BROWN, JOHN, of Haddington, once the most popular, and still among the most revered, theological writers in Scotland, was b. in 1722, at Carpow, near Abernethy, in. Perthshire. Deprived of both his parents when only 11 years of age, he became assist ant to a venerable and pious shepherd, named John Ogilvie, who tended his flock among the neighboring hills, and nursed the religious ardor of the boy's heart. B., however, aspired to be wise as well as good. His thirst for learning was insatiable, and the most romantic yet well-accredited stories illustrative of this are related by biographers. While still a friendless " herd laddie," he had made great progress in a self-acquired knowledge of Greek and Latin. The extent of his acquisitions, even at this early time, may be estimated from the fact, that the country people round about believed he was in league with the devil, and that he had pledged his Soul for unhallowed lore. At a later period of his life, "he knew nine or ten languages, classical, oriental, and modern, and had amassed vast stores of Puritan, Scottish, and Dutch divinity." After a brief career as a peddler—an employment which English readers will understand from Wordsworth's Excursion was neither mean nor degrading—B. became a volunteer in a regiment of militia raised in Fifeshire during the rebellion of 1745, and in 1747, schoolmaster in the neighborhood of Kinross. During the vacations of his school, he studied philosophy and divinity under the inspection of the Associate Synod, and the superintendence of the rev. Ebenezer Erskine and James Fisher. In 1750, he was ordained pastor of the Seces sion church at Haddington. Perhaps a more faithful, industrious, and holy minister
never labored in Scotland. David Hume was once revailcd upon to go and hear him, and the criticism of the great skeptic was: " That old man preaches as if Christ were at his elbow." Although self-educated, he had little of the narrowness which culture so obtained generally brings along with it; he corresponded on friendly terms with Episco palians, and often expressed a warm affection for all true Christians. Although himself a sound Presbyterian, and a tolerably strict Calvinist. "the love of the Lord" was his real and ultimate test of a man's orthodoxy. In 1758, B. first appeared as an author. His work was entitled A Help for the Ignorant, etc. In 1765, he published his famous Chris tian fouural, in which the common events of life are richly but quaintly, and perhaps somewhat artificially, spiritualized. In 1768, he was appointed professor of divinity under the Associate Synod, and in the same year issued his valuable Dietlenary of the Holy Bible. In 1771, appeared his History of the Church from the Birth of the Saviour—a work good enough for cottage-reading, but possessing no merit otherwise; and in 1779, The Self-interpreting Bible. This last is B.'s magnum opus, and has been amazingly popu lar in Scotland; even high dignitaries of the English church have praised and recom mended it. Besides these works, B. published a great variety of sermons, tracts, etc., which had an extensive popularity. He died on 19th June, 1787.