After acting about two years as tutor, he returned to Edinburgh and completed his studies. Having with difficulty, from the scantiness of his means, obtained his diplomas, he commenced practice in his native village. His brothers and his sisters had arrived at manhood and womanhood, and his mother enjoyed a small annuity. Almost from boyhood he had been deeply attached to Agnes Brown, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer; and about three years after he had commenced practice, she bestowed on him her hand. She was all that his heart could wish--meek, gentle, and affectionate; and her anxious love threw a gleam of sunshine over the melancholy that had settled upon his soul. Often, when he fondly gazed in her eyes, where affection beamed, the hope of immortality would flash through his bosom; for one so good, so made of all that renders virtue dear, but to be born to die and to be no more, he deemed impossible. They had been married about nine years, and Agnes had become the mother of five fair children, when in one day death entered their dwelling, and robbed them of two of their little ones. The neighbours had gathered together to comfort them, and the mother in silent anguish wept over her babes; but the father stood tearless and stricken with grief, as though his hopes were sealed up in the coffin of his children. In his agony he uttered words of strange meaning. The doubts of the Seeker burst forth in the accents of despair. The neighbours gazed at each other. They had before had doubts of the religious principles of Dr. Storie; now those doubts were confirmed. Many began to regard him as an unsafe man to visit a death-bed, where he might attempt to rob the dying of the everlasting hope which enables them to triumph over the last enemy. His practice fell off, and the wants of his family increased. He was no longer able to maintain an appearance of respectability. His circumstances aggravated the gloom of his mind; and for a time he became, not a Seeker, but one who abandoned himself to callousness and despair. Even the affection of his wife--which knew no change, but rather increased as affliction and misfortune came upon them--with the smiles and affection of his children, became irksome. Their love increased his misery. His own house was all but forsaken, and the blacksmith's shop became his consulting room, the village alehouse his laboratory. Misery and contempt heightened the "shadows, clouds, and darkness" which rested on his mind. To his anguish and excitement he had now added habits of intemperance; his health became a wreck, and he sank upon his bed, a miserable and a ruined man. The shadow of death seemed lowering over him, and he lay trembling, shrinking from its approach, shuddering and brooding over the cheerless, the horrible thought--_annihilation_! But, even then, his poor Agnes watched over him with a love stronger than death. She strove to cheer him with the thought that he would still live--that they would again be happy.