, we should perhaps rather say,
has gone with him to that better land, where all those fruits of
intellect that the human spirits of greatest calibre have in this
world produced, must form but the comparatively meagre beginnings of
infinite, never-ending acquirement.

Mr. Stewart was one of the eminently excellent and loveable, and his
entire character of the most transparent, childlike simplicity. The
great realities of eternity were never far distant from his thoughts.
Endowed with powers of humour at least equal to his other faculties,
and a sense of the ludicrous singularly nice, he has often reminded
us in his genial moments, when indulging most freely, of a happy child
at play in the presence of its father. Never was there an equal amount
of wit more harmlessly indulged, or from which one could pass more
directly or with less distraction to the contemplation of the matters
which pertain to eternity. And no one could be long in his company
without having his thoughts turned towards that unseen world to which
he has now passed, or without receiving emphatic testimony regarding
that Divine Person who is the wisdom and the power of God.

We have seen it stated that Mr. Stewart 'was slow to join the
non-intrusion party, and to acquiesce in the necessity of the
secession.' On this point we are qualified to speak. No one enjoyed
more of his society during the first beginnings of the controversy, or
was more largely honoured with his confidence, than the writer of
these remarks; and the one point of difference between Mr. Stewart and
him in their discussions in those days was, that while the writer was
sanguine enough to anticipate a successful termination to the Church's
struggle, _his_ soberer anticipations were of a character which the
Disruption in 1843 entirely verified. But with the actual result full
in view, he was yet the first man in his parish--we believe, in his
presbytery also--to take his stand, modestly and unassumingly as
became his character, but with a firmness which never once swerved or
wavered. Nay, long ere the struggle began, founding on data with which
we pretend not to be acquainted, he declared his conviction to not a
few of his parishioners, that of the Establishment, as then
constituted, he was to be the last minister in that parish. We know
nothing, we repeat, of the data on which he founded; but he himself
held that the conclusion was fairly deducible from those sacred
oracles which no man