38 MEMOIRS OF PERIOD VI. Stratlrearn, defired that I fhould come and flay awhile with him. He was a worthy man, one of theold fufferers in the perfecution ; and had a heavy talk in that parifh. In the time of the rebellion, feveral years after this, he was lying a- dying, when the news tame in the morning, that that town was to be burnt by the re- bels. His affli&ed wife being greatly moved, on the account of him, who could not be carried off, while every moment the re- bels were expeéted to execute the fatal defign ; he comforted her, and bid her be eafÿ, for that they fhould not have power tohurt it hair of his body. Accordingly his matter called him home ; he expired, and was in his grave too, before the town was fet on fire ; being buried in hafte, while he was yet almoft warm, the melancholy circumftancesof the place fo requiring. This account his widow gave my wife, Before I came fouth, he had invited me to their prelbytery, on a defign for Auchterarder, then va- cant : but I could not then anfwer the invitation. This being now providentially laid before me, I went to God for dire&lion in it, being laid open tohis determination, and helped to truft him for light. Thereafter confidering of it,, there was one fcruple in the way of that motion that I could not get over, viz. that it might be conftrueted a-going to feek and hang on for the parifh sf Dollar. And on the morrow, before I went off to Simprin, I received a letter from Mr Robert Stark mimfter at Stenton, in Eaft Lo- thian, propofing to me to go to the north for the pretbytery of Dunbar, and inviting me to the communion in his parifh, on the Sabbath was fourteen days after : and Mr Colden invited me to preach at Dunfe the Sabbath preceding that, though in the event I preached that day at Eccles. This condudt pf Providence lay- ing work to my hand in the country, confidered with my other eircurnftances, was a plain flop to my defign of removing at the time I had determined, and was determining to me to flay at Ieaft for that time. But for feveral obvious reatóns, I hearkend not to the propofal relative to going to the north. After forne neceffary bufinefs difpatched, 1 prayed with confi- dence for what -I afked ; and having made myfelf ready, and de- voted myfelf to the Lord, I went towards Simprin, my heart be- ing heavenly, and tending upward, by the way. I fired 1 have, in the memoirs of that day, called the religious aétion ufed before I went away, by the name of devoting myfelf to the Lord : and though I have now no diftind remembrance of the thing, yet I judge, that, had it been no more 'but committing myfelf to him as ufually, I would not have fo expreffed it ; and that it has in- deed been filch an aálion as the word bears, an a8tion very firita- hle to the way the Lord was leading me, however unknown to me. That night, beingat Simprin, I found once a defire to be very remote, and in an inconfiderable polt, and even a kind of content to be polled there : and this, I think, was an eflb& of my looking on the vanity of the world:: but that Tatted not. The
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