' He answered 'I think it reward enough, that ever I got leave to
do him any service in truth and sincerity.' "

This account was dictated to me by Mr Patrick Simson, Mr Gillespie's
cousin, who was with him to his last sickness, and at his death, and took
minutes at the time of these his expressions. I read it over, after I had
written it, to him. He corrected some words, and said to me, "This is all
I mind about his expressions toward his close. They made some impression
on me at the time, and I then set them down. I have not read the paper
that I mind these forty years, but I am pretty positive these were his
very words." A day or two after, I went in with him to his closet to look
for another paper, for now he had almost lost his sight, and in a bundle,
I fell on the paper he wrote at the time, and told him of it. When we
compared it with what I wrote, there was not the least variation betwixt
the original and what I wrote, save an inconsiderable word or two, here
altered; which is an instance of a strong memory, the greatest ever I
knew.

(Subscribed) R WODROW

Sept. 8, 1707 WODROW's ANALECTA, vol. I, pp. 154-159

* * * * *

_What follows about Mr Gillespie I wrote also from Mr Simson's mouth._

"George Gillespie was born January 21st, 1613. He was first minister at
Weemyse, the first admitted under Presbytery 1638. He was minister at
Weemyse about two years. He was very young when laureate, before he was
seventeen. He was chaplain first to my lord Kenmure, then to the Lord of
Cassilis. When he was with Cassilis, he wrote his 'English Popish
Ceremonies,' which when printed, he was about twenty-two. He wrote a
'Dialogue between a Civilian and Divine,' a piece against Toleration,
entitled 'Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty.' He died
in strong faith of adherence, though in darkness as to assurance, which
faith of adherence he preached much. He died December seventeen, 1648. If
he had lived to January 21, 1649, he had been thirty six years.

"The last paper he wrote, was 'The Commission of the Kirk's Answer to the
State's Observations on the Declaration of the General Assembly anent the
Unlawfulness of the Engagement.' The Observations were penned, (as my
relator supposes) by Mr William Colville, who wrote all these kind of
papers for the Committee of Estates, and printed during the Assembly
whereof he was moderator. They could not overtake it, but remitted it to