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the superlative of lad is laddie. My masters, mind your manners.

"If there's ae hole i' a' your coats,

I rede ye tent it:

A chiel's amang ye takin' notes; An' faith! he'll prent it."

And so

Such at least was the case with young Daniel McAllum. revolves the wheel of compensation or retribution; for a schoolmaster's reputation is at the mercy of his scholars.

In the same Essay, McAllum supplies some intimations of the habits and tendencies of his early boyhood:

"It is said that, in my childhood, instead of patiently learning the names of my ivory letters, I was ever wishing to know how, and of what they were made, and where the material came from. And very early I remember to have sat for hours upon a favourite tree inquiring how this world was created, and what was the reason that this man wore a robe, and the other was a beggar."

Home influences strongly stimulated this precocious intellectual activity. His father's literary and scientific tastes were very strong, and his acquisitions far from inconsiderable. Duncan McAllum's telescope was long famous in Newcastle and North Shields. He made it not only a scientific, but also a spiritual instrument; calling his friends and his neighbours together, when he spent a starry night at home, to gaze upon the glories of the firmament; then turning the mighty tube into the silver trumpet of Gospel invitation. Some of his father's colleagues, too, marked and ministered to the mental avidity of the Superintendent's clever son. William Atherton, Philip Garrett, and James Everett were not men to leave unnoticed the winsome, bookish, brooding little fellow, who listened with such wide-eyed eagerness to their sermons and their table-talk. The first-named-himself favoured with a

son destined to distinction in another line-was looked up to by young McAllum as the patron of his earliest literary efforts. This he acknowledges in a grave but gracefully flowing poem, addressed "To the Rev. William Atherton," in which he mildly reproves the undue exciting of his natural ambition: ""Twas he that fanned within my breast the flame

That only panted for an empty name. Would he had each aspiring thought repressed,

And taught my soul in lowliness to rest; Checked the bold flights my youthful

fancy loved,

And tenderly my thirst of fame reproved!

Then had I 'scaped the restless, fond desire,

Nor e'er essayed to touch the living lyre."

For some years he relieved his steadier studies by what he terms "the ecstasiés of thought," but byand-by discovered that poetry was not his special gift, nor Parnassus his congenial habitat.

and

Though always decorous. even blameless in his conduct, and regular and reverential in observance of the outward duties of religion, it was not till near the end of his professional pupilage at Sunderland that spiritual convictions gained the mastery over his intellectual ardour and ambition. He had reached the turning-point in the history of a human soul, described with such precision some four and twenty centuries ago: "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep Thy commandments," and consistently added, “I am a companion of all them that fear Thee, and of them that keep Thy precepts." He lost no time in effecting an avowed and living union with the Church of his parentage and training, by beginning to meet in Class. It was some months,

however, before he realised "joy and peace in believing," having suffered meanwhile a perceptible declension in earnestness.

On the expiry of his indentures at Sunderland, he went to the University of Aberdeen. There he formed a kind of Sunday morning Bible-class and prayer-meeting. One day a

member of the class manifested signs of deep distress, and as the young Leader, himself unconscious of the Spirit of Adoption, was praying with the penitent, the latter obtained a strong assurance of reconciliation with God. This stirred up Daniel to greater earnestness in striving to obtain "the witness in himself." This he at last received on shipboard, on his way from Aberdeen to London, in pursuance of his medical education. He had before occasionally delivered religious addresses; and many "prophecies "prophecies went before" of him, that he would one day become a powerful preacher; but as to stated occupancy of the pulpit, he had tarried till he should be "endued with power from on high." But now he yielded to the constraining of the Spirit, seconded by the urgency of his London friends, and began to preach. Returning to Scotland to complete his professional education and take his degree, in the University of Glasgow, he was received as a Localpreacher and a Class-leader.

His religious fervour and his church-activities did not hinder his collegiate success or cloud his professional prospects. Having gained his M.D., he at once began practice as a physician, in Glasgow. In the above-mentioned Essay, he gives us an insight into his mental habitudes during his college-life:

"My youth and my collegiate years were distinguished by the same attention to the operations of nature, both in the human heart and in the world; and

from whatever I read, those passages were selected which struck any chord of feeling in my soul that never had been touched before. Not a few of my acquaintance complained that there was no talking to M, for he asked so many questions, and was as often in the company of children as of men."

It is well-known that a fondness for the society of those younger than himself was a very noticeable peculiarity of John Wesley's youth.

