Protestantism, in which he attacked with the utmost fierceness the corruptions of Rome, and poured his bitterest invective on "the man of sin." In these debates he spent much valuable intellectual power, and published many pamphlets. The work was conscientiously done, but it is to be regretted that so much of his writing should have been of a polemical character. The applause of the Colosseum is but a poor reward if the gladiator dies in the sands of the arena. In the crowds that cheered him in the City Hall, in the congregations that crowded John Street Chapel on Sunday nights, in the second editions of his stinging brochures, Anderson got his momentary reward. But at what a cost. His memory has perished with the shouts that hailed his triumph. His polemics are dead and buried, and all that really lives of him are his kindly humanities, his foibles, his eccentricities.

In these days of regulation drill, when preachers are all becoming as like each other as School Board children, it is refreshing to turn to the preaching of Dr. Anderson, so full of individuality, character, and stirring life. After his early mannerism had so far worn off, he expanded into his true self and became greatly popular. John Street Chapel was empty when he got it. After filling it, he destroyed it and built a more commodious structure. His manner was certainly outré. He was a great snuffer, and carried the powder not in the familiar "mull," but in his vest pocket. A heated preacher, crying, "My soul cleaveth to the dust," at the very moment his thumb and finger were ministering copiously to an unlovely habit, had a broadly humorous suggestion, which even the mind of a Relief Seceder, immersed in devout meditation, could hardly fail to observe. Such things are remembered now when better

things are forgotten, and the more is the pity, for much that Anderson said in the pulpit was well worthy of being carefully treasured up. His printed sermons are all good. When, however, in latter years he prepared them for the press, he polished them too much. We miss the man in them, his turnings, his unpremeditated bursts, his trenchant remarks aside. He was a better platform orator than preacher, and a better preacher than writer. The vulgar thought him "daft," but of daftness in him there was none. What the unappreciative thought derangement was only the operation of a fresh, a buoyant, an original, and fruitful mind, a mind that remained sweet and unconventional to the last.

Dr. Anderson's millenarian views brought him into contact with Edward Irving. These views he kept in control, but he never abandoned. Where they occur they rather freshen than disfigure his pages. He died, Sunday, 15th September, 1873. Before this event occurred he said he did not expect to be long in his grave. And again he said, "My prophetical views have helped in no small degree to give me my present comfort."

The University of Glasgow gave him his LL.D. The honour is sufficient witness of the worth of his public services, and of learned appreciation of his multifarious labours. Apart from his occasional pamphlets, he did not become an author till late in life. Notwithstanding, his literary remains are both considerable and creditable. "Regeneration" displays rare faculty of methodical treatment and no small power of theological analysis. The "Filial Honour of God" is also a meritorious performance. These works are not the worse that they show their author the partisan of no particular theological school. Dr. Anderson also left

two volumes of discourses in which his views on life and religion are set forth, sometimes with characteristic quaintness, and occasionally with marked originality. The public will never call for any reproduction of these remains of Dr. Anderson, and for the reason most of all that they want the undefinable touch of the practised penman. There is no lack of thought, nor of ideas, but there is a want of imaginative fusion and sublimation. To get a correct view of Dr. Anderson, we must fall back on his personality, his pastoral devotedness, his public activities, his sympathy with popular movements, his hatred of oppression, his zeal in every good and struggling cause, his fearless outspokenness, and the underlying warmth and geniality of his heart. Taking these things all into account, Dr. Anderson must be esteemed an honour to his denomination and the place of his birth,

CHAPTER XII.

The Agricultural Interest-JAMES FREW-ROBERT GRAHAM-In. troduces the Potato-History of the Potato-Graham's Experiments-Widespread Interest and Success-DR. ROBERT RENNIE-Graham and Rennie Compared-Peat Moss Studies -The Nature of Peat-Peat Companies-Rennie's Early Life -Presentation and Marriage-A Distinguished Son-Second Marriage-A Faithful Pastorate-Number of Communicants— New Parish Church-The "Essays on Peat Moss "--The Peat Bogs of Europe--Dullatur Moss-Flanders Moss-Substances contained in Moss-Qualities and Sterility of Moss--Publication and Honours · Czar of Russia Alexander I.-Offers Appointment-Sir John Sinclair Advises Acceptance-The Czar's Presents-Bell of Antermony-Rennie's Death.

NOTWITHSTANDING the enormous development of the national commerce and manufactures, the agricultural interest is still the most important in the country. With this interest the parish of Kilsyth has more than merely a local connection. It was for the largest portion of his life the residence of James Frew of Balmalloch, and it was the birth-place of Robert Graham and Robert Rennie.

Of the first, not more than a very few words need be said. He gave himself to the rearing of Ayrshire stock, and is a good example of how, by persistent energy, the ordinary Scottish farmer may come to make for himself an honourable name. In his special department at the Highland and Agricultural Show at Perth in 1861, and

at the great English Show at Battersea, the same year, his animals carried all before them. The late Duke of Athole frequently visited him at Kilsyth, and recruited his stock by the purchase of the finest animals of the Balmalloch strain. He was born in Campsie parish in 1795, and died at Balmalloch in 1874.

But if James Frew is one of the lesser, Robert Graham is certainly one of the larger lights of Scottish agriculture. We simply owe to his memory a debt which we cannot pay. He introduced the potato to Scottish agriculture, and the Scottish farmer now produces annually over 800,000 tons of that important food supply. The value of the potato as an article of diet, relished alike by prince and peasant, its easy culture, its adaptation to a wide diversity of soil and climate, and its large and profitable productiveness, well entitle it to the high esteem in which it is now universally held. To the historian, those fields around Neilston, where it was first grown in Scotland, are more suggestive and interesting than those heights close by the "Slaughter Howe," where the Covenanting army was so desperately worsted.

While the history of the origin of wheat and oats is buried in obscurity, that of the potato and its introduction into Europe is fairly well known. It was imported into eastern civilisation by the Spaniards from Quito, where they found it cultivated by the natives. Hieronymus Cardan, a monk, brought it from Peru to Spain, and from that country it passed into Italy and Belgium. In 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh introduced the potato into Ireland from North Carolina and Virginia, and cultivated it with some success on his own estate near Cork. Some authorities place the date of the introduction of: the plant into Ireland twenty-four years earlier. Be this