William thought he recognised a face that he knew, in one of the patients confined in a padded room, and in the last degree of madness. On inquiry, he found the patient was Captain Wild, who was staying with Lord Byron at the time he spent the happy day with him at Missolonghi. This story I had from Sir William's own lips on one occasion as I sat next him at dinner.

Sir William married, in 1841, Mary, eldest daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Parsons, C.M.G. By this lady he had eleven of a family-two sons, Archibald William, born and died in 1865; Archibald, the present baronet, born 30th May, 1867; and nine daughters, all of whom are now married.

N

CHAPTER XV.

"The Christian Gentleman's Daily Walk "-SIR ARCHIBALD EDMONSTONE, the Christian Gentleman-Public OpinionColzium Library and Chapel-Books, Sermons, Hymns— Letter to People of Kilsyth-Vols. of Travel-Thoughts by the Way-Opinion of Mezzofanti-Prince Charlie's WidowMeets Belzoni-The Holy Land-Ali Pasha-Classical Spots -Byron's "Maid of Athens "-" Fitzwalter "-" Progress of Religion"—" Happiness "-Letter from Lamartine-Literary Estimate-Translation from Petrarch.

A VERY little more than forty years ago there was issued from the London press a modest and unassuming little volume, bearing the title "The Christian Gentleman's Daily Walk." It was suggestive of the saintly Herbert's "Temple," and Robert's "The Portraiture of a Christian Gentleman." In its form it was reminiscent of works that had gone before it, but that was all. It was the author's own; it was original; it was written with a fine spiritual sympathy; it embodied the weightiest and maturest counsel which one, moving in the higher ranks of life, had to give to those who were similarly situated. To every man who held in his hands the power of doing good, and was willing to do it, the little book had something to say that was of the very best. It taught the affluent and aristocratic to hold before their minds pure ideals and to cherish manly ambitions, to find worthier honours than could be won from the turf, the card-table, or the billiard-room. It

taught them to remember the trust reposed in them, and to study how their lives might be best spent to the advantage of the people and the welfare of the State. And the book made its way. In a few years it passed through several editions.

About the character depicted in the volume there is no room for the slightest doubt. When the author spoke of the Christian gentleman at his devotions, at business, in his study, in society, in his family, in politics, he was but speaking of himself. The portrait he paints of the Christian gentleman is his own. The " daily walk” which he so faithfully describes, and so zealously commends, was but the transcript of his own common life. The book is doubly valuable. It is valuable because of its merits; and valuable as a revelation of the inner life of Sir Archibald Edmonstone, the third baronet of his family, and a man of the highest talents and accomplish

ments.

Educated at Eton and Oxford, endowed with excellent abilities, there is apparent in all Sir Archibald's writings the complete Christian consecration of his gifts. He was a private gentleman, but he should have been a bishop. His literary products possess a high deportment of thought and statement, his orthodoxy is unimpeachable, his reasoning calm and sound. A safer, truer man there could not have been, nor one worthier of lawn sleeves and a seat among the spiritual peers. "Awful," he writes, "is the responsibility, tremendous will be the doom, of those who have abused the talents committed to them, stimulating the passions, undermining the morals, or shaking the faith of their fellows. Who can limit the evil which an able and seductive writer may convey perhaps to the latest generations ? He thought it was much more for the interest of the

State than for the interest of the Church that the ancient connection between these institutions should be maintained. On politics he has many things to say well worthy of being gravely pondered. "When we consider," he remarks, "how absorbing is the spirit of party, how it tends systematically to conceal or pervert truth, the false guise with which it invests its own views and misrepresents those of others, how uncertain a test is public opinion, and how difficult to ascertain even were it a safe rule, it is evident with what caution the mind must be prepared to form its own judgment, and take its own course. . . He who seeks, then, to settle his political faith by an enlightened Christian standard, finds true wisdom to lie between extreme opinions; and, while he considers a reckless craving for change as amongst the dangerous signs of the times, he knows how fruitless it is to look for fixity in any of the affairs of a fleeting and mutable world."

.

Colzium House bears two characteristics of Sir Archibald's special tastes-its library and its chapel. The former fills two large rooms, and is a most valuable collection of the works of standard authors in English and French. He was of opinion a man could bequeath to successive generations of his family no better legacy than a judicious selection from the works of the good, the learned, the wise. In this valuable collection, theology, history, and travel are the most fully represented. Next to these, poetry, biography, and heraldry.

But the chapel is even more a mark of the man than the library. He was a strong High Churchman, hinging much on the efficacy of baptismal regeneration and not so much on apostolical succession. He believed in the orderly observance of the Christian feasts, and in the systematic views which they presented of Christian doc

trine and life. In his "Family Lectures for Holy Seasons," which originally appeared in the Scottish Magazine in the years 1849 and 1850, Sir Archibald gives a compendium of religious instruction of which the most learned and devout clergyman of the Anglican Church might well have been proud. "Short Readings on the Collects," a thick octavo volume of 500 pp., was published in 1861. It treats also, in a methodical manner, of the doctrines of the Church and of saints' days, but its chief value consists in the fulness and richness of its spiritual substance. It is a guide to holy living, an encouragement to perseverance in welldoing. It seeks to help the devout soul somewhat further on "in the narrow way that leadeth unto life eternal." The reader is impressed as by the utterance of a supremely placid, but supremely earnest spirit. Here and there throughout the book there are found such sentences, such little glimpses of spiritual insight, as this: "The poorer we are in our own sight the more precious we become in His; and in proportion as we are alive to the corruption of our nature are we preparing for its restoration in Him."

Sir Archibald Edmonstone ministered, layman though he was, in his little chapel Sunday after Sunday. These volumes represent only a small part of the work he did there. He left a large number of sermons in manuscript, beautiful as to the writing, most carefully composed, and with the great doctrines of grace simply and faithfully set forth. Ranked along with the impetuous Livingstons, with the fervid Robe, with the sagacious Rennie, the staid Burns, the gentle Douglas, his personality adds a special interest to that group of theological worthies and pastors. While Sir Archibald lived at Colzium, his literary audience lay wholly beyond the