and deeply engraven on his heart. He read them till their teachings became a part of his very nature, and shone forth in his character in all the beauty of holiness. He was a thorough Christian. The oracles of God were the rule both of his faith and conduct. They leavened his whole soul. They mingled with all his conversation. They were his only counsellors and his chief comforters. They were his law, his politics, his philosophy, his morals. They were his treasure and his song. And he received their teachings in their simple, obvious, common-sense meaning. He had quite a distaste for commentaries, because they would not allow the Scriptures to speak forth their own solemn meaning in their own plain, artless way. He hated the notes to Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ for the same reason. He could understand the Bible, but he could not understand the explanations of it given by theologians. He would not study theology. He would study the Bible and Christ; he would study precepts and promises, exhortations and warnings, examples and historics; but not theology. And he never bothered us with theology. There was no theology in his conversation. There was none in his prayers. He never used theological terms. In all he said on religious matters, whether to God or man, he used the simplest Bible terms. He seldom talked much to his children about religion; he taught us more by his deeds and spirit than by words; but when he did say anything to us on the subject, it was the pure, unadulterated Word of God. The idea of making us theologians, in the ordinary sense of the word, never entered into his head. He wished us to think and feel and act like Christians, and that was all; and the end of all his counsels and labors was to furnish us unto every good word and work. If he had written a system of divinity, he would have left out most of the things which many put into such books, and put in many which most leave out. It would have been a book to help people to live right and feel right, and not to dream, or speculate, or wrangle. If he had been a preacher, he would have filled his sermons with the living words of Moses and the Prophets, of Christ and His Apostles, and pressed them on the consciences of his hearers with all his might. He would often have "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come," but never troubled his hearers with human theories of Christian doctrines. The drift and scope of his sermons to the ungodly would have been, "Cease to do evil; learn to do well." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." "Repeat and be converted, every one of you, that your sins may he blotted out." The substance of his sermons to believers would have been, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies