loose sheet of paper was found on which had been written these lines to his wife:-- 'DEAREST LYDIA,--My brain burns, I _must_ have _walked_; and a fearful dream rises upon me. I cannot bear the horrible thought. God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me. Dearest Lydia, dear children, farewell. My brain burns as the recollection grows. My dear, dear wife, farewell. HUGH MILLER.' It fell to Dr. Guthrie, in whose church of Free St. John's the deceased had been an office member, to apprise the widow of the real nature of the case; and in order to secure her sanction for a _post-mortem_ examination the above letter had to be produced, showing that his purpose had been executed almost before the ink was dry. On the 26th the verdict was issued:--'From the diseased appearances found in the brain, taken in connection with the history of the case, we have no doubt that the act was suicidal, under the impulse of insanity.' His funeral was the largest Edinburgh had seen since that of Chalmers, and by his side in the Grange Cemetery he was laid. To the mass of his countrymen abroad he was the greatest of living Scotchmen. His works had given him a European reputation in science, while to those at home the work he had accomplished as a tribune of the people had given him a position second only to that of Guthrie. A generation has arisen since which hears but by vague report the principles for which the men of 1843 contended. It takes many a man to fall in the ditch before glorious revolutions can successfully march over in their pumps and silk stockings, giving their victorious three-times-three. It has been sought to minimise these issues, to explain them away after the manner of 'able editors' and complacent philosophers cheerfully 'at ease in Zion,' and to maintain, with the hardy gravity of ignorance, that the combatants really knew not what they fought for--the Headship of Christ, Anti-Patronage, or resistance to the civil courts. Similar futilities we have seen ventilated over the American Civil War. The North, say the philosophic thinkers, or tinkers, did not know whether it fought for the preservation of the Union or against slavery. Such speculations are too thin to carry much weight. In both cases many went to their grave for what they believed to be principle, and all such men may be safely trusted to have reached some conclusions and clear issues. These issues obviously all met; after Auchterarder on the one hand, and South Carolina on the other, had led the way, no such easy subterfuge was possible for either party.