Untitled - Electric Scotland

1827-33] REALITY OF THE WORLD UNSEEN 37
think of heavenly things, and attend to the continued revelation
set before them in the Bible. The earliest recollection I have
of a deep religious impression made on my mind has often since
recurred to me with the vividness of having heard a voice from
above. I suppose I must have been some ten or twelve years
old. I had ridden over with my brother Craufurd from Harviestoun
to Glendevon to visit old Miss Rutherford, and stayed the
night in her house. I distinctly remember in the middle of the
night awaking with a deep impression on my mind of the reality
and nearness of the world unseen, such as, through God s mercy,
has never since left me. I have fallen into many sins of omission
and commission ; I have had many evil desires, and have gratified
them ; but this sense of the reality of the world unseen has re
mained with me through God s mercy. What the value of the
impression was it is difficult to say, but that it was made by God
the Holy Ghost working on my soul I have no doubt. O Lord,
give me grace to preserve it to the end, and may that guiding
and guarding Spirit of holiness and purity, from Whom I believe
it came, ever be wr ith me to give me an unfeigned repentance
for the sins which have defaced the holy image of God in my
soul, and worked on my natural corruption, leading me into
evil ! O
Lord, keep me to the end, washing me in Christ s blood,
and making me fit for that glorious and holy presence, which
at that early age I faintly realised !
Ramsay Campbell did not accompany him to Glasgow
as a student, but his home, Garscube, was in the imme
diate neighbourhood, and Tait, as has been said, spent
many of his Sundays under Sir Archibald s roof. When
at Glasgow the church he usually attended was that
known as the Ramshorn Church. Its minister was
Dr. Welsh, who afterwards, as Moderator of the General
Assembly, headed, in 1843, the great Free Church
Secession. The Archbishop, only a few days before
his death, more than fifty years later, spoke in terms
of the warmest thankfulness of the help he had re
ceived, as a student, from Dr. Welsh s earnest evange
lical preaching. Whether he was at this time a com
municant seems doubtful. He was certainly never a
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