they who
had been thus cruel to their child; and then lifted up his voice in
solemn warning, and left the house amid their ignorant reproaches.

Nor did he make light of the kirk-session's power to rebuke and deal
with an offender. Once from the pulpit, at an ordination of elders, he
gave the following testimony upon this head: "When I first entered
upon the work of the ministry among you, I was exceedingly ignorant of
the vast importance of church discipline. I thought that my great and
almost only work was to pray and preach. I saw your souls to be so
precious, and the time so short, that I devoted all my time, and care,
and strength, to labor in word and doctrine. When cases of discipline
were brought before me and the elders, I regarded them with something
like abhorrence. It was a duty I shrank from; and I may truly say it
nearly drove me from the work of the ministry among you altogether.
But it pleased God, who teaches his servants in another way than man
teaches, to bless some of the cases of discipline to the manifest and
undeniable conversion of the souls of those under our care; and from
that hour a new light broke in upon my mind, and I saw that if
preaching be an ordinance of Christ, so is church discipline. I now
feel very deeply persuaded that both are of God,--that two keys are
committed to us by Christ: the one the key of doctrine, by means of
which we unlock the treasures of the Bible; the other the key of
discipline, by which we open or shut the way to the sealing ordinances
of the faith. Both are Christ's gift, and neither is to be resigned
without sin."

There was still another means of enforcing what he preached, in the
use of which he has excelled all his brethren, namely, the holy
consistency of his daily walk. Aware that one idle word, one needless
contention, one covetous act, may destroy in our people the effect of
many a solemn expostulation and earnest warning, he was peculiarly
circumspect in his every-day walk. He wished to be always in the
presence of God. If he travelled, he labored to enjoy God by the way,
as well as to do good to others by dropping a word in season. In
riding or walking, he seized opportunities of giving a useful tract;
and, on principle, he preferred giving it to the person directly,
rather than casting it on the road. The former way, he said, was more
open--there was no stealth in it; and we ought to be as clear as
crystal in speaking or acting for Jesus. In writin