It has been said that Binning himself, when on his death bed, regretted to one of his friends, that his sermons had been framed after a different model from that to which his countrymen had been accustomed, and had he lived, that “he was fully resolved to have followed that way of preaching by doctrine, reasons, and uses, and he declared he was then best pleased with.”(53) We can easily believe this. The faithful Christian minister is not a man that is likely to be pleased with his own performances, in any circumstances, and more particularly, when he sees the hour approaching, when he expects to be called upon, to render an account of his stewardship and should his hopes of usefulness have been disappointed, he will be more disposed, even than others, to blame the teacher. Binning, it is not improbable, thought he had done wrong, in discarding from many of his sermons formal divisions altogether, and, like many English preachers who came after him, that in passing from one extreme, he had sometimes proceeded to another. He may likewise have discovered, when catechizing some of his simple parishioners, that from want of the usual landmarks to guide them, they were not always able to follow him, when addressing them from the pulpit, or to give such a good account of his sermons, as of the discourses of some other ministers, who in preaching adhered to the rules and method of the period.(54) A small volume, having for its title “Evangelical Beauties of the late Rev. Hugh Binning,” was prepared for the press, by the Rev. John Brown of Whitburn, and published at Edinburgh, in the year 1828. Along with this interesting little work, a letter from the late Dr M’Crie was printed, in which that judicious and popular writer says, “I am fond of Binning, he is thoroughly evangelical, is always in earnest and full of his subject, abounds in new and striking thoughts, and has many natural and unaffected beauties in his style and manner of writing. Had he paid a little more attention to order and method, and lived to correct his sermons for the press, he would, in my opinion, have carried every point of a good and great preacher. As it is, very few writers please me more. I will rejoice if the plan you propose shall be the means of producing a new edition of his works, which are far less known than they deserve to be, and have hitherto been chiefly in the hands of that class of persons least qualified for relishing some of his distinguishing excellencies.” There can be little doubt, as Dr. M’Crie has here hinted, that in Binning’s discourses, there is occasionally an apparent neglect of order and method, and that we could have wished, for the sake of his hearers particularly, or with a view to attract attention and assist the memory, he had more frequently stated the outlines of his plan in two or three general heads. But few surely will feel sorry that his eloquent periods are not broken