chan tambouring instead of hand-spinning.

Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that
delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796,
my second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great
sorrow, for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With
her I had grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.

I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed
her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and
I have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues,
for she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of
my children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until
things fell into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as
soon as decency would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a
helpmate, and to tend me in my approaching infirmities.

I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor
yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of
that sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I
therefore resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet
age, and I fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in
the University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman
without any children, and because she was held in great estimation as a
lady of Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a
twelve-month and a day had passed from the death of the second Mrs.
Balwhidder; and neither of us have had occasion to rue the bargain.

_VI.--The Last Sermon_

Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet
with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way
commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on
earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she
toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her
little earnings.

The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent
the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their
lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and
I was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on
Lord's Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture
of public affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. Th