tirred up to praise and magnify his
holy name!' What I have so long desired as the highest honor of man,
Thou at length givest me--me who dare scarcely use the words of Paul:
'Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given,
that I should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.' Felt somewhat
solemnized, though unable to feel my unworthiness as I ought. Be
clothed with humility."

An event occurred the week before which cast a solemnizing influence
on him, and on his after fellow-traveller and brother in the gospel,
who was licensed by another Presbytery that same day. This event was
the lamented death of the Rev. John Brown Patterson of Falkirk--one
whom the Lord had gifted with preeminent eloquence and learning, and
who was using all for his Lord, when cut off by fever. He had spoken
much before his death of the awfulness of a pastor's charge, and his
early death sent home the lesson to many, with the warning that the
pastor's account of souls might be suddenly required of him.

On the following Sabbath, Mr. M'Cheyne preached for the first time in
Ruthwell Church, near Dumfries, on "the Pool of Bethesda;" and in the
afternoon on "the Strait Gate." He writes that evening in his diary:
"Found it a more awfully solemn thing than I had imagined to announce
Christ authoritatively; yet a glorious privilege!" The week after
(Saturday, July 11): "Lord, put me into thy service when and where
Thou pleasest. In thy hand all my qualities will be put to their
appropriate end. Let me, then, have no anxieties." Next day, also,
after preaching in St. John's Church, Leith: "Remembered, before going
into the pulpit, the confession which says,[5] 'We have been more
anxious about the messenger than the message.'" In preaching that day,
he states, "It came across me in the pulpit, that if spared to be a
minster, I might enjoy sweet flashes of communion with God in that
situation. The mind is entirely wrought up to speak for God. It is
possible, then, that more vivid acts of faith may be gone through
then, than in quieter and sleepier moments."

[5] He here refers to the _Full and Candid Acknowledgment of
Sin_, for Students and Ministers, drawn up by the Commission of
Assembly in 1651, and often reprinted since.

It was not till the 7th of November that he began his labors at
Larbert. In the interval he preached in various places, and many began
to perceive the peculiar sweetness of the word in his