her happiness so wholly and thoroughly that there was not a moment of
weak hesitation,--no going back over the past,--no vain regret.
Generous and brave souls find a support in such actions, because the
very exertion raises them to a higher and purer plane of existence.

His diary records the event only in these very calm and temperate
words:--"It was a trial to me,--_a very great_ trial; but as she did
not deceive me, I shall never lose my friendship for her."

The Doctor was always a welcome inmate in the house of Mary and James,
as a friend revered and dear. Nor did he want in time a hearthstone of
his own, where a bright and loving face made him daily welcome; for we
find that he married at last a woman of a fair countenance, and that
sons and daughters grew up around him.

In time, also, his theological system was published. In that day, it
was customary to dedicate new or important works to the patronage of
some distinguished or powerful individual. The Doctor had no earthly
patron. Four or five simple lines are found in the commencement of his
work, in which, in a spirit reverential and affectionate, he dedicates
it to our Lord Jesus Christ, praying Him to accept the good, and to
overrule the errors to His glory.

Quite unexpectedly to himself, the work proved a success, not only in
public acceptance and esteem, but even in a temporal view, bringing to
him at last a modest competence, which he accepted with surprise and
gratitude. To the last of a very long life, he was the same steady,
undiscouraged worker, the same calm witness against popular sins and
proclaimer of unpopular truths, ever saying and doing what he saw to be
eternally right, without the slightest consultation with worldly