But Mr. Miller was far more than a Free Churchman, and did for the Christianity of his country and the world a far higher service than any which in that simple character and office was rendered by him. There was nothing in him of the spirit and temper of the sectarian. He breathed too broad an atmosphere to live and move within such narrow bounds. In the heat of the conflict there may have been too much occasionally of the partisan; and in the pleasure that the sweep and stroke of his intellectual tomahawk gave to him who wielded it, he may have forgotten at times the pain inflicted where it fell; but let his writings before and after the Disruption be now consulted, and it will be found that it was mainly because of his firm belief, whether right or wrong, that the interests of vital godliness were wrapped up in it, that he took his stand, and played his conspicuous part, in the ecclesiastical conflict. It is well known that for some time past—for reasons to which it would be altogether unseasonable to allude—he has ceased to take any active part in ecclesiastical affairs. He had retired even, in a great measure, from the field of general literature, to devote himself to the study of Geology. His past labors in this department—enough to give him a high and honored place among its most distinguished cultivators—he looked upon but as his training for the great life-work he had marked out for himself—the full investigation and illustration of the Geology of Scotland. He had large materials already collected for this work; and it was his intention, after completing that volume which has happily been left in so finished a state, to set himself to their arrangement. The friends of science in many lands will mourn over the incompleted project which, however ably it may hereafter be accomplished by another, it were vain to hope shall ever be so accomplished as it should have been by one who united in himself the power of accurate observation, of logical deduction, of broad generalization, and of pictorial and poetic representation. But the friends of Christianity cannot regret, that since it was the mysterious decree of Heaven that he should prematurely fall—his work as a pure Geologist not half done—he should have been led aside by the publication of the Vestiges of Creation to that track of semi-theological, semi-scientific research to which his later studies and later writings have been devoted. That, as it now seems to us, was the great work which it was given him on earth to do—to illustrate the perfect harmony of all that science tells us of the physical structure and history of our globe, with all that the Bible tells of the creation and government of this earth by and through Christ Jesus our Lord. The establishment and exhibition of that harmony was a task to which is it too much to say that there was no man living so competent as he? We leave it to the future to declare how much he has done by his writings to fulfil that task; but mourning, as we now can only do, over his sad and melancholy death—to that very death, with all the tragic circumstances that surround it, we would point as the closing sacrifice offered on the altar of our faith. His very intellect, his reason—God's most precious gift—a gift dearer than life—perished in the great endeavor to harmonize the works and word of the Eternal. A most inscrutable event, that such an intellect should have been suffered to go to wreck through too eager a prosecution of such a work. But amid the mystery, which we cannot penetrate, our love, and our veneration, and our gratitude, toward that so highly gifted and truly Christian man shall only grow the deeper because of the cloud and the whirlwind in which he has been borne off from our side.
On the 31st of December, two days after the obsequies had been performed, Dr. Hanna resumed the subject in the following elevated strain:
We have still but little heart to dilate on any political or literary topic. Our thoughts can dwell on but one thrice melancholy event. Need we name that event? Alas, no! It had occurred but a few hours when the tidings of it struck our city with stunning, stupefying, and deeply saddening blow. It has already thrilled our whole land; and is on its way, through a hundred channels, to the west, to the east, and to the south, carrying with it mourning and lamentation throughout the vast area which is covered by the language in which Hugh Miller wrote. Writing, as it were, amid the deep shadows of the funeral chamber, and brought in a manner into the very presence of the dead, we are made strongly to feel, and we daresay our readers to a large extent will feel, too, the nothingness of those discussions which usually occupy and engross men. The weightiest matter that ever occupied the wisdom of cabinet or the pen of journalist appears verily but fleeting and transitory, when brought thus into prominent contrast with the awful realities of human existence and destiny; and it is only when reflection shows us that these matters are yet parts of a grand Providential scheme, embracing man's happiness now, and entering deeply into the question of his future and eternal well-being, that we can see in them that amount of significance and importance which they really possess.
From the firmament of British literature and science a great light has departed. But yesterday we rejoiced in its beams, and now it has set all suddenly and forever; and to us there remains but the melancholy task of bewailing its departure, and tracing very hastily and imperfectly its track. The intellectual powers of Hugh Miller had certainly not declined. He was marked to the very last by that wonderful robustness of mind which had characterized him all through life. His sense was as manly, his judgment as sound and comprehensive, his penetration as discriminating and deep, his imagination as vigorous and bold, and his taste as pure and trusty, as they had ever been. The whole of his great powers were found working together up to the last week of his earthly career, with their usually calm, noiseless strength, and finely balanced and exquisitely toned harmony. We have evidence of this fact under his own hand in recent numbers of the Witness. His last two articles were, the one on Russia, and the other on our modern poets. The former—that on the resources of the Russian empire—is characterized by the same wide range of thinking, the same skill in analysis, and the same power of grouping and arranging details, and making them to throw light on some great principle, which usually marked and notified his hand when employed on such subjects. The latter—that on the poets—is rich and genial as usual, betokening a full and unclouded recollection of all his early reading in that department of our literature, abounding in the finest touches of pathos and beauty, and redolent with a most generous sympathy with kindred genius. It is not inconsistent with what we have now stated, and it is the fact, that latterly the inroads of disease, which had entrenched itself deeply in a constitution originally strong, and which kept steadily advancing upon the vital powers, had come so near the seat of the mind, that for short intervals the noble spirit was sadly beclouded, and its moral and intellectual action momentarily suspended. But, apart from this, there seemed ground to believe that there was yet before Mr. Miller much honorable and noble labor. The strong man, after all his tasks, appeared to be still strong. His powers were mellowing into richness and calm, matured strength; his conceptions of great principles were growing yet wider; his store of facts, literary as well as scientific, was accumulating with every busy and laborious year that passed over him; and there did seem ground to expect from his pen, unrivalled among his contemporaries in its exquisite purity and calm power, many a deep thoughted article, and many a profoundly reasoned and richly illustrated volume. We looked to him for the solution of many a dark question in science; and we certainly hoped, from that fine union of science and theology which dwelt in him above all men, for a yet fuller and more complete adjustment of the two great records of Creation—that of the Rocks, and that of Moses. But alas! all these hopes have suddenly failed us. It seemed right otherwise to the Great Disposer of all. He has said to his faithful servant, "Enough."
Let us look back upon that work. We by no means aim at giving a calm, well weighed, and deeply pondered estimate of it, but only such a glance as the circumstances permit and require. His great and special work was his advocacy of the principles of the Free Church. Mr. Miller was par excellence the popular expounder and defender of these principles, whether in their embryotic state in the Non-Intrusion party, or as embodied in the fully developed and completely emancipated Free Protesting Church of Scotland. For this service, in connection with which he would have best liked to be remembered, as he best deserved it, he had unconsciously been undergoing a course of preparation even when a boy. He himself has told us with what eagerness he devoured, at that period of life, the legendary histories of Wallace and Bruce; and the occupation had its use. It gave him a capacity for admiring what was great though perilous in exploit, and for truly and largely sympathizing with what was patriotic and self-sacrificing