a period of hesitation, more painful and
prolonged than he had ever passed through on any similar occasion, he
decided to remain in Berwick. He was moved to this decision, partly by
his attachment to his congregation; partly by a feeling that he could
do more for the cause of Union by remaining its minister than would
be possible amid the labours of a new city charge; and partly by the
hope, which was becoming perceptibly fainter and more wistful, that
he might at last find leisure in Berwick to write his book.

But, although he did not become a city minister, he preached very
frequently in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and indeed all over the country.
His services were in constant request for the opening of churches and
on anniversary occasions. He records that in the course of a single
year he preached or spoke away from home (of course mostly on week
days) some forty or fifty times. Wherever he went he attracted
large crowds, on whom his rugged natural eloquence produced a deep
impression. It has been recorded that on one occasion, while a vast
audience to which he had been preaching in an Edinburgh church was
dispersing, a man was overheard expressing his admiration to his
neighbour in language more enthusiastic than proper: "He's a deevil
o' a preacher!"

With all this burden of work pressing on him, it was a relief when the
annual holiday came round and he could get away from it. But this
holiday, too, was usually of a more or less strenuous character, and
embraced large tracts of country either at home or, more frequently,
on the Continent. On these tours his keen human interest asserted
itself. He loved to visit places associated with great historic
events, or that suggested to him reminiscences of famous men and
women. And the actual condition of the people, how they lived, and
what they were thinking about, interested him deeply. He spoke to
everybody he met, in the train, in the steamboat, or in hotels, in
fluent if rather "bookish" German, in correct but somewhat halting
French, or, if it was a Roman Catholic priest he had to deal with,
in sonorous Latin. And, without anything approaching cant or
officiousness, he always tried to bring the conversation round to
the subject of religion--to the state of religion in the country in
which he was travelling, about which he was always anxious to gain
first-hand information, and, if possible and he could do it without
offence, to the personal views and experiences of th