"A Very Extraordinary Genius"

Monday, 6.--After preaching at Cockermouth and Wigton, I went on to Carlisle and preached to a very serious congregation. Here I saw a very extraordinary genius, a man blind from four years of age, who could wind worsted, weave flowered plush on an engine and loom of his own making; who wove his own name in plush, and made his own clothes and his own tools of every sort. Some years ago, being shut up in the organloft ³⁴³⁴     Correct at church, he felt every part of it and afterward made an organ for himself which, judges say, is an exceedingly good one. He then taught himself to play upon it psalm tunes, anthems, voluntaries, or anything which he heard. I heard him play several tunes with great accuracy, and a complex voluntary. I suppose all Europe can hardly produce such another instance. His name is Joseph Strong. But what is he the better for all this if he is still "without God in the world"?

Friday, 17.--l reached Aberdeen in good time. Saturday, 18. I read over Dr. Johnson's Tour to the Western Isles. It is a very curious book, written with admirable sense and, I think, great fidelity; although, in some respects, he is thought to bear hard on the nation, which I am satisfied he never intended.

Monday, 20.--I preached about eleven at Old Meldrum, but could not reach Banff till nearly seven in the evening. I went directly to the Parade and proclaimed to a listening multitude "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." All behaved well but a few gentry, whom I rebuked openly, and they stood corrected.