Daniel McAllum's medical skill, his winning address and his high moral reputation, soon secured for him a degree of success which promised distinction in his profession. He had no clannish jealousies to overcome, as he was a genuine Scotchman. The expenses of his medical education had been a heavy drain on the resources of his parents, and he was rightly anxious to make them an adequate return for the self-denial of years. But the inward call to the ministry was too imperative to be silenced even by such considerations as these. His success as a Local-preacher only strengthened his conviction and evoked the corroborating judgment of others, that he was, by the hand of the Head of the Church, "separated unto the Gospel of God." Therefore, "what things were gain to" him: social position, a profession to which he was enthusiastically devoted and in the preparation for which he had expended nine of the most productive years of his life, the prospect of speedy competence and ultimate wealth-all these he "counted loss for Christ." He offered himself as a probationer for the Methodist ministry in 1817, being then twentythree years of age, and was accepted by the local Church-courts and by the Conference. In that year Methodism was in so depressed a condition, financially and otherwise, that it was resolved to receive no probationers for the Home Work,

but men of very exceptional promise. A decrease was reported of more than five thousand five hundred members in Great Britain and Ireland. Accordingly only four candidates were accepted for the Home Work, and of these a moiety were from and for Scotland, being two of the choicest Macs that ever reinforced the ranks of the Methodist ministry,-Peter McOwan and Dr. Daniel McAllum.

He was appointed to the Dunbar and Haddington Circuit, under the superintendence of his father, his residence being at Haddington. The state of mind in which he entered on his work was indicated by the text chosen for his farewell discourse at Glasgow: "Who is sufficient for these things?" and by the first entry in his diary on arriving in his Circuit: "I feel like one who has just taken vows which can never be recalled."

As to the effect produced by his ministry in his first Circuit we need only quote the testimony of his immediate successor, the Rev. Joseph Beaumont, afterwards the celebrated Dr. Beaumont :

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Perhaps no minister in Haddington, of any denomination, in modern times, ever excited such general interest as Dr. McAllum, except that very eminent and holy man, the Rev. John Brown.

Dr. McAllum's ministry was attended by many of the first families of the neighbourhood, and was listened to weekly by several distinguished members of the Established Church and of the Dissenting congregations in the town. For whatever scruples, conscientious or otherwise, were entertained as to the propriety of Presbyterians listening to any other ministry than that of their own order, they were in many instances superseded by the powerful attractions of the Doctor's ministry and character; and persons thus situated generally agreed to wink at each other's deviation from ancient sentiment and usage, in the instance of so eminent a preacher. On Monday evenings it was his custom to lecture on the historical parts of the Old Testament, especially on

its characters. This plan, which he pursued during the three successive years of his continuance in Haddington, secured him large congregations. And it was in this part of his public labour that his power of description, and his extensive knowledge of persons and things, had an appropriate and useful scope. It was in this course of lectures that he most interested and engaged. the young

and the gay; that he rebuked certain fashionable vices and errors; awakened many a compunctious feeling in the guilty breast; made folly look contemptible, vice loathsome and virtue lovely, and excited, in the bosoms of many, emotions and resolves in favour of the religion of the heart, to which they had previously been strangers, and which, it is believed, have not yet subsided. Indeed, I have no hesitation in stating it as my opinion (and I write under consideration and with knowledge of this part of my subject) that, with perhaps one exception, Dr. McAllum's popularity in Haddington is without a parallel in the experience of any preacher now in our Connexion, in any place in Britain. And his intercourse in society corresponded with his eminence in the pulpit; for by his distinguished urbanity and graceful elegance of manners, he had access to the first families in the county-town of East Lothian, and was actually on visiting terms in almost every house of name and respectability with which a minister of religion could consistently have fellowship. His company was courted in the best society in the place; his memory there cannot die whilst the present generation lives."

It is noteworthy that, whilst Methodism as a system has made comparatively little way in Scotland, Methodist preaching has exerted a powerful charm on the Scottish mind, when accompanied by intellectual cultivation and force. Of this Valentine Ward and Drs. Beaumont and McAllum are prominent examples, and other instances of still living ministers will recur to many of our readers. No wonder that the good townsfolk of Haddington were attracted and impressed by a young minister of three-and-twenty who combined the fidelity and earnestness of their

Own celebrated Brown with the Of finished elegance of Blair. course his degree would carry weight; and the winning prestige of youth, with which God so benignly counterpoises its inexperience and immaturity, would form a potent element in the fascination of his eloquence. This sudden flush, one might say, spate of popularity, would have borne a weaker man away, but the habits of devout self-scrutiny and resolute self-discipline, which his simple diary reveals, kept him humble, watchful, singleminded and intent upon his work. That work was not light. He preached on an average six times a week, and the extent of the Circuit involved considerable walking. writes on "October 1st. God, Who hath kept and sustained me six weeks, is able and willing to sustain me for sixty years, should I live so long. Meanwhile, how is it with my bosom-foe? He seemed dead when I was most cast down and most anxious, but the old man' is not dead. Help me, Lord,

to look to Thee!"

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It was little to him that his ministry should be ever so much appreciated and applauded, if it And were not also converting.

what he aimed at he to some extent realised. He records instances of conversion, with the exclamation "Non nobis, Domine!" It is evident from his journal that his suavity of manner, which so strengthened his influence, was not the spontaneous growth of an even temperament or an easy disposition, but was the result of resolute and religious selftraining and self-direction:

"Feb. 1st, 1818. I have discovered that there are some rudenesses in my conversation, such as a peremptory contradiction of what I apprehend to be untrue. Lord, save me from this, lest I disgrace my Christian profession. But what discovery can I make that does not, or should not,

humble me in the dust? . . . 1. I have been too frequently at great men's tables. 2. Too seldom and for too short a time in my closet. 3. I have been too idle. Last Sabbath .. I went in great confidence to the pulpit, having prepared a very laboured discourse; but God left me, in a measure, to myself; and O, how confused and confusing was my discourse! Let this teach me a profitable lesson. A heavenly gale reached me this day.

