in the presence of the eternal verities, of an All-Seeing God, of heaven and hell, of an endless felicity to be won or lost. He seemed to be a man who could not get enough of preaching. He was not restricted by canonical hours. In the church and out of the church, Sabbath day and week day, so far as preaching was concerned, were all alike to him. Possessing such a fund of energy, the effect of his preaching on the people of Dundee when he went, after his license, to take Mr. M'Cheyne's place, can very readily be understood. On the week-night evenings, as well as on the Sundays, he filled St. Peter's, and, during the whole period of his stay, conducted his evangelistic labours with unremitting enthusiasm and zeal. He was the moving spirit in the great work carried on at Kilsyth in the autumn of 1839. The sermon which set this work agoing was preached in the parish church on Tuesday, the 23rd July, 1839. The text was, Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power, Ps. cx. 3. In his third and concluding head he showed that the day of Christ's power is the time of the outpouring of His Spirit. The doctrine of Christ crucified is called the power of God, because it is the instrument which God employs in pulling down the strongholds of sin and Satan. But yet, this doctrine is, after all, but an instrument which cannot be effectual unless when it is wielded by the Almighty Spirit of God, by whose divine agency it is alone that sinners are loosed from the bondage of Satan, and brought into the glorious liberty of God's children. Often is this great truth demonstrated in the experience of every Christian, and especially of every Christian minister. The truth of the Gospel is often preached with clearness, fulness, earnestness, and affection; sinners are taught their ruined and perishing condition under the broken covenant of

works, and Christ is freely held out to them and urgently pressed upon them, and yet they remain despisers and rejectors of the Lord from heaven, and the minister of Christ is often found in sadness to exclaim, Who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? The people hear, and are, perhaps, attentive, and begin to reform many of those sinful practices in which they formerly indulged, but yet their hearts remain unconvinced of sin, and unenlightened in the glorious knowledge of Christ, and unconverted to God. There is still little seeking of Christ in secret prayer, little alarm experienced on account of sin, and few serious efforts to receive the Lord Jesus as he is freely offered. But oh! how changed is the scene when the Spirit is outpoured! Then the hearts of God's people become full to overflowing with love to Jesus, and are drawn forth in vehement desires, after his glorious appearing to build up Zion. They are much in secret, and much in united prayer, and are cheered by the gladdening hope that the Lord is soon to listen to the groaning of the prisoner, and save those that are appointed unto death. The ministers of God, also, are in general particularly enlivened and refreshed in their own souls. In private, they are deeply humbled in soul before the Lord, and have an uncommon measure of the spirit of supplication for sinners given them, with ardent love to Christ, melting compassion for perishing souls, and vehement desires for their salvation; and then when they come to preach Jesus, they are evidently anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power; they speak with holy unction, earnestness, and affection, and sometimes hardly know how to leave off beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God. And then observe the frame of the hearers at such a time. Formerly no terror could

awaken them from the sleep of death; they still said, Peace and safety, though sudden destruction was coming upon them; but now a few words are enough to pierce their inmost heart, and make them cry out often and aloud and against their will, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Formerly Jesus was held forth and was despised, but now every word that tells of His love is precious; His name is as an ointment poured forth, and sinners are filled with an agony of desire for a saving union unto Him. Men, and women, and children, retire from the House of God, not to profane the evening of God's day in idle talk or idle strolling. They have much business to do with God. Their doors are shut, their Bibles are in their hands, or they are crying to God upon their knees, or they are conversing with the godly and obtaining the benefit of their counsel to guide them on the way to Jesus. 'These, my friends, are, you know, some of the marks of a day of the power of the Lord Jesus. When the Spirit is poured out from on high, and sinners' hearts are moved, the iron sinews of their necks are relaxed, and their brows of brass are crowned with shame; they flock to take shelter under His wings, like doves to their windows; they rejoice in His love as men that divide the spoil."

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Mr. Burns brought his sermon to a close by recounting various reminiscences of revival times, and by making several strong practical appeals. As he pled with the unconverted instantly to close with God's offers of mercy, he felt his soul moved after a most remarkable manner, and the Lord's spirit became so mighty on the souls of his hearers, that it swept through them like the mighty rushing wind of Pentecost. He says, "At the last the people's feelings became too strong for all ordinary restraints, and broke forth simultaneously in weeping

and wailing, tears and groans, intermingled with shouts of joy and praise from some of the people of God. The appearance of a great part of the people from the pulpit, gave me an awfully vivid picture of the ungodly in the day of Christ's coming to judgment. Some were screaming out in agony; others, and amongst these, strong men, fell to the ground as if they had been dead; and such was the general commotion occasioned by the most free and urgent invitations of the Lord to sinners, I was obliged to give out a psalm, which was soon joined in by a considerable number, our voices being mingled with the mourning groans of many prisoners sighing for deliverance."

The fire, thus kindled, blazed on till the end of September, when the communion was dispensed, and when he brought the precious season to a close by an equally powerful discourse from Ezekiel xxxvi. 26, "A new heart also will I give you." On his return to Dundee, the scenes in Kilsyth were repeated in every particular, only the associations and surroundings were those of a large manufacturing town. In the neighbourhood of St. Peter's, there are still to be found spiritual traces of that time and of the ministries of Mr. Burns and Mr. M'Cheyne. And let us not forget that Mr. William Burns, when he was in the midst of these revivals in Kilsyth and Dundee, was as yet no more than twentyfour years of age!

When Mr. Burns' connection with St. Peter's terminated on the return of Mr. M'Cheyne from the Holy Land, he became an evangelist in the truest sense, carrying the light of the Gospel here and there throughout Scotland, the north of England, and Ireland. At this work he continued for fully four years, and with the exceptions of Dublin and Newcastle, he was everywhere received with

the greatest warmth, and occasionally with the utmost enthusiasm.

The revival of 1839 had been a cause of greater talk in Canada than even in Scotland, and the people of the Province being anxious to hear Mr. Burns with their own ears, the people of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto, forwarded to him their urgent solicitations that he should pay them a visit. Mr. Burns was eager to comply with their request, and sailing from Greenock on the 10th August, 1844, he reached Montreal on Thursday, the 26th September. Unlike John Livingston, he had beautiful weather and a prosperous voyage. All went well with Mr. Burns in Montreal so long as he confined his efforts to barracks, halls, and churches, but when he began preaching in the streets and squares, he encountered the most violent opposition, so much so that he could with truth aver that he bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Mr. Burns had a cool temperament and a ready wit, but it may well be open to question how far the preacher's successful rejoinders to the antagonistic and ribbald cries of individuals in a crowd were calculated to farther the holy aims of the Gospel. Upon the whole, the visit of Mr. Burns did much to stir up the lethargic spiritual life of Canada.

The work was accomplished, however, at too large a cost to the doer. The long journeys and the winter snows overtaxed his energies. Two years afterwards, when he returned to Kilsyth (15th September, 1846), to the astonishment of his friends, he had already contracted an aged appearance. In a much deeper manner than merely the weal of a stone wound, he bore to the last the memorials of his Canadian tour. The pace was beginning to tell. The physical journals were beginning to