enliven devotion; because 'tis found by experience, that with the vulgar these visible representations draw too much towards them, and become the only objects of devotion."[164:1] The literary history of this sermon is curious and instructive. When its author received his appointment of professor of divinity in 1744, a party in the church opposed his being admitted in the usual manner as a member of the presbytery of Glasgow; and one of their methods of attack was to charge him with heretical opinions, promulgated in this sermon, of which the first edition had been then published. It is singular enough, in comparing their charge with Hume's criticism, to find the two attacks brought against the same point, though with different weapons. "The purport of the whole went to charge Mr. Leechman with having laid too little stress on the merit of the satisfaction and intercession of our blessed Saviour, as the sole ground of our acceptance with God in prayer, and with teaching Christians to look for pardon and acceptance on other grounds than this."[165:1] At this time, we find Hume making an effort to obtain a professorship in Edinburgh. Dr. Pringle, subsequently Sir John Pringle, and President of the Royal Society of London,-- "Who sat in Newton's chair, And wonder'd how the devil he got there,"-- held the chair of "ethics and pneumatic philosophy"[165:2] in the university of Edinburgh. In 1742, he was appointed physician to the Earl of Stair, commander of the British troops in the Low Countries; and through this circumstance it will be seen, from the following letter, that Hume contemplated a vacancy, and that he was employing the usual means for securing his own appointment to the chair. HUME _to_ WILLIAM MURE _of Caldwell_.