"April 18th. Almost every Sunday since Feb. 20th I have been engaged in explaining our leading doctrines: the witness of the Spirit, the progress of grace, its harmony with works, and entire sanctification. Some little offence has been taken.

"May 16th. I have just returned from our District Meeting. What have I gained by going? 1. A veneration of the Body with which I am connected. Their sacrifices of their own interests are written in heaven. 2. An increasing opinion of their talents, and a diminished opinion of my own. 3. I have learned that if a man would be a worthy Methodist preacher, he must moderate his expectations of temporal recompense. 4. I have in a measure seen that I am only Heretoon the threshold of religion. fore I have laboured too exclusively from a sense of duty. God grant that I may do this henceforward more from a conviction of my privilege."

...

Happy impression from a young minister's first District Meeting! The following entry shows how little elated he was by his prodigious popularity:

"July 11th. On looking back for a year I find occasion of sorrow and thankfulness. I. Of sorrow; I am far behind almost every Christian I meet with-so little good has been done by my means; vanity, self, rudeness, jealousy, often distress me;-inconsistency of conduct. II. Of thankfulness; that I am somewhat more consistent than heretofore; converse more on the things of God with worldly people; less the prey of temptation; some good has been done among the hearers and members. I have written this year one hundred and four sermons.'

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This is the man who accuses himself of idleness! Two sermons a week were required, to meet the claims of the Haddington pulpit, for the first three years of his minis

try; and were produced, and that of a quality which placed him next to "John Brown of Haddington," in the foremost rank of preachers.

We find that in his second year of probation, he was allowed to assist in the administration of the Lord's Supper. After one of these solemnities, he prays, " O, may I be saved from pride, trifling, affectation and worldly-mindedness!" He enters on the year 1819 with the following strictures on his reading:

"Jan. 4th. I discover that I am too much given to idleness. Ten years ago (at fourteen !) my reading was very narrow, very trifling and very desultory. In two or three years more, it was more various, but still desultory. After awhile it was more select, but still rapid and irregular. During my curriculum, it was not sufficiently exclusive. This year and a half more steady, but still far from being sufficiently intense."

What was his course of theological reading at this time we have no means of ascertaining, except that a letter of this period from his father, preserved through the utilization of its blank leaves for sermonizing, shows that the "Christian Library" formed part of it. But his studies did not deaden his yearning for immediate and visible usefulness.

"March 28th. Three have sought admission into the Society, and some are beginning to open their mouths in prayer. O my soul! wouldst thou not rather that souls were benefited than that a multitude were pleased? Wouldst thou not sacrifice popularity to usefulness? Woe to that man who would not!

"June 23rd. I have lived twenty-five years in this evil world; but O, to how little purpose! Nothing can be too severe for me; but O in wrath remember mercy!"

The Conference of 1819, dispensed in his case, on his application, with the rule forbidding probationers to marry. His wife was an earnest but very delicate lady. He writes: "I thank God, myself and my dear partner are both proving what David

meant when he said 'Thy rod' doth 'comfort me.' We wish to set out anew for heaven. To-day I have been wonderfully strengthened to blow the Gospel trumpet."

Daniel McAllum was very far from being inflated or even satisfied with the brilliant commencement of his ministry. His eloquent successor says:

account.

"If the breath of popular applause could have satisfied, he might have been satisfied; but he sought to save them that heard him; and of any results of his labour which left them short of this important object, he made but little Travailing in birth for his hearers, that Christ might be formed in them, he had continual sorrow and heaviness of heart, when he found that this, the main end of his ministry, was but partially accomplished. In an interview I had with him in his last illness, during our conversation respecting Haddington, he admitted there was prodigious excitement, deep and wide impression, great expectation and much lovely blossom. 'But,' he added, with much distressing emotion, there were no conversions; and it almost broke my heart.' That is, they were so few compared with the widespread and apparently deep-struck interest and rich promise created by his ministry, that he felt as if his labours there had been all but a total failure. Doubtless, however, he was of great use; his labours were the means of much good, much more than it was possible, or perhaps proper, for him to know; and certainly far more than his modesty and selfhumiliation would have suffered him, had he known it, to acknowledge."

6

The immense popularity of Dr. McAllum, in a town for ever connected with the name of a great preacher, was equally creditable to the young minister and his following. It is not easy to conceive of pulpitreputation more worthily won or more Christianly worn. It was in no degree acquired by ear-service, or meretricious man-pleasing, either in style or subject. He did not amuse or astonish his congregations by displays of pulpit pyrotechny. His diction was "without art, graceful;

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