Macmillan. I had previous experience of his church. A maiden aunt had taken me there in my younger days, to relieve the pressure of the growing family upon our church accommodation.

Aiken was slow, monotonous, and sepulchral. He greatly dwelt upon the two covenants, the Aaronic priesthood, and the mysterious relationships of the old and new dispensations. His prayers and sermons were intolerable for length, if for nothing else. The church was situated in a street leading direct from Kidd's; and it was mortifying in the extreme to see Kidd's people passing, nearly half an hour before we were dismissed. The idea of returning to this endurance, at my years, was more than I could tolerate. Almost the first Sunday afternoon that we went to Aiken's, I gave my father the slip, and went on to Kidd. He felt himself outwitted, and got out of it the best way he could; which was to insist that I should verify my attendance by bringing notes of the sermon-an easy task, making my emancipation complete.

It was only now that I came properly under Kidd's influence. I attended his church always twice, and often thrice; for, although a man of

seventy, he had the enormous endurance equal to conducting three sermons in an unusually large building. His manner was captivating, after the dull heaviness of the others. He had a fine voice of bass tones; his words flowed with an easy and melodious elocution. His matter was not profound, but went readily home, pathos being his strongest point. He dwelt, of course, upon the plan of salvation and the Gospel offer, and was urgent and impressive in his appeals to the unconverted. To vary the interest of his numerous preachings, he went in largely for prophecy, and had usually in hand one of the prophetic books -Daniel and Revelation. This led him into

history. He gave us an outline of the four ancient monarchies, and described the critical periods of Roman decline-all told with lucidity and dramatic power. His evening service was usually occupied in this way, and had the effect of securing a good attendance. I had at the time little historical knowledge, and was naturally interested by the novelty it relieved the monotony of his main themes.

Much as I was captivated with Kidd's fervent manner and felicity of style and utterance, his method of discourse and his views generally rather increased than diminished the difficulties of the way of salvation.

He used to put it direct

in this form: "If you will only now accept Christ, you will be happy for ever". He even gave us the exact words that we were to employ in order to attain this magical result. I was very early impressed with the prodigious disproportion between the means and the end, and could not enter seriously into the attempt. In consequence, I felt that my conversion was still delaying, and never coming any nearer; so that, with a perfectly devout temper and a believing disposition, I remained in a kind of chronic indecision as to my own state. When I attained the usual age for becoming a communicant, I deferred taking the step of joining the class (taught by Kidd himself) for preparing the youthful candidates by a course of catechizing (which I could easily have gone through), and by dint of repeated postponement, found myself at last under a new kind of influence that proved a fatal and final bar to my joining Church communion; and I never did join.

The Stewarts were religious in a way, but never experienced any of my struggles. They went to Communion as a matter of course, and did not take any serious or troublesome views of the way of salvation. We often discussed doctrinal points together, but did not enter on the topic of inward religious experience. They were much more free in every way than I was. They

studied science and secular matters generally on Sunday: this, for long, I could not do, valuable as the Sunday time was to a hard week-day worker. They stayed at home from the services for that purpose, being satisfied with going to church

once.

Kidd died in my seventeenth year. I cannot verify the date of my revolt from paternal authority in going to his church; but I believe I must have been "under him" (as the phrase is) between two and three years—that is, from the age of fourteen. Emotional heat of the religious sort he certainly inspired in me, in spite of my inability to follow his prescriptions for entering the life of the regenerate.

My mother's church had an excellent congregational library, which, though mainly, was not exclusively, theological. It contained the writings of the well-known names in the evangelical world. Every Saturday evening, for a long time, I used to make a search for some book as Sunday reading. I seldom, I may say never, read any theological book through, and was delighted when I could get a volume of tracts, which changed and diversified the interest. I remember making a determined set at Owen on the Hebrews, having heard his name frequently quoted among the more spiritual divines. After toiling for several Sundays during

RELIGIOUS LITERATURE.

41

the hours between sermons that were disposable for reading, I had to give him up; the diffuseness and the iteration became unendurable. I still have a faint recollection of his handling. He harped upon that fine verse (as it sounded to me), "Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection"; but his transition from principles to perfection passed my discernment. The historical works of the congregational body were to be found in the library and were more attractive-Neal's History of the Puritans and Godwin's History of the Republic of England. I entered upon these a certain way, but failed to go through them. The first histories that I read completely were Robertson's; being charmed with his style and his vein of political reflection, which I could appreciate to some extent.

My greatest find in this library was a copy of Robert Hall's sermon on Modern Infidelity. The style took hold of me at once, and I well remember a Sunday afternoon walk with George Stewart, during which I read selections from the book aloud with all the declamatory force that I could command. I must have then perused it, or at least the great passages, many times. I did not have access to any other work of Hall's till my first year at college. He far transcended any other preacher that I had yet encountered, alike as a reasoner and