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T amounts almost to a virtue to be a native of Duns, the old Merse town which creeps and clings and nestles about the historic Law, in many a quaint and narrow street. At least, a stranger gets that impression in a quiet, inoffensive way, when he comes to reside among its people from what they, doubtless, consider a less favoured land. must not expect to be received anywhere in the Merse with the open arms of a warm embrace, even should you come as a fine gentleman or learned don or certificated teacher. That comes by degrees after you have been weighed in the balance and found worthy. But you must be examined first, looked all round with the critical eyes of a kindly suspicion, made to feel that, if you are to stand before them in any intimate and responsible relationship, you must possess something deserving of their trust. If you can abide the test it is worth while waiting, for your patience will at length be rewarded by a staunch support and a very sympathetic, though somewhat "dour" recognition.

Duns has had many worthy sons of whom she may justly be proud, for the honour that they have reflected upon the town of their birth. Chief among these have been John Duns Scotu's (why not?), the first of Scotland's sons to gain a lasting name in letters; Thomas Boston, of

Simprin and Ettrick fame; Dr. Thomas M'Crie, Knox's biographer; Abraham Robertson, the pedlar boy who won his way to the Chair of Astronomy at Oxford; and I would add another, who does not detract from the lustre of that quartette the subject of our present sketch, the Rev. James Hood Wilson, D.D., of the Barclay Church, Edinburgh.

There is more in heredity than any of us are even now aware. We do not, of course, pretend to be able to crush any human life into the limits of any theory, for there are always unexplained remainders which outrage all our theories. There are gifts for which we have paid no toll; influences which out of barren ancestries produce goodness and genius, and out. of barren souls create new men. Life has its unsolved factors that cannot be measured with a yard stick. Nevertheless, we owe to our parents more than life; and Dr. Wilson, who was born at Duns in 1829, owes not a little of his personal magnetism and large heartedness as a man, and the healthy evangelicalism and unselfish activity which have characterised his preaching and work as a minister, to the line of his ancestry. Both father and mother belonged to old and honoured families of Berwickshire farmers of the best type-the Hoods and Wilsons. John Wilson, his father, was a Duns

merchant with great business capacities, joined to many noble qualities which were not always worn upon his sleeve to gain the praise of men. From him Dr. Wilson has inherited his stately physical presence and talent for organisation. But like most men and women who have retained and developed all that was best in their past, he owes to his mother, and, in his case, peculiarly to his "Aunt Jean," "possessions greater than any ever yet entailed by lawyer's deed an inheritance, a priceless Benjamin's portion, not to be measured or defined." These influences left their mark on all the members of

influences. I trust that I shall not be misunderstood, or regarded as unfaithful to my own denomination, whose spiritual independence has been manifestly educative of the sister church, and only waits the verdict of time for its fuller recognition, when I say that the splendid work, which Dr. Wilson has accomplished, could not have found a fitter channel, or his gifts a more sympathetic atmosphere for their cultivation, than in and through the church which was created by the Disruption.

Young Wilson received all his education, before proceeding to the University, in his

the family, the history of whose home has largely been written in sunlight.

While Dr. Wilson was connected in his early years with the Secession church, where the family enjoyed the able ministry of the now venerable Dr. Ritchie, of whose services he has publicly expressed his deep sense of appreciation, yet the "Auld Licht" principles that ran strong in the blood of the Hoods, the great national movement known in our history as the Disruption, whose blessed impulses were stirring the heart of Scotland at the time, and the intense spiritual ministry of Mr. Cousin-all had their effect in bending young Wilson Free-churchward. And the years have justified his answer to these

Duns.

native town. There were giants on the earth in these days, in the guise of teachers in "parochial" and "adventure" schools. And from these schools, which some of us regard now with a kind of wondering pity, there sprang many of Scotland's worthiest sons. At times we are inclined to think that with all our gains we have lost something. There is a secret that belongs to the product of the anvil which is not known to the child of easier and quicker processes. Mr. Waite's was a school of stern discipline and hard work. But the severity of the master was wedded to high abilities as a teacher; and many a pupil went forth from his hands with an equipment that proved not the least of his most

valuable possessions. From this nursery of scholars young Wilson went to Edinburgh University, where his talents gained him much distinction. I understand that the name of J. H. Wilson can still be read by the last generation of students on the walls of the old logic class-room, as one of Sir W. Hamilton's prizemen. He had among his fellow-students such well-known men as the late Professor Clark Maxwell, Lord Watson, and Professor P. G. Tait. After the usual curriculum of theological studies at the New College he was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh. He had not long to wait for a fitting field of labour. It was only two days after license, in October, 1852, that he was arrested by Dr. Candlish, and at once secured to fill on the following Sabbath his pulpit in Free St. George's, to which he has twice over been called since then. That meeting on the streets of Edinburgh decided, it would seem, his future. Over and over again Dr. Candlish referred to it as a great providence. "My good friend," he said to Dr. Wilson on his death-bed, "I consider it to have been one of the best things in my ministry when I brought you to Edinburgh-to Fountainbridge and I have thanked the Lord for it a hundred times."

