of a course of lectures on that epistle; and said that he intended to close his exposition with the third chapter,-assigning as a motive, that if his people understood the doctrine of the first three chapters, they would practise, without his instructions, the last three. Dr. Waugh took up the subject, and fully and faithfully, yet with the kindest spirit, defended the importance and necessity of expounding also the practical part of the epistle, without which no minister could be said to declare the whole counsel of God. On public occasions his discourses were very brilliant and figurative: but in his ordinary ministrations he sought the good of all for edification, and laboured with unrivalled assiduity to promote Christian principles and Christian habits among a people to whom he had devoted the studies, the instructions, and prayers, of a long and useful life. His mind was not peculiarly formed for close and long-continued reasoning. His was not so much the mental energy of Paul, delighting itself with the weapons of argument, as it was the benevolence of John, pouring out a full heart in all the meltings of Divine compassion. He disarmed by love. One felt ashamed not to love his Master and his theme. The beautiful, the tender, the sublime, came at his bidding, to illustrate or enforce his subject; while every eye and every heart throughout the audience bore witness to his powerful and impressive instructions. The Rev. Mr. Jay said, more than twenty years ago, to a minister yet living, when N he heard Dr. Waugh preach a lecture at Fetter Lane, on the manner in which a Christian should die," All our young ministers, and candidates for the ministry, ought to hear Waugh: use all your influence to induce them to do so." The following portrait of Dr. Waugh as a preacher appeared several years ago in a religious periodical of respectability. It is known to have been sketched by the same graphic hand that delineated Romaine and Lavington, and has been recognised by many of his hearers as very characteristic: "Were we to delineate the Doctor in the parlour, we should sketch the traits of a cheerful companion and a devout and affectionate pastor; but our business is with him in the pulpit. Here we see the venerable man of God Much impressed Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And tender in address, as well becomes "The winter of years, as he would perhaps say, in metaphorical language, has whitened his * The reader is referred to the Appendix for illustrations of Dr. Waugh's style of preaching. The specimens there given, though they can afford but a faint idea of the exciting effects of his spoken eloquence, will yet be prized by many, not only as interesting memorials of his tone of thought and expression, but also for their intrinsic merit,-though only the disjecta membra of his compositions-the scattered arrows from his quiver. head with its snows: but though he has nearly reached the term of man's life, age has not made his manly and athletic form to stoop, nor paralysed his energies, nor destroyed the vigour of his imagination, nor extinguished the fire of his eye. There is something venerable and commanding in his appearance: in the pulpit he is becomingly grave; in prayer he is devoutly solemn; and on public occasions, especially at the dedication of a place of worship to the service of God, or of a young minister to the sacred office, he overwhelms the soul with the sense of the presence of that Divine Being, who in very deed will dwell with man upon earth,' and is the hearer and answerer of prayer. In preaching at home he varies exceedingly. Sometimes his energies seem all dying, his voice fails, and his imagination makes no effort to take wing: at other times, he repays the constant hearer for these disappointments, by all that can charm his mind and touch his heart. His whole soul is inflamed with his subject; his imagination seems to regain all the vigour of its earliest years, yet chastened by the maturity of age. He makes the heart of the Christian glow with the hopes and promises of the Gospel; searches the professor's bosom as if he would lay it open before the whole congregation; and causes the ears of the sinner to tingle, the joints of his loins to be loosed, and his knees to smite one against the other. He frequently employs the most beautiful imagery, and, attached strongly to his native land, he seizes figures from the cloudcapped mountains, or craggy cliffs, or foaming cataracts, or glassy lakes of Scotland.* His divisions are numerous,-sometimes too numerous,— leaving little room for amplification. His topics are generally of a practical kind, but always grafted on evangelical truth. He uses notes, which seem to contain the heads, and, perhaps, leading illustrations of his sermons; and he appears occasionally to enlarge on these extempore, when he throws out his most beautiful thoughts, The following remarks, by one of his sons, exhibit in a striking point of view the talent which he possessed of arresting the attention or touching the affections of his hearers, by occasional animating appeals to their national or local reminiscences : "His congregation, though originally almost exclusively from the North, was composed of a population of considerable diversity, Scottish Highlanders, Lowlanders, Borderers, and a few natives of the north of England; but so well was he acquainted with his hearers, that he knew from what part of the country every family or individual came; and, as his knowledge of Scotland, its general history, local traditions, remarkable scenery, and distinguished characters, was very extensive, he was enabled to avail himself of the feelings and predilections of his people, and of Scotchmen in general, in a manner peculiarly his own. In the illustration of his discourses, the most beautiful and vivid passages appeared frequently to be suggested at the moment, by his catching the eye of some attentive listener, and thence suiting his address, as it were, more directly to his immediate apprehension, yet in a manner highly interesting to all. The Highlanders he would arouse with the stern and striking imagery of the torrents, lakes, craggy cliffs, and lonely heaths of their mountain land,—and that not in the vague terms of general allusion, but by calling up the hills and streams and glens by name before them,-Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis, Glengarry, the Spey, the Tay, &c. To the hearts of the Lowlanders he would appeal with the softer pastoral recollections of Teviotdale or Lammermuir, of Cheviot or Pentland hills, of Nithsdale now and then hampered in his haste for a word or words to express them.* He handles figures with great taste and delicacy, when they occur in his texts and quotations; and the beauties of nature have evidently been objects of his frequent meditation. There is occasionally a recurrence of the same figures and modes of expression where he is often heard, but many of them will bear repetition. or Stitchell-brae. To the English borderers he would recall the field of Flodden, the Till, Otterburn, the feudal days of Percy and Douglas, &c. Often, in this manner, has every member of his congregation had the scenes of his youth and his early associations, as connected with his religious feelings and moral duties, brought vividly to his recollection in illustration of the subject on which his pastor was preaching or lecturing. And thus he could make of importance the little hill or brae, the silent rock or bosky burn, which, unnoticed by all the world beside, gave character and life to the tender reminiscences of many a poor man and woman, whose days of joyous childhood had been spent among such scenes. They felt it of importance that their brae or their burn should be known to their minister, and wondered that he should be able to describe them with a fidelity so correct, and to enter into their feelings with all the enthusiasm of a companion of their youth, and even to draw forth beauties in those scenes, by his picturesque sketches, which had scarcely ever before attracted their notice. To persons long absent from their native land, but who cherished, even in old age, sentiments of ardent attachment to it, it may be imagined how touchingly affecting this mode of illustration often proved." * When thus embarrassed, which arose solely from his momentary non-recollection of an English word to express fully his meaning, he would avail himself of his intimate knowledge of the proverbial phrases of his dear native land, to the great delight of his elder auditors, as often read in their brightening coun tenances. |