for much of
that discipline of mind on Jewish literature and Scripture geography
which was found to be so useful in the Mission of Inquiry to the Jews
in after days.[4]

[4] The members of this Society were--Rev. _William Laughton_,
now Minister of St Thomas's, Greenock, in connection with the
Free Church; _Thomas Brown,_ Free Church, Kinneff; _William
Wilson_, Free Church, Carmyllie; _Horatius Bonar_, Free Church,
Kelso; _Andrew A. Bonar_, Free Church, Collace; _Robert M.
M'Cheyne; Alexander Somerville_, Free Church, Anderston, Glasgow;
_John Thomson_, Mariners' Free Church, Leith; _Robert K.
Hamilton_, Madras; _John Burne_, for some time at Madeira;
_Patrick Borrowman_, Free Church, Glencairn; _Walter Wood_, Free
Church, Westruther; _Henry Moncrieff_, Free Church, Kilbride;
_James Cochrane_, Established Church, Cupar; _John Miller_,
Secretary to Free Church Special Commission; _G. Smeaton_, Free
Church, Auchterarder; _Robert Kinnear_, Free Church, Moffat; and
_W.B. Clarke_, Free Church, Half-Morton. Every meeting was opened
and closed with prayer. Minutes of the discussions were kept; and
the essays read were preserved in volumes. A very characteristic
essay of Mr. M'Cheyne's is "Lebanon and its Scenery" (inserted in
the _Remains_), wherein he adduces the evidence of travellers for
facts and customs which he himself was afterwards to see. Often,
in 1839, pleasant remembrances of these days of youthful study
were suggested by what we actually witnessed; and in the essay
referred to I find an interesting coincidence. He writes: "What a
refreshing sight to his eye, yet undimmed with age, after resting
forty years on the monotonous scenery of the desert, now to rest
on Zion's olive-clad hills, and Lebanon, with its vine-clad base
and overhanging forests, and towering peaks of snow!" This was
the very impression on our minds when we ourselves came up from
the wilderness as expressed in the _Narrative_, chap. 2--"May 29.
Next morning we saw at a distance a range of hills, running north
and south, called by the Arabs _Djebel Khalie_. After wandering
so many days in the wilderness, with its vast monotonous plains
of level sand, the sight of these distant mountains was a
pleasant relief to the eye; and we thought we could understand a
little of the feeling w