ts thorns. And that
such a crop of thorns should spring up to him and to his people from Lady
Cardoness's house, was one of Rutherford's sorest trials. The marriage-
day, from which so much was expected, came and passed away; but what it
did for young Cardoness may be judged from such expressions in
Rutherford's Aberdeen letters as these: 'Be not rough with your wife. God
hath given you a wife, love her; drink out of your own fountain, and sit
at your own fireside. Make conscience of cherishing your wife.' His
marriage did not sanctify young Cardoness; it did not even civilise him;
for, long years after, when he was an officer in the Covenanters' army,
he writes from Newcastle, apologising to his ill-used wife for the way he
left her when he went to join his regiment: 'We are still ruffians and
churls at home long after we are counted saints abroad.'

One day when Rutherford was in the Spirit in his silent prison, whether
in the body or out of the body, he was caught up into Paradise to see the
beauty of his Lord, and to hear his little daughter singing Glory. And
among the thousands of children that sang around the throne he told young
Cardoness that he saw and heard little Barbara Gordon, whose death had
broken every heart in Cardoness Castle. 'I give you my word for it,'
wrote Rutherford to her broken-hearted father, 'I saw two Anwoth children
there, and one of them was your child and one of them was mine.' And
when another little voice was silenced in the Castle to sing Glory in
heaven, Rutherford could then write to young Cardoness all that was in
his heart; he could not write too plainly now or too often. Not that you
are to suppose that they were all saints now at Cardoness Castle, or that
all their old and inherited vices of heart and character were rooted out:
no number of deaths will do that to the best of us till our own death
comes; but it was no little gain towards godliness when Rutherford could
write to young Gordon, now old with sorrow, saying, 'Honoured and dear
brother, I am refreshed with your letter, and I exhort you by the love of
Christ to set to work upon your own soul. Read this to your wife, and
tell her that I am witness for Barbara's glory in heaven.'

We would gladly shut the book here, and bring the Cardoness
correspondence to a close, but that would not be true to the whole
Cardoness history, nor profitable for ourselves. We have buried
children, like John Gordon; and, like him,