hesitating; but when he had finished, one saw that a broad clear road
had been cut through the thicket, and that the daylight had been let
in upon what before had been dim. "I have heard many preachers," said
Dr. Cairns, in preaching his funeral sermon nearly forty years later,
"but I have heard few whose sermons at their best were better than the
best of his; and his everyday ones had a strength, a simplicity, and
an unaffected earnestness which excited both thought and Christian
feeling." Nor was he merely a preacher. By his pastoral visitations
and "diets of examination" he always kept himself in close touch with
his people, and he made himself respected by rich and poor alike.

The shepherd's family occupied a pew at Stockbridge in front of the
pulpit and just under the gallery, which ran round three sides of the
church. That pew was rarely vacant on a Sunday. There was no herding
to be done on that day, and in the morning the father looked the sheep
in the parks himself that the herd-boy might have his full Sabbath
rest. He came back in time to conduct family worship, this being
the only morning in the week when it was possible for him to do so,
although in the evening it was never omitted, and on Sunday evening
was always preceded by a repetition of the Shorter Catechism. After
worship the family set out for church, where the service began at
eleven.

The situation of Stockbridge, it has been already said, was solitary,
but on Sundays, when the hour of worship drew near, the place lost its
solitude. The roads in all directions were thronged with vehicles,
men on horseback, and a great company on foot; the women wearing the
scarlet cloaks which had not yet given place to the Paisley shawls
of a later period, and each carrying, neatly wrapped in a white
handkerchief, a Bible or Psalm-book, between whose leaves were a sprig