Towns > Dundee > 1822 - Dundee delineated; or, A history and description of that town, its institutions, manufactures and commerce

65
Rev. Dr John Willison and the late Rev. Dr Ro-
bert Small.
The fame of Dr Willison is widely spread, from
the many religious tracts he published, accommo-
dated to every age and every capacity — from the
Mother's Catechism to the deeper doctrines of Di-
vinity ; affording pleasant instruction to the young,
sound and pious advice to those grown up, laying
open that happy state awaiting the good and virtu-
ous believer, and above all inculcating and impres-
sing on the penitent that there is " balm in Gilead
and a Physician to heal the chief of sinners." He
was a man of genuine piety, extensive reaWhg, and
great diligence : He did not " hide his candle
under a bushel," nor " conceal his talent in a nap-
kin ;" for he was anxious that every one should be
acquainted with, and walk according to, th >se doc-
trines and precepts which impart so much comfort,
consolation, complacency, and delight, in the most
trying situations on this earth, and open prospects
of joy and rejoicing beyond death and the grave.
Dr Robert Small was born in the parish of Car-
mylie, of which his father was Minister ; and re-
ceived the rudiments of his early education in the
grammar school of Dundee, — of which he was af-
terwards first Minister. Besides being a most ex-
cellent classical scholar, an eminent divine, and
highly interesting preacher, he was deeply versed
in the mathematics, and natural philosophy, espe-
cially in that branch of it — astronomy. Many of
his papers are recorded in the Transactions of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh ; and he published an
elaborate and luminous account of the astronomi-
f 3