Watson, John ("Ian Maclaren"). Born in 1850. Until 1893, Dr. Watson was known as a popular preacher and able minister, and in that year he acquired additional distinction and wider fame by writing a series of Scotch idylls for the "British Weekly." Under the title of "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," they became widely popular in the United States and Great Britain. "The Days of Auld Lang Syne," a second series of idylls, published in 1895, also reached a large circulation. A novel, "Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers," was published in 1896. "The Upper Room" and "The Life of the Master" are perhaps his best known religious works. Watson died in 1907.

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