"May 3. was to my soul a good day; and though the iniquity of my heels overtook me, the God of my mercy prevented me, which made me sing of the freeness of grace." "On the 17th, he kindly opened the stores of his goodness, and made my soul delight itself in fatness." "On the 24th, the wanderings of my heart were very grievous. O when shall my complaint cease!" He went ashore at St Helena on the 8th of June, wandered to a considerable distance into the country, and devoted the day in solitude to self-examination and prayer. "But O what a black life mine was, when narrowly surveyed, when by meditation it was, as it were, taken to pieces. Though the world could say but little, conscience could say a great deal." "July 12. was Sabbath, and though busy for a considerable part of the day among the sick, yet God remembered me in my wilderness, and watered my desart. I found, that to be allowed to live near God is the sweetest life in the world, and sweetens every condition." The scurvy and dysentery raged on board the ship during the voyage home to such a degree, that they lost 26 men, and at one period had 65 sick. Although the fatigue of duty must have been great, Mr Meikle remarks, with gratitude to God, that, except during a few days when he felt what is styled the prickly heat, he retained his health. They narrowly escaped, near the island Fernandez de Noronha, being captured by a French fleet which were watching for them, by altering their course during the night; and on the night of the 6th of Sep. tember, they were mercifully preserved in a storm, though a thunderbolt struck their main top-mast, broke it in pieces, and stunned several of the people. The ship went into dock after their arrival, and again Mr Meikle applied to the Navy-Board without success. On the 25th of November, they sailed for Lisbon, and returned to Spithead on the 1st of February 1762, bringing home the Earl of Bristol, the British ambassador at the Court of Spain. The moment he arrived, he renewed his application to the Board, and, to his inexpressible joy, obtained his request; "for which," says he, "I bless the Hearer of prayer, and magnify his name." As soon as he could arrange his affairs, he left the ship, hasted to London, and took ship for Berwick, whence he travelled on foot to Edinburgh, "which," says he, "when I saw, I thanked God, and took courage.' At Carnwath, where he arrived on the 24th of March, he thought himself, he says, in a new world. No oaths assaulted his ears; by many religion was professed, and prayer performed; at Biggar, within eight miles of his residence, he had regular access to hear the gospel; and he found in his neighbourhood godly men, with whom he deemed it a happiness to have it in his power to associate. His Sabbaths, in particular, were very different from those of the four preceding years. "It was a sweet day," says he, speaking of one of his first Sabbaths at home; "no disturbance, but from a wandering heart. I was afraid that I was not so thankful as I ought to be." On his road to church on a subsequent one, "I had pleasure," he says, "in meditation. The sermon was divine and edifying. O pleasant situation! but O ungrateful I!" The object which he had had so long at heart now occupied his attention; but a series of adverse occurrences had put the attainment of it for so many years out of his reach, that now when he possessed the means of prosecuting his studies for the ministry, he began to hesitate concerning what was his duty. He took the advice of several of the most judicious of his friends, and in particular of the Rev. John Patison, the venerable predecessor of the writer of this Narrative; and the result was, that considering how long Providence had obstructed his views; that he had already spent thirty-three years of his life, and several more must necessarily elapse before, according to the rules of the religious society of which he was a member, he could obtain licence to preach the gospel; and moreover, that his organs of speech did not promise that he would ever be able to speak so as to meet with general acceptance, it was his duty to abandon his intention, and to endeavour to serve God and his generation by the diligent application of his talents to the duties of the station in which he was placed. He did so, and was respectable and useful during life as a surgeon. Though Providence thus refused the aid of his tongue to promote the interest of the gospel, yet his pen was never unoccupied in private in this glorious work; and it is hoped, that now since he is gone to a better world, his pious example, which it is the business of these sheets to record, and his pious writings, which the writer of this ac- counts it his honour to have been the means of in, troducing to public notice, will long continue to plead the cause of that God whom he served, and to refresh the souls of many who are precious in his sight. In the private station of a country-surgeon, the uniformity of Mr Meikle's life furnishes hencefor. ward few incidents which are of sufficient in, o tance to merit a detail. The history of religion in his soul is, besides, recorded with sufficient minuteness in the "Secret Survey," in the Meditations" written after this period, and in the "Monthly Memorial," which together form an uninterrupted chain of information concerning him. from the pe riod when he left the Navy to the 2d of December 1799, within five days of his decease. A less cir cumstantial account, therefore, of the latter period of his life is deemed sufficient. Although Mr Meikle did not immediately abandon the great object which he had so long at heart, he was pushed into business as a surgeon by the zeal of his friends soon after he arrived at Carnwath, in 1762. When he afterwards found that this was to be the employment of his life, he regretted that, owing to the preponderance of a different subject of study, he had devoted less of his attention to the study of surgery and medicine than he ought, and resolved to do what in him lay to repair his error. With this view, he not only gave attention to reading in the line of his protession, but arranged matters so, that, without material injury to his business, he spent some months of the summer of 1764 in Edinburgh, in the study of midwifery, and some other branches of science. With what ability he discharged the duties of his station, the writer of this has no sufficient n.eans of knowledge. He finds, from some hints in Mr Meikle's papers, that the tongue of slander, in several cases, reproached him for the manner in which he had treated patients*; and in particular, that he had suffered exquisite distress from the malevolent insinuations of a person from whom he f3 * Solitude Sweetened, Med. XVIII. refers to one of these cases, had reason to expect different treatment, respecting his conduct to his only and much-beloved sister, the last but himself of his father's family, who had kept house with him since his return to his native place, and who was cut off by a fever in the month of March 1770. One thing, however, is certain, that if some have practised with greater skill, none ever did so with greater uprightness of intention, and few, very few indeed, with as reli gious a dependence on God for his blessing on the means which he used for the health and cure of his fellow-creatures, and with as conscientious and lively a concern for both their temporal and spiritual welfare. "I desire," says he, "to bear my patients on my mind; they are my charge, and I always implore a blessing on the means: for the apparently dying I make supplications in secret." From his memorandums it appears, that before he undertook any operation which he deemed difficult, he applied to God in secret for direction and aid; and many a prayer stands recorded in his papers for the souls of those whom he has considered as dangerously ill. What religious family would not prefer such assistance in distress, to that of irreligious persons of greater celebrity in the medical world! Mr Meikle devoted many of his leisure-hours, during the first ten or twelve years after his settlement in Carnwath, to the revision of the papers which he had written at sea, or at an earlier period. He transcribed "The Traveller," which occupies the greater part of this volume; the greater part of Solitude Sweetened," which was formerly published; and "A Word in Time of Need," which may hereafter appear. He likewise transcribed "The Christian's Compass; Poems on the |