Memoir of the Chisholm

WITH HIS MOTHER. 151
earnest prayer that such enthusiasm may yet
be theirs ; and that the solemn realities which
awaken it, may put to shame and to confu-
sion those vague, and cold, and unmeaning
generalities, within which they now seek to
entrench themselves.
If, again, the reflection should occur to any
one, as he reads either the preceding letters,
or those which are to follow, that, in the ear-
nestness of the 0111811011^8 communications to
his mother, the son appears on some occasions
almost to assume the authority of the parent,
and to become the teacher of one, by whom
he himself was taught, — let it be remarked,
that, whilst the sacredness of the theme upon
which he so constantly wrote, and which was
ever most vividly present to his mind, was so
mighty as to absorb, for the time, every other
consideration, and constrained him, thus once
and again, to use " great plainness of speech 1 ,""
it never for one moment led him to overlook
or violate the relations which still bound him
to those who were dearest to him on earth. It
purified rather, and exalted, every impulse of
his natural affection.
1 1 Cor. iii. 12.