."

"_Jan._ 12, 1832.--Cor non pacem habet. Quare? Peccatum apud fores
manet." ["My heart has not peace. Why? Sin lieth at my door."]

"_Jan. 25._--A lovely day. Eighty-four cases of cholera at
Musselburgh, How it creeps nearer and nearer like a snake! Who will be
the first victim here? Let thine everlasting arms be around us, and we
shall be safe."

"_Jan. 29_, Sabbath.--Afternoon heard Mr. Bruce (then minister of the
New North Church, Edinburgh) on Malachi 1:1-6. It constitutes the very
gravamen of the charge against the unrenewed man, that he has
affection for his earthly parent, and reverence for his earthly
master, but none for God! Most noble discourse."

"_Feb. 2_.--Not a trait worth remembering! And yet these
four-and-twenty hours must be accounted for."

_Feb. 5_, Sabbath.--In the afternoon, having heard the late Mr. Martin
of St. George's,[1] he writes, on returning home: "O quam humilem, sed
quam diligentissimum; quam dejectum, sed quam vigilem, quam die
noctuque precantem, decet me esse quum tales viros aspicio. Juva,
Pater, Fili, et Spiritus!" ["Oh! how humble, yet how diligent, how
lowly, yet how watchful, how prayerful night and day it becomes me to
be, when I see such men. Help, Father, Son, and Spirit!"]

[1] He says of him on another occasion, _June 8, 1834_: "A man
greatly beloved of whom the world was not worthy." "An apostolic
man." His own calm deep holiness, resembled in many respects Mr.
Martin's daily walk.

From this date he seems to have sat, along with his friend Mr.
Somerville, almost entirely under Mr. Bruce's ministry. He took
copious notes of his lectures and sermons, which still remain among
his papers.

"_Feb. 28._--Sober conversation. Fain would I turn to the most
interesting of all subjects. Cowardly backwardness: 'For whosoever is
ashamed of me and my words,'" etc.

At this time, hearing, concerning a friend of the family, that she had
said, "_That she was determined to keep by the world,_" he penned the
following lines on her melancholy decision:--

She has chosen the world,
And its paltry crowd;
She has chosen the world,
And an endless shroud!
She has chosen the world
With its misnamed pleasures;
She has chosen the world,
Before heaven's own treasures.

She hath launched her boat
On life's giddy sea,
And her all is afloat
For eternity.
But Bethlehem's s