divided, and for a time to act as teacher and superintendent in the school. Far from despising what to other minds would have appeared to be drudgery, regarding it indeed with fondness, and entering into it with his whole heart, he spent entire days in teaching the children of the lower classes of his parish the elementary principles of education and religion, and passed from the school-house to his study, only to prosecute the other department of his labor of love; and, amid the humble toils of an author of first books for children, to lose sight of those more inviting objects of ambition, after which a mind like his might have been expected exclusively to aspire.

From nature he had received an exquisite ear and taste for music; and, upon the principle of consecrating all the gifts of nature to the service of his Master, he undertook a reformation of that part of the devotional service of the sanctuary which consists of praise. To him, in a great measure, are to be traced the recent improvements that have been effected in the psalmody of several churches in this city. His own church set the example; and for their use, and the better to accomplish his object, he drew up a collection of the most approved psalm tunes, all of which he carefully revised; and to which he added several original compositions, and a few of great beauty of his own. It may not be uninteresting to record, that but a few weeks before his death, he issued a circular, addressed to the members of his congregation, renewing his affectionate admonitions on the subject of church music, which he justly regarded as an expression of piety, and a help to devotion.

Nor were his private labors less abundant. Great as he was in the public sphere of his exertions, it may be questioned whether he did not appear even to more advantage in the less noticed walks of pastoral visitation among the families of his flock. His breast, naturally full of kindness, expatiated, as in a congenial sphere, while he sat by the sick-bed of those who looked to him for consolation, or directed the hopes of the bereaved and the dying to the land of promise and of rest. They who knew him only as he appeared in the field of controversy, or on the high places of debate, or even in "the great congregation," where he poured forth "words that breathed and thoughts that burned," and held attention chained, till conviction came and owned his power, can scarcely imagine the air of tenderness and unaffected brotherhood and sympathy, that pervaded his look and manner, in the more private offices of pastoral intercourse with the afflicted. It had pleased Providence often to try him during the course of his ministry: his mind, naturally full of affection and sensibility, had undergone a variety of discipline. From what he himself had felt, therefore, as well as from what his friendly heart could imagine, he entered with lively interest into all the causes of inquietude or suffering, under which any of his flock might be laboring. To none could the sorrowful more freely unburden their griefs; from none could the perplexed and fearful more confidently ask advice; and on none could the young and the inexperienced more certainly calculate for sympathy in their anxieties, and assistance in regard to the objects they had in view. And while

thus to those who knew him, (and who, if had they chosen, might not have known him?) he was a brother and a friend, all that he did was conceived in a spirit, and marked by a manner of most perfect unaffectedness. In his kindness there was nothing like effect; nothing like exaggeration; nothing that bore the remotest resemblance to acting. Nature reigned in all his words and deeds; and his whole conduct left on the mind the impression only of genuine, unpretending friendship. There was a manliness, too, in his kindness which was in strict keeping with the other parts of his character, and which helped to heighten the impression of reality produced by the general tone of his intercourse. It was the same man who in other circumstances could lighten, and agitate, and hold imperial sway over the passions of the most crowded meeting, who sat beside you as a friend, and addressed you in the words and accents of undissembled interest and regard.

But it was not merely as a parish minister, performing the full round of ordinary pastoral duty, that Dr. Thomson was remarkable. As a minister of the Church of Scotland, he was a member of her judicatories, and entrusted with the functions of an administrator of her laws. Justly conceiving every part of his duty to have a claim upon him, and appreciating the beneficial influence which his situation enabled him to exert on the interests of the establishment and of Christianity, he appeared regularly in his place in church courts, and took on him a large proportion of the burden of the business that came before these assemblies. Indeed, for the last few years of his life, such was his acquaintance

with form, such his aptitude in the application of precedents and statutes, such his ability and eloquence in debate, and such the estimation in which his opinions and character were held, that that party in the church to which he was conscientiously attached, and which must always regard it as not the least of its distinctions and recommendations to have numbered him among its adherents, spontaneously, and by silent consent, looked up to him as its leader.

This is not the place for detail, otherwise it would be easy to record numerous instances of the zeal and effect with which he maintained the ancient struggle of the church against the inroads of a debasing and secularizing policy. In every question of principle he espoused the side of truth and justice, in opposition to the maxims of expediency; a regard to which, where there exists a definite moral rule of conduct, he justly regarded as the bane of churches and of public institutions. With admiration, mingled with affectionate regret, many of the readers of this sketch will recal the triumphs of his eloquence on the highest theatre of its display-the General Assembly; and will accompany the recollection with a profound feeling of gratitude to the man who so often lifted up his intrepid voice, in tones that found an echo in every parish in Scotland, against the power that would thrust upon a people hungering for the bread of life, a heartless and unqualified pastor; who fearlessly stood forth the champion of resistance to the mandates of unauthorized dictation and intrusive influence; and who, with an energy and eloquence all his own, repudiated and denounced that union of secular with ecclesiastical offices, by which

the sacredness of the pastoral character is deteriorated, and the unity of the pastoral obligation is violated. If to him the church be not indebted for a return to the principles and practices by which she was characterized in the days when, purified by persecution, she stood first among the churches of the Reformation-to him, and to the kindred labors of our Erskines and our Moncrieffs, whose mantle he had caught, does she in a great measure owe the remembrance of these principles and practices. By his exertions, in no inconsiderable degree, the ancient landmarks of our ecclesiastical constitution have been kept prominently in view; a desire for something better than the existing order of things has been preserved and transmitted; the watchwords of primitive order and popular rights have been dignified and hallowed by an association with a mighty name; and a prospect has been opened to the hopes of the church of brighter days, and of "times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord."

But while he was thus, firmly, and on principle, identified with a particular party in the church, few men displayed in private life less of the narrow and exclusive spirit of party. His attachment to principles he bore with him everywhere: but the animosity and grudging, which are apt to cleave to minds of a secondary order, were strangers to his bosom; and with the men with whom he entered into keenest conflict on the arena of debate, he could meet on terms of the most unhesitating good will when the struggle was over, willing to exchange with them all the courtesies of social intercourse, or to co-operate with them in any good work in which they might require his aid, or solicit his