For nearly four years, previous to 1852, the Congregation of Free St George's had been working among the white heathen of Fountainbridge-one of the wildest districts of Edinburgh of that day. "What with the perfect cluster of public-houses, and the carters, coalheavers, and canal-men, who made this a kind of centre, the evil state of things could hardly be exaggerated." In January, 1853, Dr. Wilson undertook the charge of the work in that most unpromising quarter. The first ray of sunlight that lessened, to any great degree, the dense moral darkness came from the passing of the Forbes Mackenzie Act in 1854-an Act which secured the closing of all the public houses on the Sabbath. "The change," says Dr. Wilson himself, was instantaneous and complete. No one, walking along that now quiet thoroughfare on a Sabbath afternoon or evening, can fancy what the former state of things was; suggesting the thought of happier times, if the same doors were closed all the seven days of the week." The old candle house, in which the little nucleus of the congregation had worshipped, gave place in January, 1854, to a new church, over which Wilson was elected as its first minister in June of the same year. The work grew and prospered on his hands to an extent which no one, perhaps, had even dreamed of in his most enthusiastic moments. Then came the great revival of 1859, whose blessed influences found

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their way into the most unlikely placesbreaking up, like a flood from the hills, the icebound apathy and religious ease in which thousands had been respectably sleeping. The history of that stirring time can never be written in cold type; but it lives and will come to light in its results on a day when the sun shall no more go down.

Perhaps the most interesting and fruitful work, which Dr. Wilson carried on at this time in Fountainbridge, was the SABBATH EVENING SERVICES FOR PEOPLE IN WORKING CLOTHES. No one was allowed to come to these gatherings unless "in ordinary week day, home, or working

dress." These services were most enthusiastically welcomed and taken advantage of by the inhabitants. Serious as the aspect of them naturally was, they were not devoid of humour. A lady, very fashionably dressed and attended by her maid, arrived at one of these services, and was quite innocently making her way within when she was arrested by a man in corduroys, who refused her admittance on the score of her being too well dressed. But she was too anxious to see and hear to be put off, and asked what she could do by way of making herself look less respectable.

"You might turn your mantle outside in, and have that bright flower taken out of your bonnet," replied the man in corduroys, who at once proceeded to suit the action to the word by producing a pair of scissors, which he kept for the purpose. The man was Dr. Wilson's own brother-a well-known Edinburgh merchant. The lady very graciously consented to have her bonnet thus despoiled and otherwise made, as to appearance, more like her temporary environment; but the maia was wroth. For nine winters these services were conducted with unabated energy by Dr. Wilson and his devoted band of workers, who had the reward of seeing their labours crowned with a fruitfulness hardly surpassed in the annals of homemission enterprise.

About the end of 1864 the congregation, which numbered now 1180 members, removed to the Barclay Church as a fresh centre for renewed work, still retaining West Fountainbridge as a field for aggressive labour. The Barclay Church, considered as a building with any pretence to architecture, would be a pitiful sight to the sensitive eye of a Ruskin. One wonders, sometimes, whether there ever existed a plan before its foundations were laid, or if its builders had gone to work on a conglomeration of plans. Looked at from one point of view, it seems to be all spire from another it strikes us as a veritable tower of Babel, not for height but for its strange atmosphere of confusion." But the preaching and work of its minister has ever been of a far other character; and the religious atmosphere of the Barclay has always been characterised by an intensity and friendliness, to which the church largely owes its distinctiveness.

Dr. Wilson has taken his share, not only in the more public work of the Free Church, but also in every philanthropic and charitable movement connected with Edinburgh. While he has striven to keep before the Free Church the crying needs of the Home Mission fields, especially in our mining centres, he has taken the deepest interest in the work of the Church in other lands. There have gone out from the Barclay itself upwards of thirty inen and women, who have acted there as assistants or missionaries or members, and who have been or are now engaged in different parts of the Foreign field. It was not, therefore, surprising that the Free Church should bestow upon him its highest honour in electing him to be its Moderator during 1895, or that he should be called upon, for three years in succession, to occupy its Chair of Evangelistic Theology.

On leaving his home on the Borders to take up the work of his life, his mother said to him,

"James, remember that, when you lay your hand upon a child's head, you lay it at the same on a mother's heart." It has been the secret of his success with children. He has been beloved of the bairns-the richest and most genuine tribute that can be paid to the heart of man or woman. His four volumes of sermons to the Little Ones have had a wide and cordial reception.

