the gaiety which so unseasonably prevailed at Edinburgh, where great multitudes were then spending their time in balls, assemblies, and other gay amusements, little mindful of the rod of God which was then hanging over them; on which occasion he hath this expression: "I am greatly surprised that the people of Edinburgh should be employed in such foolish diversions, when our situation is at present more melancholy than ever I saw it in my life. But there is one thing which I am very sure of, and that comforts me, viz, that it shall go well with the righteous, come what will."

CHAPTER XV.

BATTLE OF PRESTONPANS.

QUICKLY after his return home, the flame burst out, and his regiment was ordered to Stirling. It was in that castle that his lady and eldest daughter enjoyed the last happy hours of his company, and I think it was about ten or twelve days before his death that he parted from them there. A remarkable circumstance attended that parting, which has been touched upon by surviving friends in more than one of their letters to me. His lady was so affected when she took her last leave of him, that she could not forbear bursting out into a flood of tears, with other marks of unusual emotion; and when he asked her the reason, she urged as a sufficient apology, the apprehension she had of losing such an invaluable friend, amidst the dangers to which he was then called out. On this she took particular notice, that whereas he had generally comforted her on such occa

sions by pleading with her that remarkable hand of Providence which had so frequently in former instances been exerted for his preservation, and that in the greatest extremity, he said nothing of it now; but only replied in his sententious manner, "We have an eternity to spend together."

That heroic contempt of death which had often discovered itself in the midst of former dangers, was manifested now in his discourse with several of his most intimate friends. I have reserved for this place one genuine expression of it many years before, which I thought might be. mentioned with some advantage here. In July, 1725, he had been sent to some place not far from Hamilton to quell a mutiny among some of our troops. I know not the particular occasion; but I remember to have heard him mention it as so fierce a one, that he scarcely ever apprehended himself in more hazardous circumstances. Yet he quelled it by his presence alone, and the expostulations he used-evidently putting his life into his hand to do it. The particulars of the story struck me much; but I do not so exactly remember them as to venture to relate them here. I only observe, that in a letter dated July 16, that year, which I have now

before me, and which evidently refers to this event, he writes thus: "I have been very busy, hurried about from place to place; but, blessed be God, all is over without bloodshed. And pray let me ask what made you show so much concern for me in your last? Were you afraid I should get to heaven before you? or can any evil befall those who are followers of that which is good?" *

As these were his sentiments in the vigour of his days, so neither did declining years and the infirmities of a broken constitution on the one hand, nor any desire of enjoying the honours and profits of so high a station, or (what was much more to him,) the converse of the most affectionate of wives and so many amiable children and friends on the other, in the least ener

*I doubt not but this will remind some of my readers of that noble speech of Zuinglius, when (according to the usage of that country,) attending his flock to a battle in which their religion and liberties were all at stake, on his receiving a mortal wound by a bullet, of which he soon expired, while his friends were in all the first astonishment of grief, he bravely said, as he was dying, “Ecquid hoc infortunii? Is this to be reckoned a misfortune?" How many of our Deists would have celebrated such a sentence, if it had come from the lips of an ancient Roman! Strange that the name of Christ should be so odious, that the brightest virtues of his fol. lowers should be despised for his sake! But so it is, and so our Master told us it would be; and our faith is, in this connection, confirmed by those who strive most to overthrow it.

vate his spirits; but as he had in former years often expressed it, to me and several others, as his desire, "that if it were the will of God, he might have some honourable call to sacrifice his life in defence of religion and the liberties of his country;" so, when it appeared to him most probable that he might be called to it immediately, he met the summons with the greatest readiness. This appears in part from a letter which he wrote to the Rev. Mr. Adams, of Falkirk, just as he was marching from Stirling, which was only eight days before his death :— "The rebels,” says he, "are advancing to cross the Frith; but I trust in the Almighty God, who doth whatsoever he pleases in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth." The same gentleman tells me, that, a few days after the date of this, he marched through Falkirk with his regiment; and though he was then in so languishing a state, that he needed his assistance as secretary to write for some reinforcements, which might put it in his power to make a stand, (as he was very desirous to have done,) he expressed a most genuine and noble contempt of life, when about to be exposed in the defence of a worthy cause.

These sentiments wrought in him to the last