Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/129

Rh that it was in peril, he prepared himself to sacrifice all for its sake. He therefore attended the solemn clerical meeting held in Edinburgh on the 11th of August, 1841, and subscribed the engagement by which the Commission of the General Assembly bound itself to vindicate the liberties of the church, by proceeding against the recusant ministers of the Presbytery of Strathbogie, notwithstanding the state protection, within which they had intrenched themselves. In the following year he was one of a clerical deputation that visited the north of England, for the purpose of preaching in chapels or in the open air, and instructing all who repaired to them in the great common principles of religion, without reference to sect or party.

On returning to his charge at Dundee, Mr. M'Cheyne resumed his duties, and pursued them with a diligence which neither frequent attacks of sickness, nor a gradually decaying constitution, seemed in any way to abate. But his days were numbered, and his anticipations of a short life were about to be realized. In the midst of his preparations for the disruption that soon took place, in the event of which he had expressed his resolution to go forth as a missionary to our convict colonies, he was attacked by fever, the violence of which soon left no doubt of what would be its termination. Delirium followed, and in a few days he breathed his last. So intensely was he beloved, not only by the members of his flock, but the inhabitants of Dundee in general, that his death, coming especially with such suddenness, was lamented as a public calamity. The event occurred on the 25th of March, 1843, in the thirtieth year of his age, and seventh of his short but most useful and honoured ministry.

It is difficult, in so brief a notice, and in a life marked by so few striking incidents and changes, to convey a distinct idea of the worth of Mr. M'Cheyne, or the important character and results of his public labours. As a minister, he might be called the Whitefield of Scotland ; and in that one word we endeavour to comprise, as well as to convey an impression of his apostolic life, character, and labours. Many indeed are the thousands still living, not only in his native land, but in England and Ireland, who will recognize the justice of such a title.

M'CRIE,, D.D.—This most able and eloquent writer, whose generous selection of the chief subject of his authorship, as well as the felicitous manner in which he discharged the task, will connect his memory with the illustrious name of John Knox, was born in the town of Dunse. He was the eldest of a family of four sons and three daughters, and was born in November, 1772. His father was a manufacturer and merchant of the above-mentioned town, and lived to witness the literary celebrity of his son, as his death did not occur till 1823. The subject of this memoir was peculiarly fortunate in his parentage, especially in having a mother whose deep-toned, devoted, feminine piety seems, at a very early period, to have directed the feelings and moulded the religious character of her eldest son. As his parents belonged to that class of the Secession called Antiburghers, Thomas M'Crie was born and nursed in that communion, at a time, too, when it still retained much of the primitive earnestness and simplicity of the old days of the covenant. "What is the best book in the world?" was the first question usually put to his young compeers; to which the answer was prompt, "The Bible." "What is the next best book?" was the question that followed; and to this the answer was equally prompt, "The Confession of Faith." Could the covenanting banner lack a future champion from children so educated? On being sent to the parish school, young M'Crie soon became not only an apt scholar, but distinguished for those