whereof before the heritors, when the examination of the school came
round, the tear came into my eye, and every one present sympathized
with me in my great affliction for the loss of the first Mrs
Balwhidder.

Andrew Langshaw, as I have recorded, having come from the Glasgow
College to the burial of his sister, my wife that was, stayed with
me a month to keep me company; and staying with me, he was a great
cordial, for the weather was wet and sleety, and the nights were
stormy, so that I could go little out, and few of the elders came
in, they being at that time old men in a feckless condition, not at
all qualified to warsle with the blasts of winter. But when Andrew
left me to go back to his classes, I was eerie and lonesome; and but
for the getting of the monument ready, which was a blessed
entertainment to me in those dreary nights, with consulting anent
the shape of it with John Truel, and meditating on the verse for the
epitaph, I might have gone altogether demented. However, it pleased
Him, who is the surety of the sinner, to help me through the Slough
of Despond, and to set my feet on firm land, establishing my way
thereon.

But the work of the monument, and the epitaph, could not endure for
a constancy, and after it was done, I was again in great danger of
sinking into the hypochonderies a second time. However, I was
enabled to fight with my affliction, and by-and-by, as the spring
began to open her green lattice, and to set out her flower-pots to
the sunshine, and the time of the singing of birds was come, I
became more composed, and like myself, so I often walked in the
fields, and held communion with nature, and wondered at the
mysteries thereof.