War > Traveller, or, Meditations on various subjects

THE LIFE OF MR JAMES MEIKLE.
XX1U
out of vain glory, but to ftir up thofe who have much
leifure and opportunity to abound in this delightful and:
profitable exercife.” And he remarks, as the refult of
his own happy experience at this time, “ that fan&ified
affliction, the chaftifement of our heavenly Father, is no
fmall mercy to them that are rightly exercifed thereby j
that it is honied affliction which brings the foul nearer
to God ; and that (alluding to Hof. ii. 14.) it is God’s
way, in the time of melancholy folitude, to fpeak com¬
fortably to the foul.” Yet his fpiritual profperity was
not without allay ; for he complains bitterly of the mo¬
tions of fin within him, and remarks with grief that for
fome part of this time he did not live fo near to God as
he ought.
At the beginning of the winter 1749, finding his
inability to enter the literary claffes of the univerfity as
great as ever, and fatisfied that it was his duty to fub-
mit to what appeared to be the will of Providence, and
take fome meafures for his future maintenance, he form¬
ed the refolution of commencing the ftudy of medicine j»
yet not, he fays, as his ultimate objeCt, but as a means
of helping him forward, if it Ihould be the will of God,
by the profits of his praftice, in his main defign of enter¬
ing into the lacred office. The different profeffors of
medicine, to whom it appears his father had been known,
difplayed great generofity in giving him liberty to attend
their leCtures without payment of the cuftomary fees j
yet even with this advantage, he could not avoid con-
traCling fome fmall debts which his circumftances did
not enable him for feveral years to difcharge.
As a ftudent of medicine, he now entered on a new
fcene, and became expofed to temptations from whicli
he had hitherto been free. “ I was afraid of forgetting
b 2 God