so of Rutherford's letter to James Guthrie and the rest of the
ministers and elders who were imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh for
daring to remind Charles Stuart of the contents of the Covenant to which
both he and the whole nation had solemnly sworn. 'If Christ doth own
me,' Rutherford wrote to the martyrs in the Castle, 'let me be laid in my
grave in a bloody winding-sheet; let me go from the scaffold to the
spikes in four quarters--grave or no grave, as He pleases, if only He but
owns me.' And I seemed to see the crucified disciple's glorified Master
appearing over his reversed cross and saying, 'Thou art Peter, and with
this thy blood I will sow widespread my Church.' Yes, my brethren, if
Christ but owns us, that will far more than make up to us in a moment for
all our imprisonments, and all our martyrdoms, and all our ebbing tides
down here. 'Angels, men, and Zion's elders eye us in all our suffering
for Christ's sake, but what of all these? Christ is by us, and looketh
on, and writeth it all up Himself.'

James Guthrie was hanged and dismembered at the Cross of Edinburgh on the
first day of June, 1661. His snow-white head was cut off, and was fixed
on a spike in the Nether Bow. James Guthrie got that day that which he
had so often prayed for--a sudden plunge into everlasting life with all
his senses about him and all his graces at their brightest and their
keenest exercise.

XVII. WILLIAM GUTHRIE

'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.'--_Solomon_.

William Guthrie was a great humorist, a great sportsman, a great
preacher, and a great writer. The true Guthrie blood has always had a
drop of humour in it, and the first minister of Fenwick was a genuine
Guthrie in this respect. The finest humour springs up out of a wide and
a deep heart, and it always has its roots watered at a wellhead of tears.
'William Guthrie was a great melancholian,' says Wodrow, and as we read
that we are reminded of some other great melancholians, such as Blaise
Pascal and John Foster and William Cowper. William Guthrie knew, by his
temperament, and by his knowledge of himself and of other men, that he
was a great melancholian, and he studied how to divert himself sometimes
in order that he might not be altogether drowned with his melancholy. And
thus, maugre his melancholy, and indeed by reason of it, William Guthrie
was a great humorist. He was the life of the party on the moors, in the
manse, and in the