did these good men lean on that arm of mercy which never fails those that trust in it for support.

To the sisters and brothers of this dear child let the following hearty letter of an old family friend introduce you :

66

My very honourable lord and most worthy lady!

My service rememberit towards your lordship, and to the Master, my loving sweet friend, and to wise and sweet Mistress Isabelle, and to sweet and bonnie Sophia, and to the twa smaller, John and David, I pray your lordship to send me word of your lordship's guid health and all your family; for ye are my only comfort, hope, and trust in this world, except God only; for when I either rise or go to bed, I think upon your lordship. "Yours to command till death,

"JOHN AUCHMUTIE."

The "wise and sweet Mistress Isabelle" became, in process of time, the loving spouse of Boyd of Pinkill, a baron of ancient family in Ayrshire; "sweet and bonnie Sophia" married “that good man and accomplished gentleman, my dear and excellent friend," as Evelyn calls him, Sir Robert Moray, the first president "the life and soul," of the Royal Society,-justice-clerk and secretary of Scotland; while "the twa smaller," David and John, served as cavaliers in the king's army during the Rebellion, and died unmarried.†

* For Burnet's character of Sir Robert, "the wisest and worthiest man of his age," see a note to the third section of the following chapter of these 'Lives.'

† Sir David and Lady Sophia had several other children, who died in infancy. .. Should the eye of any one, mourning over such bereavements, grow dim as she reads this, let me add a few words from a beautiful essay, entitled the Tears of Parents,' in the Christian Observer (tom. xxxii. p. 587).—“Have we been called to resign a child in the tender hours of infancy? He is safe, eternally safe; happy, eternally happy. He is redeemed by the blood of that Saviour, whom he lived not to know upon earth, but whom he knows in heaven with a distinctness, and loves with an affection, surpassingly beyond all that we, who are left behind, can conceive. We would not, in our serious conviction, bring back the sheltered lamb to this bleak clime; we would not, in our better mind, wish to see the emancipated spirit struggling with the sins and sorrows which infest the thorny and dangerous path of human life. Yet natural affection pleads-yes, and let it plead; only let it not murmur; let it weep, but let it in weeping rejoice, while faith rises triumphant in the bosom, and acknowledges the tenderness of the hand that gathered to a world of cloudless sunshine the tender exotic which might have withered and been lost upon earth."

Alexander, Master of Balcarres, Sir David's eldest son, was born on the 6th of July, 1618, at day-break. His character early declared itself. Bright talents, with the invaluable endowment of steady application, were blended even in his childhood with sweetness of disposition, and guided aright by firm religious principle. He was sent in May, 1627, when on the point of attaining his ninth year, to the school at Haddington, under the careful private superintendence of Mr. David Forret, “a pious and learned gentleman,"* in after years a minister of high account in the kirk of Scotland, and whose letters bear testimony to the superior abilities displayed even at that age by his pupil. "Neither is it my mind," says he, "so to hold him at his book as to restrain him from that measure of play whilk is fit either for his recreation or health, seeing I know his ingyne (genius) is such that in half a day he can do all that either the master or I desires him do in a whole day. Concerning his education," he proceeds, "without bitter chiding, or any other sort of severity, I have ever thought it the best way to deal with a good nature calmly and without austereness; thus I resolve to deal with him. I thank God for it, his nature is such that I may very well promise this; indeed, if it were such as there is many, I could hardly do it."--" When he was but nine years of age," says a manuscript memoir, written apparently soon after his death in exile at Breda," he began to seek God, and to be so taken up with thoughts of God and His goodness to him, that it wald keep him awake in the night, and this increased with his years; and, when he was at the university in St. Andrews, he took such delight in learning, that he wald often be making his own and his neighbours' lessons when they were at their recreations abroad." His father's letter to him, on returning to college after one of the vacations, is so characteristic of the parent, and at the same time comprises within so short a compass all that one could wish addressed to a son on such an occasion, that I shall make no apology for inserting it here :

"Alexander

:

[1635.]

"Let me remember you again of what your mother and I spake to you before your going there, for the long vacance and

* Memoir of Alexander Earl of Balcarres, MS.

