Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/35

Rh and Leeward Islands, where he resided till 1816, and discharged the duties of the office so much to the satisfaction of the Duke of York, that at his return to England he was appointed comptroller of Chelsea Hospital. In this tranquil situation he remained till his death, which occurred on the 29th of July, 1833.

HEUGH,, D.D.—This estimable divine was born at Stirling, on the 12th of August, 1782. He was the ninth child of the Rev. John Hengh, minister of a Secession congregation in Stirling. In his education he was so fortunate as to have for his teacher Dr. Doig, who presided over the Grammar-School of Stirling, and was one of the most accomplished scholars of his day. After having made considerable proficiency in classical learning under this able preceptor, Mr. Heugh, who, from his earliest years, had selected the ministerial office as his future destination, repaired at the age of fifteen to the University of Edinburgh, and after undergoing the prescribed course of study, was licensed as a preacher by the General Associate or Antiburgher Presbytery of Stirling, on the 22d of February, 1804. His youth and timidity at the outset, on one occasion at least, had nearly marred his prospects. Having preached in a church at Leslie, at that time unprovided with a minister, and being obliged to deliver his discourse memoriter, without which compliance he would not have been allowed to enter the pulpit, his recollection suddenly failed; he was at once brought to a dead stop, and no remedy remained but to give out a psalm, while he refreshed his memory during the interval of singing. This disaster sealed his fate so far as that vacancy was concerned; and though his father, fifty years before, had received a call to the same church, the son was rejected. Two years of preaching overcame this timidity, and made him so acceptable to his auditories, that three different congregations presented calls to him to be their minister. Of these calls, that from Stirling, where he was invited to become the colleague of his aged father, was preferred; and accordingly he was ordained to this charge by the General Associate Presbytery of Stirling, on the 14th of August, 1806.

The life of a country minister is seldom one of public interest. Let him be as talented as he may, he is confined within a particular locality, and fixed to a particular routine of duty; and thus it often happens, that the very men from whom society receives its prevailing impress, live unnoticed and die without record. Such was the case of Mr. Heugh while labouring at Stirling; and to the common eye he was nothing more than a diligent, pains-taking, Dissenting minister, instant in his daily occupations, and anxious for the spiritual interests of his flock. But in his diary there is ample evidence to be found that his exertions and struggles were to the full as heroic as those which insure distinction to the best men of every-day life. His twofold aim, of which he never lost sight, was self-improvement, and the improvement of his people, the former closely connected with, and stimulated by the latter; and the result was his own advance in wisdom, eloquence, efficiency, and spiritual-mindedness, accompanied with the increasing attachment of his people, and their growth in religious wisdom and piety. While thus employed, he was married, in 1809, to Isabella Clarkson, only daughter of a minister of his own religious denomination; and on the following year his father died, leaving him sole minister of the congregation. The important charge which had thus devolved upon him only doubled his diligence, and increased his acceptability among his flock; while his diary at this period is filled with notices of his daily and hourly labours, and his earnest desire to be continually doing good. In this way the life of