In the summer of that year, he preached before the Society for the benefit of the Sons of the Clergy, the sermon which stands first in the present volume. In it the just claim of those who serve at the altar to live by the altar, and the duty of Christians not to despise or neglect their teachers, or to leave their families destitute, are stated in a truly Christian spirit, and in a manner to which even the most rigid Independent would find it difficult to object.

In the latter part of that year he was visited with a severe trial in the loss of his eldest son, then about seven years old. This is mentioned by him in the following manner:

"October 1st 1800. This month is begun with weeping and alarm under a most heavy trial. My son, the son of my vows, is this day given up by the physicians as irrecoverable; his distress has come on him rapidly; we at first apprehended no danger. I have been endeavouring to plead with a holy God, that if we must lose our dear boy, it may please the Lord that he may go without much pain; I was enabled to keep hold of the shield of faith, and to say, Though the Lord slay me I will trust in him. He has been the answerer of prayer to me in all the past years of my life, often in most wonderful ways, and his mercy is not now clean gone. The truth of this has to-day been evinced; when we had been brought to give up our dear boy to his entire disposal, and to plead that he would not afflict more than he enabled our child or us to bear, then he stayed his rough

wind, and both shortened and softened the severity of the trouble. By five in the afternoon his feeling of pain was evidently taken away, his mild countenance shewed he was not suffering. We know that we are to lose him, and that trial is truly bitter; but grace has made us willing to restore the trust committed to our keeping, unitedly and apart we have given him to the Lord; he was indeed dear to our heart. The faith and hope of the gospel, and what is therein testified, that God is a God to our seed as well as to ourselves, have effectually silenced all complaints.

"Thursday, 2d October. My dear boy greatly weaker to-day, but, in richest compassion to our feeble frame, a gracious God has preserved him from all severe pain. Yes! I well knew that my gracious Saviour would, in one way or other, give answers of mercy to our supplications. He has mingled much compassion with the trial; has reconciled me to his dealings, has given to our minds the most pleasing and satisfactory views of my dear boy's interest in his covenant-love; has from his own word opened to us prospects of his divine regard to children which we never had before. In these and in many other respects, that saying has indeed been fulfilled, "Thou wilt put strength within us; fear not, I am thy God; when thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee." Notwithstanding these divine supports, the anguish of mind which I have felt in the prospect of losing my son, and of what he has suf

fered,

fered, and may yet suffer, makes me ready to think that the six years enjoyment of him seems more than overbalanced by the grief of losing him.

"Friday 4th. This night at twelve o'clock my dear son breathed his last, and entered into rest. It has indeed been a solemn and impressive scene. At five in the afternoon I prayed, and solemnly renewed, for the last time, our committing him to the Lord. I believe it was a season of divine manifestation to each of our souls; we rejoiced in thinking that so dear a son was given and kept so long with us, that the Redeemer was all his hope, and all our hope for him. When I think of what he might have suffered, I am filled with grateful wonder at the Lord's goodness to my boy!"

It was not long before this domestic affliction was followed by new distresses in the loss of some of the friends of Mr Bonar's youth. In 1802, he was called to preach a funeral sermon on the death of his early and much esteemed friend, the Reverend Mr Paul, minister of St Cuthbert's, at whose settlement in that charge he had 16 years before preached and presided. They had been companions in study at the Divinity Hall, had through life maintained the closest friendship, and being settled in parishes immediately adjoining, derived constant satisfaction from mutual converse and unreserved communication of sentiments, exercising their labours with similar aims, and under similar views of divine truth; while the mild affectionate warmth which characterised Mr Bonar's ministration

formed

formed an agreeable contrast to the energetic firmness and decisive vigour of his friend. It had been Mr Paul's own particular wish that Mr Bonar should preach his funeral sermon; Mr Bonar could not refuse this his last request; he preached on that occasion the sermon which forms the last in the present volume. The sentiments of affection and regret which it contains came warm from the heart; though grief for the death of such a friend could not fail to be softened by the soothing reflection, that he had entered into the possession of the heavenly inheritance.

A second call upon his friendship of a similar nature occurred in 1806, upon the death of a still earlier and equally endeared friend, the Reverend Mr Black, minister of Lady Yester's Church, Edinburgh. Their friendship had begun even in childhood, and had suffered no abatement in riper years ; it was confirmed by entire congeniality of views and sentiments, and had been still farther strengthened by the marriage of Mr Bonar to Mr Black's sister; through life they had been remarked, as is justly observed in the life of Mr Black, prefixed to his sermons, for an uncommon similarity of manners, disposition, tempers, and pursuits. It was a melancholy duty which Mr Bonar had to perform in this paying the last offices of friendship in preaching Mr Black's funeral sermon; and in doing so, his feelings more than once nearly overpowered him in the pulpit.

The death of these two intimate friends, one of them his co-temporary, the other several years

younger,

younger, impressed Mr Bonar with strong presentiments that his own labours must ere long draw to an end. His health, however, continued pretty uniform till about the year 1809, when he was seized with a cold, which, though at first it was thought of no consequence by his friends, and soon after appeared to be removed, yet affected his constitution, and left the seeds of an asthmatic complaint that in time proved too powerful for his frame. For a good while, however, his ministerial labours suffered little interruption; and during two or three succeeding seasons, a change of air and of scene for a few weeks in summer recruited his strength, and removed for a time the apprehensions of his friends. He himself, however, felt that his strength was gradually decaying, and began to look forward to the close of his labours. Wishing to neglect no means of promoting the benefit of his people, he resolved to publish a volume of Discourses. His motives in this publication are affectingly stated in his preface. "For some years past," he observes, "it has pleased God to render the author unfit for those private pastoral duties which he found pleasant to himself, and he trusts not useless to his people. Under the increasing infirmities of age, and of bodily weakness, he will not deny that he felt much satisfaction in revising and preparing for publication, some of those discourses which he had delivered to the different parishes in which he had laboured, as a memorial of the truth which he had maintained, and which he had found fully sufficient

to