atred of godliness so great, that there could not one in
all the town be found, who would let him a house to dwell in, so he was
constrained to accommodate himself the best he might, in a part of a
gentleman's house for a time; the gentleman's name was John Stuart
merchant, and sometime provost of Ayr, an eminent Christian, and great
assistant of Mr. Welch.

And when he had first taken up his residence in that town, the place was
so divided into factions, and filled with bloody conflicts, a man could
hardly walk the streets with safety; wherefore Mr. Welch made it his
first undertaking to remove the bloody quarrelings, but he found it a
very difficult work; yet such was his earnestness to pursue his design,
that many times he would rush betwixt two parties of men fighting, even
in the midst of blood and wounds. He used to cover his head with a
head-piece before he went to separate these bloody enemies, but would
never use a sword, that they might see he came for peace and not for
war, and so, by little and little, he made the town a peaceable
habitation.

His manner was, after he had ended a skirmish amongst his neighbours,
and reconciled these bitter enemies, to cause cover a table upon the
street, and there brought the enemies together, and beginning with
prayer he persuaded them to profess themselves friends, then to eat and
drink together, then last of all he ended the work with singing a psalm:
For after the rude people began to observe his example, and listen to
his heavenly doctrine, he came quickly to that respect amongst them,
that he became not only a necessary counsellor, without whose council
they would do nothing, but an example to imitate.

He gave himself wholly to ministerial exercises, he preached once every
day, he prayed the third part of his time, was unwearied in his studies,
and for a proof of this, it was found among his papers, that he had
abridged Suarez's metaphysics when they came first to his hand, even
when he was well stricken in years. By all which it appears, that he has
not only been a man of great diligence, but also of a strong and robust
natural constitution, otherwise he had never endured the fatigue.

Sometimes, before he went to sermon, he would send for his elders and
tell them, he was afraid to go to pulpit; because he found himself sore
deserted: and thereafter desire one or more of them to pray, and then he
would venture to pulpit. But, it was observed, this humbling exercis