<P> In 1896 he was Lyman Beecher lecturer at Yale University, and in 1900 he was moderator of the synod of the English Presbyterian Church . While travelling in the United States he died from blood poisoning, following a bout with tonsilitis, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa . His body was returned to England, and buried in Smithdown Cemetery in Liverpool . </P> <P> Maclaren's first stories of rural Scottish life, Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush (1894), achieved extraordinary popularity, selling more than 700 thousand copies, and were succeeded by other successful books, The Days of Auld Lang Syne (1895), Kate Carnegie and those Ministers (1896), and Afterwards and other Stories (1898). By his own name Watson published several volumes of sermons, among them being The Upper Room (1895), The Mind of the Master (1896) and The Potter's Wheel (1897). Today he is regarded as one of the principal writers of the Kailyard school . </P> <P> It is thought that Maclaren was the original source of the quotation "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," now widely misattributed to Plato or Philo of Alexandria . The oldest known instance of this quotation is in the 1897 Christmas edition of The British Weekly, penned by Maclaren: "Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle ." </P> <Ul> <Li> 1894: Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush </Li> <Li> 1895: The Days of Auld Lang Syne </Li> <Li> 1895: A Doctor of the Old School </Li> <Li> 1896: Kate Carnegie and those Ministers </Li> <Li> 1898: Afterwards and other Stories </Li> <Li> 1898: Rabbi Saunderson </Li> <Li> 1899: Young Barbarians </Li> <Li> 1907: Graham of Claverhouse (novel) </Li> </Ul>

Who said everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about