jolliness that ye have seen this lang time bygane makes me think that ye will have mister (need) to be halden in mind of your awin weal; for I knaw what difficulty it is to one of your constitution and years to apply their mind to study after so long a intermission. And, first of all, we recommend to you again the true fear of God your Maker, which is the beginning of all wisdom, and that, evening and morning, ye cease not to incall for His divine blessing to be upon you and all your enterprises :Secondly, that ye apply your mind to virtue, which cannot be acquired without learning, and, seeing ye are there for that end, redeem your time, and lose it not, and be not carried away with the innumerable conceits and follies incident to youth; for the man is happy for ever that governs weill his youthhead, and spends that time weill above all the time of his life; for youth is the tempest of life, wherein we are in most peril, and has maist mister of God, the great Pilot of the world, to save us. Therefore, as ye wald wish the blessing of God to be upon you, and the blessing of us your parents, remember and do what is both said and written to you. Also, forget not to carry yourself discreetly to all, and use maist the company that we tauld you of. Many wald be glad to have the happiness of guid direction of life, which ye want not, and the fault will be in you and not in us, your parents, if ye mak not guid use of your golden time,—and ye may be doubly blamed, seeing God has indued you with ingyne (genius) and capacity for learning, if ye apply it not the right way, being so kindly exhorted to it; for the cost, that is waired (bestowed) upon you, we will think all weill bestowit, if ye mak yourself answerable to our desires, which is, to spend your time weill, in learning to fear God aright, and to be a virtuous man, as I have said.-Last, forget not to keep your person always neat and cleanly, and your clothes or any things ye have, see they be not abused; and press to be a guid manager, for things are very easily misguidit or lost, but not easily acquirit, and sloth and carelessness are the ways to want. I will expect a compt from you of your carriage shortly, and how ye have ta'en thir things to heart. God Almighty direct you and bless you!"

SECTION II.

The hour was however approaching when this halcyon sky of peace and security was to be overclouded-when the torch of strife and discord, civil and religious, was to be lighted once more in Scotland. I must briefly recapitulate the causes which led to this result.

Episcopacy, as you will remember, had been reestablished in Scotland, but it was in a modified form, controlled by caveats and provisions calculated to check the possible abuses of the system,it was not so much, in fact, a reestablishment as an engraftment on Presbyterianism, an infusion into it of the blood and life of Catholicism, while on the one hand the Apostolical Succession and the blessings conveyed by it were regained, and the licence of the pulpit was effectually curbed, the power of the Bishops on the other was balanced by that of the General Assembly, and the form of worship remained still essentially Presbyterian. All would seem thus to have been attained which the idiosyncracy of the Scottish nation was susceptible of. But as years rolled on, this could not satisfy the hierarchical body, who bent their eyes continually on the comparative independence of their English brethren, and, retreating upon antiquity in the struggle to maintain their authority, deemed even that independence servitude, when compared with the patriarchal powers of the primitive Church. It was impossible but that men holding views like these should wish to produce a change, to improve their position, and to acquire the power in reality which they held in appearance; but such views were peculiarly dangerous in a country where Catholicism had been so much more corrupt than in England, where Puritanism had taken deeper root and attained a recognised and independent development, and where the reaction from any attempt to bend the bough in a direction contrary to the national genius would necessarily be so much more violent. Such views nevertheless were natural and pardonable under the circumstances, and it is to the Sovereign therefore rather than to the Church that the responsibility of the result chiefly attaches. Had James I. and his successor checked and moderated these views instead of encouraging them,-had they respected the na

tional independence instead of violating it,—had they watched and yielded its due rights to the advancing development of human nature, and been content to rule as constitutional monarchs over men instead of aspiring to be despots over babes,—had they in fact had the experience then which enables us now, at this interval of time, to sit in judgment on their memory, Britain collectively might have anticipated her maturity by two centuries, and Scotland in particular might have retained her Episcopal government and communion to this day. By following a contrary policy—and the lesson may not be useless to ourselves as regards posterity— they made Catholicism odious by allying it with political despotism, and gave undue impulse and prominence to the Puritan element by identifying it with the cause of Constitutional Government and Liberty. Whether things would have been better for us in the long run had they been guided otherwise is another question. The errors of right intention are usually overruled to completer ultimate good in the designs of Providence.

King James's wish to assimilate as much as possible the religion of the two kingdoms was the principal object of a visit which he paid, in 1617, to his native country. A General Assembly was held the following year at Perth, at which certain points of Episcopal discipline-the observance of Christmas, Easter, and other festivals; the attitude of kneeling at the Lord's Supper; the private administration of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist in extreme cases; and the order of Confirmation of children were engrafted on the Scottish worship,-to the extreme distress of the more rigid Presbyterians, who looked upon these innovations as so many approximations to Popery. Dr. David Lindsay, minister of Dundee, a descendant (it is said) of the House of Edzell, a learned and able divine, and of high and irreproachable private character,* published on this occasion his Reasons of a Pastor's Resolution touching the Reverend Receiving of the Holy Communion,'-a work which led to his appointment, in November, 1619, to the see of Brechin, which he governed for several years. A True Narration' appeared subsequently by

He was Laird of Dunkeny, in Angus.

He was consecrated on the 23rd Nov. 1619, in the Castle of St. Andrews. Calderwood, tom, vii. p. 396.-He had also been a principal speaker and had attracted the King's notice in the disputations in divinity held before his Majesty at St. Andrews in July, 1617. Ibid., p. 259; Nichols' Progresses, tom. iii.