"On behalf of Church Extention I visited a considerable portion of Forfarshire, to stir up to zeal in that cause both ministers and people. It was then that Robert McCheyne met with the accident which began the illness that terminated in his death. He accompanied me on my tour to Errol, full of buoyant spirits and heavenly conversation.
After breakfast we strolled into the garden, where there had been some gymnastic poles and apparatus set up for the use of Mr. Grierson's family. No ascetic, no stiff and formal man, but ready for any innocent and healthful amusement, these no sooner caught McCheyne's eye than, challenging me to do the like, he rushed at a horizontal pole resting on the forks of two upright ones, and went through a lot of athletic manoevres. I was buttoning up to succeed, and try if I could not outdo him, when, as he hung by his heels and hands some five or six feet above the ground, all of a sudden the pole snapped asunder, and he came down with his back on the ground with a tremendous thud. He sickened, was borne into the manse, lay there for days, and was never the same man again."