34 MEMOIRS Or PERIOD Yr I efteem Chrift above all : Give me Chrift, and take fromme what thou wilt. 5. Sin is a burden to me, efpecially my predo tninant tuft. 6. I endeavour, in fóme méafure, to feek after Chrift : Lord, thou knoweft. . Therefore I have true faith. The week after the communion at Culrofs, my acquaintance with Katharine Brown, nowmywife, was carried on to a dire& propofál of marriage made to her. She was fifth daughter to Robert Brown of Barhill, in the parifh of Culrofs ; her mother, then a widow, and her eldeft filler, who had been married to Thomas Brown above mentioned, being dead more than a year before. I had, while I was at Kennet, heard a very favoury report of her ; and from the firft time that 1 faw her, which was March 3. 1697, the day on which I left that country, fomething Ruck with Me. A few days after I returned, as faid is, fhe had occafion to come and tarry föme time with her brother-in-law. And my health being broken as above mentioned, I was valetu- dinary, and particularly fubjeót to faintings ; with one of which I was feized June 3. fhe being prefent : but by her advice, whofe father had been a practitioner in phyfre, l ufed wormwood boiled, and applied to my ftomach in linen bags, that month, and was much relieved of thefe faintings. , Howbeit, when they left me, I was feized with a binding atmy breaft ; and for a long time that year I ufed Lucatellus's balfam by the fóme advice. What en-. gaged me to her, was her piety, parts, beauty, chearful difpofi- tion fitted to temper mine, and that I reckoned hervery fit to fee to my health. I never was in a mind to marry before I fhould be fettled : but I judged both the one and the other requifite for my health. But though I made choice of a molt worthy wo- man, I was afterwards obliged to confefs, before God, my fin, in that I had not been at more pains to know his mind in the mat- ter before t had propofed it. And howbeit1 did frequently that fúmmer lay it before the Lord, and confider it; yet I can never forgive myfelf, though I hope my God hath forgiven me, that f did not fet fume time or times apart for falling and prayer for that end, before I made the propofal. But God did chaftife my rafhnefs, partly by my finding, that procefs very entangling to me in my vagrant circumftances partly by futfering perplexing fcruples to rife in my mind about it.; white yet he did, in the if= fue of them, convincingly fhew the matterto be ofhimfelf, and bound it on my confcience as duty; which cleared, my difficulty was not to get love to her, but rather to bound it. In the beginning ofSeptember I had a letter fromMr Wylie, defiring me to preach a Sabbath-thy, either at Salin or Carnock, or on a week-day at Carnock. In anfwer to which, I promifed to preach a Sabbath-day at Salin, if they would procure the day from the prefbytery ; but declined feeking itfor myfelf. About the middle .of'that month, I' received a letter from M Murray, inviting me to Nithfdale ; and had thoughts of comply- ing with it. On the11th, beinganational fait-day, I had preach-
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