One of the most striking features of his ministry has been the band of men who have been associated with him as assistants in connection with the congregation of the Barclay. That Roll of Honour bears such distinguished names as these-Rev. John Watson (Ian Maclaren), Rev. Dr. Stalker, Professor Henry Drummond, Rev. Dr. Wells, Professor Alex. van Millingen, Constantinople, Rev. David Mitchell, Kirkurd, Rev. Dr. Charles M'Crie, Ayr, Rev. George H. C. Macgregor, London, and some scores of others, who are filling now or have fulfilled responsible positions, as ministers and missionaries, in all parts of the world. The Barclay is a Church that prays and is prayed for in far-sundered fields. The history of the life and labours of that company of consecrated men and women would form a modern Acts of the Apostles, of unique interest and inspiration to

the churches.

Like all true Borderers, Dr. Wilson has never forgotten the scenes of his birth and his boyhood. He often turns aside to spend a part of his well-earned holidays in the congenial atmosphere of his sister, who still resides in the old home that overlooks the quaint Market-place of Duns, and to worship in the "Meetinghouse," where his late brother, Philip, a man who gave with both hands ungrudgingly and lightened the gloom and burden of many poor, was an honoured elder and treasurer for more than thirty years.

Weare proud to claim him for the Borders, above all for what he is and has done. And so long as the Free Church has within her communion men of such intense force and unworldly character she has no need to fear any of our modern breakwaters.

We are indebted to the manager of the Edinburgh Press for his kindness in allowing us the use of the block of Barclay Church and to Miss Wilson for sending us the photo of the North Side of the Market Place, Duns.

ED., B.M.

The Eng.

When

The critical moment had arrived. lish had shown signs of wavering, while King James and his heroic band fought with a vigour and determination which far surpassed anything that had been done during the early part of the struggle. He had in his body-guard men of vast courage and noble bearing, whose power of endurance and skill in handling their weapons stamped them at once as veterans of war Stanley came down on the king's rear the Scots were completely surrounded. The Earl of Surrey in front and on their flank, Lord Thomas Howard on the left, and Sir Edward Stanley on their rear. Even in such desperate straits, and though greatly outnumbered, the Scots fought with unfailing courage, and with such resolute stubbornness, that, for long after Stanley's reinforcement came up, victory trembled in the scale. The hottest of the fight now waged around this point, and the carnage on either side was fearful. The ground actually became so soft and slippery with blood that many a gallant fellow lost his footing and was trodden to death.

The King, by his own personal valour and deeds of daring, inspired his men to renewed and repeated attacks on the dense masses of English billmen.

"The English shafts like volleys hailed,
In headlong charge their horse assailed;
Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep
To break the Scottish circle deep,

That fought around their King.

But yet though thick the shafts as snow,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though billmen ply the ghastly blow,
Unbroken was the ring;

The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,

Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell.

No thought was there of dastard flight;
Linked in the serried phalanx tight,
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well."

Practically that ring was never broken, it was literally annihilated. There was no thought of flight on the part of the Scottish nobles, and even had they been so disposed, the English host formed a compact wall around the noble band so thick and close as to render it impossible. So long as the King survived, the issues of the day remained uncertain. He fell at length, having been wounded by an arrow, and was soon after cut down by an English billman.

It was the burning desire of James to reach the Earl of Surrey and engage him in single combat, and, at the moment when he was struck down, the two commanders were within a few paces of each other. For well nigh four hours the battle had raged with the utmost fury. Darkness had partially set in, yet the gallant nobles, faithful to their beloved sovereign while. he lived, and still faithful in his death, threw themselves into a circle round the body and defended it till darkness effectually separated the combatants. Even then the result of the battle was uncertain. The remains of the King's centre still held the field, and on the following morning the men under Lord Home were seen occupying the western end of the field, where, on the previous day they had defeated the English right wing under the brothers Howard. As the day advanced, however, the Scots retired from the field, and Surrey, satisfied that the victory was his, immediately ordered solemn thanksgiving to be offered up to the Almighty. He thereafter created forty knights on the field, disbanded his army, and returned south.

Various accounts are given as to the disposal of the King's body. Perhaps the most feasible is that, having been stripped during the night for the sake of plunder, his body could not be identified, and was consequently subjected to a hurried burial on the field along with those who fell by his side. Another account, and one which receives the sancion and support of several eminent authorities, is that the King's body was found on the day following the battle; it was thereupon taken to Norham Castle, and thence to Berwick, identified and embalmed, and afterwards conveyed to the monastery at Sheen, in Surrey. This latter account, however, is generally discredited.