Somewhere in or about his seventeenth year, my father passed through a crisis of religious experience, and from that day he openly and very decidedly followed the Lord Jesus. His parents had belonged to one of the older branches of what now we call the United Presbyterian Church; but my father, having made an independent study of the Scotch Worthies, the Cloud of Witnesses, the Testimonies, and the Confession of Faith, resolved to cast in his lot with the oldest of all the Scotch Churches, the Reformed Presbyterian, as most nearly representing the Covenanters and the attainments of both the first and second Reformations in Scotland. This choice he deliberately made, and sincerely and intelligently adhered to; and was able at all times to give strong and clear reasons from Bible and from history for the principles he upheld. Still his sympathies and votes always went with the more progressive party in that ancient Church. He held it to be right that Cameronians, like other citizens, should exercise the municipal and political franchise, and he adhered to the “Majority Synod,” which has since been incorporated with the Free Church of Scotland. While glorying in the Psalms, he rejoiced to sing other hymns and spiritual songs (thanks to Ralph Erskine’s “Sonnets,” perhaps, for that!) from his earliest days, at least everywhere except in the ordinary Public Worship; and long before he died, though he still held the Psalms to be supreme, he had learned to hear with glowing delight vast congregations singing the hymns of modern days, had learned joyfully to join in these songs of Zion, and was heard often to confess his belief that God had greatly owned and blessed the ministry of song in the service of the Gospel.