Under such circumstances, to attempt to fill the vacant pulpit was no easy task; and yet that it has been done, and done successfully, is evinced by Dr. Hamilton’s success. It is a fact that he preaches there every Sunday to a crowded church; that there, where there were divers prophesyings and bewilderment universal, now order reigns; that the only voice that you hear there now, besides that of the preacher, is that of the precentor, as he reads the bald version of the Psalms, to which the modern Scotch stick as immovably as did their fathers to the Covenant in the days of Montrose. This is an undeniable fact. Nor does it surprise you when the Doctor makes his appearance in the pulpit. At first, perhaps, you are rather surprised. There is certainty nothing taking about the man. He looks tall, strong, and awkward, with a cloudy face, and a fearfully drawling voice; a man, not timid, but not striking—plain and unaffected—better fitted for the study than for the fashion of May Fair. If you look closer, you will see indications of a calm, untroubled heart, with deep wells of fine feeling, of tenderness and strength combined. But still the Doctor is not the man to make a sensation at first sight—very few ministers are. One can understand this in a way. In certain families, it is said, the good-looking are put into the army—if fools, into the Church. Yet, generally, the jewel is worthy of the casket. If the one be rich and beautiful, the other is so as well. Plain and slouching as he is, I am told the Doctor succeeded in engaging the affections of a lady possessed of considerable property. But this is by no means remarkable: clergymen of every denomination make as many successful marriages as most men. One would think that they took the common wicked standard of wicked men, and judged a woman’s worth by the extent of her purse. I fear that there are as many fortune-hunters in the Church as there are in the world. If ‘Hudibras’ had been written in our day, we should at once have supposed that Dr. Hamilton had helped the poet to a hero. Like Hudibras, the Doctor ‘scarce can ope His mouth, but out there flies a trope.’