The visits of their friends were a solace in the first hour of their unlooked-for adversity. But, after their retirement the vague, undefined, and gloomy shadows which rose to the contemplation of my parents, with respect to their future prospects, yielded only a troubled and unutterable anxiety. Repining and supineness, however, were not suited to my father's character; for, with mildness, he united decision and even boldness of spirit. He had, for several years previous to this explosion of lordly despotism in the patron of his chapel, corresponded with some of his college friends in the new Republic of America; and had been encouraged by them, and through them, by one of the most distinguished of the American patriots, to leave his meagre benefice and cross the Atlantic. These invitations he had declined; being warmly attached to his flock, to the Established Church of Scotland, to his friends at home, and to his country. In his altered circumstances, however--severed as he was by an arbitrary act over which there was no moral or legal control, cast destitute from the altar at which he had ministered with usefulness and acceptance, and having no claims to immediate patronage in the church--he resolved, with a heavy heart, to betake himself to that field of exertion in a foreign land to which he had been so courteously invited. Having adopted this resolution, he did not waste time in idle whining, but prepared to encounter all the inconveniences and perils of a long voyage across the deep; aggravated, unspeakably, by the accompaniments of a wife and six young children, and hampered by the scanty means which remained to him amidst this wreck of his hopes of happiness at home. But before his final departure from the cold and rocky shore of Scotland for ever, he wished to take a public leave of his flock. His own chapel had been shut up; but a reverend friend, in a closely adjoining burgh, acceded at once to his request, that he might have the use of his pulpit on the Sunday after the act of ejection which I have already mentioned. The villagers of Bellerstown were speedily apprised of their minister's intention; and they and many others attended to hear his farewell sermon. The church was crowded with an affectionate and even somewhat exasperated multitude, and the service of the day was characterised by a more than usual solemnity. All the energy of the preacher's spirit was called up to sustain him on so trying an occasion; and the unaffected, earnest, and native eloquence of his pulpit appearances, were heightened by the emotions which struggled within his bosom.