MEMOIR OF THE REV. DANIEL M'ALLUM, M. D. BY THE REV. JONATHAN CROWTHER. THE author of the following remains was the son of the Rev. Duncan M'Allum, an esteemed and venerable minister in the Wesleyan Methodist connection. He was born at Inverness, on Sunday, June 22, 1794, his father being then stationed in that circuit. According to the testimony of those who were acquainted with him from his infancy, he exhibited in early life tokens of more than ordinary promise, both as to moral qualities and intellectual endowments. His parents regarded him, therefore, with singular affection; and, by a species of anticipation which is by no means uncommon, and which few would be disposed to blame, fondly imagined to themselves the excellences which were afterward to mark his character, and the solace which he would afford to them when their hearts and flesh should begin to fail. These anticipations were afterward partly fulfilled, and partly frustrated. His excellences were what they expected them to be; but he was not permitted to be their solace to the extent which they desired. His mother died before he had attained the age of manhood; and his father, after having had the satisfaction of witnessing his rise, has had the affliction of seeing his sun go down while it was yet day. Anxious to improve his natural endowments by as good an education as his circumstances would afford, and sparing no expense that seemed necessary for that purpose, his father sent him, as early as possible, to the best schools within his reach. At the age of ten he went to Kingswood School, where he remained three years; and he subsequently spent a year, with great advantage, under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Leach, of North Shields. It is greatly to be regretted that the course of his education should have been broken and delayed by so many interruptions, and especially that it should have been terminated at so early an age as that of fourteen years. To many young persons it may not be very important to extend their school education beyond that period; but such was his capacity for learning, and such his readiness of apprehension, that, had he been favoured with a longer and more systematic course of instruction, he would probably have been as conspicuous for his attainments in science and literature as he was afterward for benevolence and virtue. When about thirteen years of age his health was very delicate; and it seemed probable that his growth would be considerably stinted. But, by the blessing of God on the tender assiduities of his affectionate parents, the vigour of his constitution was in some degree renewed; though the shock which it had received was one from which he never perfectly recovered. Being intended for the medical profession, he became, on leaving school, a pupil or apprentice to a respectable surgeon in Sunderland; a situation which very strongly recommended itself to his acceptance, not only by the advan tages which it presented for the acquisition of the art to which his future life was at that time designed to be devoted, but also by the opportunity which it afforded him of enjoying the constant society of an elder brother, whom he dearly loved, and who was already a pupil in the same establishment. In this situation, besides applying himself with a very commendable assiduity to the studies immediately connected with his profession, he manifested a considerable anxiety to enlarge his acquaintance with classical literature, and to improve himself in general knowledge; diligently devoting to these objects all the leisure which his other occupations would allow. During this period he seems to have been the subject of ardent aspirations after literary fame. He had already exercised himself in composition to a considerable extent, in verse as well as prose; and he now made some efforts to attract the public notice as a writer: but, not meeting with the encouragement which he desired, and being too independent to practice those arts of importunity which even writers of sterling merit have sometimes found it necessary to adopt before they could obtain an introduction to the public, he afterward contented himself chiefly with writing for his own intellectual profit and amuse-. ment. It was, apparently, with this design, that he wrote, in the year 1813, a series of Essays, entitled "The Observer." He also wrote, about the same time, a considerable number of poetical pieces. Among others, not included in this volume, there is one "To the Rev. William Atherton," whom he gratefully addresses as "the patron of his earliest lays ;" but whom, at the same time, he gently rebukes for not having sufficiently corrected his early and excessive longings after fame. The following are a few of his lines upon that subject: ""Twas he that fann'd within my breast that flame, In accordance with these sentiments, he wrote soon afterward, the "Farewell to his Harp ;" inserted in page 104 of this volume. In the midst of all these desires and disappointments with regard to earthly fame, God had better things in store for him than any which his own ardent and aspiring fancy had at first anticipated; and, as is partly evident from the last of the stanzas in the piece above referred to, was touching his heart with the silent but effectual operation of the Spirit of his grace, and was thus preparing him for that more honourable and more useful employment of his talents to which his life was afterward to be devoted. He has left behind him no written record of the beginnings of his religious experience; but the brother above alluded to as his associate in apprenticeship, and who was intimately acquainted, during the time that they remained together, with his character and feelings, dates the first serious awakening of his heart and conscience at about the conclusion of that period. He had happily escaped, all along, the grosser follies and vices which are incident to youth; and was so scrupulously moral as to be, in his outward conduct, absolutely blameless. But although he had, in this respect, the fear of God before his eyes, and was, moreover, remarkably diligent and punctual in his attendance on the means of |