reached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil
got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in
remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the
parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the
pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her
children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said,
"was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent
that day"--a thing I was well pleased to hear, and was minded to make
him an elder the next vacancy. But, worthy man, it was not permitted him
to arrive at that honour; for that fall it pleased Him that alone can
give and take to pluck him from this life.

In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea
in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.
Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the
advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to
eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my
dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse
as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that
it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the
case with the possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies
coming home with red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from
preaching against tea henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my
displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down
by the strong hand of government.

_II.--The Minister's Second Marriage_

A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted
peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived
in her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion,
and she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how
to behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned
to the ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our
parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which
was intended for sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great
loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her
health, which from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I
think she