Note 26 — MY FATHER’S MEMOIR. A LETTER TO JOHN CAIRNS, D. D.

This earnestness of nature pervaded all his exercises. A man of great capacity and culture, with a head like Benjamin Franklin’s, an avowed unbeliever in Christianity, came every Sunday afternoon, for many years, to hear him. I remember his look well, as if interested, but not impressed. He was often asked by his friends why he went when he didn’t believe one word of what he heard. “Neither I do, but I like to hear and to see a man earnest once a week, about anything.” It is related of David Hume, that having heard my great-grandfather preach, he said, “That’s the man for me, he means what he says, he speaks as if Jesus Christ was at his elbow.” Return