Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/73

Rh After the usual course of logic, ethics, and physics, he became a student in theology, and his proficiency excited the highest expectations of future success as a minister. At the close of his theological course, he was taken on trials as a licentiate by the General Associate Presbytery of Glasgow, and licensed as a preacher in 1780. Two congregations were soon desirous to have him for their minister; the one in Dundee, and the other in Forfar. In this question of contending claims, it was for the Associate Synod to decide; and, in consequence of their preference to the call from Forfar, Mr. Jamieson was ordained to the pastoral charge in that town by the Secession Presbytery of Perth, in 1781.

At the early age of twenty-two Mr. Jamieson thus entered upon the sacred office of a minister. It was at that time one of peculiar difficulty among the Secession body; for the ferment produced in this country by the French Revolution, and the political suspicions which it diffused through the whole community, caused all who did not belong to the Established Church to be considered as disloyal, or at least discontented subjects. Mr. Jamieson, of course, was regarded, at his entrance into Forfar, as one who might become a teacher of sedition, as well as a preacher of the gospel of peace. But he had not been long there when his conduct disarmed the suspicious, and pro- cured him general confidence and esteem; while his able clerical labours were rewarded with a full congregation and permanent usefulness. He thus made trial of his ministry for sixteen years, during which period he married the daughter of a neighbouring proprietor, who gladdened the course of his long life, and died only a year before his own decease. It was in Forfar also that he commenced his life of authorship, and his first production was of a kind the least to be expected from a plodding, word-sifting antiquary it was a poem! It was published in 1789, and entitled, the "Sorrows of Slavery, a Poem, containing a Faithful Statement of Facts respecting the Slave-trade." We suspect that, though most of our readers may have read the splendid lyrics of Cowper and Montgomery on the same subject, they have not chanced to light upon this production of Jamieson. He made another attempt of the same nature in 1798, when he published "Eternity, a Poem, addressed to Free-thinkers and Philosophical Christians." But during the interval between these two attempts, his pen had been employed in more hopeful efforts. These were, an "Alarm to Britain; or, an Inquiry into the Causes of the Rapid Progress of Infidelity," which he published in 1795, and a "Vindication of the Doctrine of Scripture, and of the Primitive Faith concerning the Divinity of Christ, in reply to Dr. Priestley's "History of Early Opinions," which appeared in the same year. The last was a work of great scholarship and research, as well as cogent argument; and in these departments, at least, he showed himself a full match for his formidable antagonist. Another work, which he published dur- ing his ministry in Forfar, was of a different bearing, as may be learned from its title, which was, "Sermons on the Heart."

By these labours Jamieson won for himself an honourable name in literature, that was especially grateful to the religious community to which he belonged, and they testified their feeling in a way that was not only creditable to him, but to themselves. A call was sent to him in 1796, from the congregation in Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, whose pastor, the Rev. Mr. Banks them for America. The Synod at the time judged his transfer from Forfar to Edinburgh inexpedient, and decided accordingly; but the Nicolson