been interested, and touched by the MORAL always aimed at, the pains and trouble with which these sketches have been prepared for publication will have been nobly bestowed. He begs, in conclusion, to express his acknowledgments for the handsome terms in which this Diary has been from time to time characterized by some of the leading journals and newspapers. London, 15th Sept. 1831. (3) SUPPLEMENT. CHAPTER I. THE ELDER'S DEATH-BED. It was on a fierce and howling winter day that I was crossing the dreary moor of Auchindown, on my way to the manse of that parish, a solitary pedestrian. The snow, which had been incessantly falling for a week past, was drifted into beautiful but dangerous wreaths, far and wide, over the melancholy expanse-and the scene kept visibly shifting before me, as the strong wind that blew from every point of the compass struck the dazzling masses, and heaved them up and down in endless transformation. There was something inspiriting in the labour with which, in the buoyant strength of youth, I forced my way through the storm; and I could not but enjoy those gleamings of sunlight that ever and anon burst through some unexpected opening in the sky, and gave a character of cheerfulness and even warmth to the sides or summits of the stricken hills. Sometimes the wind stopped of a sudden, and then the air was as silent as the snow-not a murmur to be heard from spring or stream, now all frozen up over those high moorlands. As the momentary cessations of the sharp drift allowed my eyes to look onwards and around, I saw here and there, up the little opening valleys, cottages just visible beneath the black stems of their snow-covered clumps of trees, or beside some small spot of green pasture kept open for the sheep. These intimations of life and happiness came delightfully to me in the midst of the desolation; and the barking of a dog attending some shepherd in his quest on the hill put fresh vigour into my limbs, telling me that, lonely as I seemed to be, I was surrounded by cheerful though unseen company, and that I was not the only wanderer over the snows. As I walked along, my mind was insensibly filled with a crowd of pleasant images of rural winter-life, that helped me gladly onwards over many miles of moor. I thought of the severe but cheerful labours of the barn-the mending, of farm-gear by the fireside the wheel turned by the foot of old age, less for gain than as a thrifty pastime-the skilful mother, making "auld claes look amaist as weel's the new” -the ballad unconsciously listened to by the family all busy at their own tasks round the singing maiden -the old traditionary tale told by some wayfarer hospitably housed till the storm should blow by— the unexpected visit of neighbours on need or friendship-or the footstep of lover undeterred by snowdrifts that have buried up his flocks; but, above all, I thought of those hours of religious worship that have not yet escaped from the domestic life of the peasantry of Scotland-of the sound of psalms that the depth of snow cannot deaden to the ear of Him to whom they are chanted-and of that sublime Sabbath-keeping which, on days too tempestuous for the kirk, changes the cottage of the shepherd into the temple of God. With such glad and peaceful images in my heart, I travelled along that dreary moor, with the cutting wind in my face, and my feet sinking in the snow, or sliding on the hard blue ice beneath it, as cheerfully as I ever walked in the dewy warmth of a summer morning through fields of fragrance and of flowers. And now I could discern, within half an hour's walk, before me the spire of the church, |