Matheson Collection > Caraid nan Gaidheal

xlii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
the excellent and learned Professor Ramsay, of the
University, and one of the members of his church.
Never was there a more enthusiastic meeting, and
never did he value more the friendship of his people,
nor enjoy more the testimony of a good conscience
towards God and man.
But it is impossible to give any one beyond the
members of his own family any adequate idea of how
each day in Glasgow was occupied by the demands
made upon his time, labour, and influence, not by
his large congregation chiefly, which would have
been only what he had cause to expect, and what
he would have cheerfully attempted successfully to
meet; but the whole Highlands seemed to claim
him as their own. Every forenoon filled his lobby
with innocent, confiding souls from distant glens
and islands, who seemed to think that he had
only to " speak," and whatever they asked was done,
more especially as they " had never asked a favour
before," and had brought letters to him from laird,
factor, schoolmaster, minister, or old friend of
his own. The requests made were as varied as
their wants : — Strong men to get into the police ;
infirm men or women to get into the hospital ;
parents with their boy looking for a "situation,"
or their daughter for service; crofters or farmers
ejected from their " holdings," and wishing to emi-
grate, but where, and how ? — seekers after relatives
at home or abroad, lost in unknown recesses among
the wynds of Glasgow or woods of Canada; the
poverty-stricken stranger, solitary as a wandering
sheep in the great city, and craving assistance to get
back to the hills, or to obtain as his last resource
legal charity and redress from poor's boards, who
had paid no heed to his complaints; old soldiers