er I live. One Saturday morning at our
Missionary Society there came, at our invitation, to talk to us about
our future life, the professor who was the idol of the students and
reputed the most severely scientific of the whole staff. We used to
think him keen, too, and cynical; and what we expected was perhaps a
scathing exposure of the weaknesses of ministers or a severe
exhortation to study. It turned out, on the contrary, to be a strange
piece, steeped in emotion and full of almost lyrical tenderness; and I
can still remember the kind of awe which fell on us, as, from this
reserved nature, we heard a conception of the ministry which had
scarcely occurred to any of us before; for he said, that the great
purpose for which a minister is settled in a parish is not to
cultivate scholarship, or to visit the people during the week, or even
to preach to them on Sunday, but it is to live among them as a good
man, whose mere presence is a demonstration which cannot be gainsaid
that there is a life possible on earth which is fed from no earthly
source, and that the things spoken of in church on Sabbath are
realities.

Side by side with this reminiscence there lives in my memory another,
which also grows more beautiful the more I learn of life. It was my
happiness, when I was ordained, to be settled next neighbour to an
aged and saintly minister. He was a man of competent scholarship, and
had the reputation of having been in early life a powerful and popular
preacher. But it was not to these gifts that he owned his unique
influence. He moved through the town, with his white hair and somewhat
staid and dignified demeanour, as a hallowing presence. His very
passing in the street was a kind of benediction, and the people, as
they looked after him, spoke of him to each other with affectionate
veneration. Children were proud when he laid his hand on their heads,
and they treasured the kindly words which he spoke to them. At
funerals and other seasons of domestic solemnity his presence was
sought by people of all denominations. We who laboured along with him
in the ministry felt that his mere existence in the community was an
irresistible demonstration of Christianity and a tower of strength to
every good cause. Yet he had not gained this position of influence by
brilliant talents or great achievements or the pushing of ambition;
for he was singularly modest, and would have been the last to credit
himself with half the good he did. T