" O God: I desire humbly to supplicate thy Divine Majesty in behalf of my distressed wife, who is by thy hand brought very low, and in imminent danger of death, if thou, who alone dost wonders, do not in mercy interpose thy Almighty arm, and bring her back from the gates of death.I deserve justly, O Lord, that thou shouldst deprive me of the greatest comfort of my life, because I have not been so thankful to thee as I ought for giving me such a kind and affectionate wife.I have forgot thy goodness in bringing us happy together by an unforeseen and undesigned train of events, and blessing us with so much love and harmony of affections and so many of the {200} comforts and conveniences of life.Ihave not been so careful as I ought to have been to stir her up to piety and Christian virtues.I have not taken that pains with my children and servants and relatives as I ought.Alas ! I have been too negligent of my pastoral duty in my private devotions, too much given to the pleasures and satisfactions of this world, and too little influenced by thy promises and the hopes of a future state.I have employed my studies, reading, and conversation, rather to please myself than to edify myself and others.I have sinned greatly in neglecting many opportunities of making private applications to my flock and family in the affairs of their souls, and in using too slight preparation for my public exercises.Ihave thrown away too much of my time in sloth and sleep, and have not done so much for the relief of the poor and destitute as I might Dave done.The means that Providence has afforded me of correcting any evil inclinations I have abused to panper and feed them, n various instances.For these and many other sins which have escaped my memory, thou mightst justly inflict so great a chastisement upon me, as to make my children motherless, and deprive me of my dear wife.O Lord, for thy mercy's sake, accept of my humble and penitent confession of these my offences, which I desire to ac knowledge with shame and sorrow, and am resolved by thy grace to amend.If thou art pleased to Hearken to the voice of my supplications, and grant my request in behalf of my dear wife in restoring her to health, I do promise and covenant through grace to turn from these backslidings, to express my thankfulness by a vigorous discharge of my duty as a Christian, a minister, and master of a family; and by an alms of ten pounds sterling to the poor, in meal and money.Lord, pardon, if there is any thing in this over presumptuous, or unbecoming a humble, penitent sinner; and, Lord, accept of what is sincerely designed as a new bond upon my soul to my duty, through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour."Stewart tells us that, " during his residence at New Machar, the greater part of his time was spent in the most intense study; more particularly in a careful examination of the laws of external perception, and of the other principles which form the groundwork of human knowledge.His chief relaxations were gardening and botany, to both of which pursuits he retained his attachment in old age." It was while he was minister, and at the mature age of thirty-eight, that he published in the " Transactions of the Royal Society of London," " An Essay on Quantity, occasioned by reading a Treatise in which Simple and Compound Ratios are applied to Virtue and Merit." Francis Hutcheson had spoken of the benevolence of an agent which with him constitutes virtue-as "proportional to a fraction, having the moment of good for the numerator and the ability of the agent for denominator." I suspect that he meant this to be little more than an illustration, and did not seriously propose {201} to apply mathematical demonstration to moral subjects.But Pitcairn and Cheyne had been applying mathematical reasoning to medicine; and Reid thought it of importance to show what it is that renders a subject susceptible of mathematical demonstration.It is interesting to notice that the first publications both of Reid and Kant had a relation to mathematical subjects.But it was the publication of Hume's " Treatise of Human Nature" that first directed his intellectual abilities to independent philosophic research.
In his " Essays on the Intellectual Powers," published in 1785, he says, " having long believed the prevailing doctrine of ideas, it came into my mind more than forty years ago to put the question, What evidence have I for this doctrine, that all the objects of my knowledge are ideas of my own mind? From that time to the present, I have been candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the evidence of this principle; but can find none, excepting the authority of philosophers." It is clear that the professors of King's College put one so employed in the fitting place, when, in 1752, they elected him professor of philosophy.
