of the place by imparting gratuitous religious instruction.* Much intelligent interest was felt by the villagers in all public questions, and they furnished a proof that the possession of the means of education did not render them an unsafe portion of the population.  They felt kindly toward each other, and much respected those of the neighboring gentry who, like the late Lord Douglas, placed some confidence in their sense of honor.  Through the kindness of that nobleman, the poorest among us could stroll at pleasure over the ancient domains of Bothwell, and other spots hallowed by the venerable associations of which our school-books and local traditions made us well aware; and few of us could view the dear memorials of the past without feeling that these carefully kept monuments were our own.  The masses of the working-people of Scotland have read history, and are no revolutionary levelers.  They rejoice in the memories of “Wallace and Bruce and a’ the lave,” who are still much revered as the former champions of freedom.  And while foreigners imagine that we want the spirit only to overturn capitalists and aristocracy, we are content to respect our laws till we can change them, and hate those stupid revolutions which might sweep away time-honored institutions, dear alike to rich and poor.

* The reader will pardon my mentioning the names of two of these most worthy men—­David Hogg, who addressed me on his death-bed with the words, “Now, lad, make religion the every- day business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts; for if you do not, temptation and other things will get the better of you;” and Thomas Burke, an old Forty-second Peninsula soldier, who has been incessant and never weary in good works for about forty years.  I was delighted to find him still alive; men like these are an honor to their country and profession.

Having finished the medical curriculum and presented a thesis on a subject which required the use of the stethoscope for its diagnosis, I unwittingly procured for myself an examination rather more severe and prolonged than usual among examining bodies.  The reason was, that between me and the examiners a slight difference of opinion existed as to whether this instrument could do what was asserted.  The wiser plan would have been to have had no opinion of my own.  However, I was admitted a Licentiate of Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons.  It was with unfeigned delight I became a member of a profession which is pre-eminently devoted to practical benevolence, and which with unwearied energy pursues from age to age its endeavors to lessen human woe.