rough!' (_Letter_ CIV.) 'I may be a book-man and yet be
an idiot and a stark fool in Christ's way! The Bible beguiled the
Pharisees, and so may I be misled' (_Letter_ CVI.). 'I find you
complaining of yourself, and it becometh a sinner so to do. I am not
against you in that. The more sense the more life. The more sense of
sin the less sin' (_Letter_ CVI.). 'Seeing my sins and the sins of my
youth deserved strokes, how am I obliged to my Lord who hath given me a
waled and chosen cross! Since I must have chains, He would put golden
chains on me, watered over with many consolations. Seeing I must have
sorrow (for I have sinned, O Preserver of men!), He hath waled out for me
joyful sorrow--honest, spiritual, glorious sorrow' (_Letter_ CCVI.).
There are hundreds of passages as good as these scattered up and down the
forty-seven letters we have had preserved to us out of the large and
intimate correspondence that passed between Samuel Rutherford and Lady
Kenmure.

V. LADY CARDONESS

'Think it not easy.'--_Rutherford_.

What a lasting interest Samuel Rutherford's pastoral pen has given to the
hoary old castle of Cardoness! Those nine so heart-winning letters that
Rutherford wrote from Aberdeen to Cardoness Castle will still keep the
memory of that old tower green long after its last stone has crumbled
into dust. Readers of Rutherford's letters will long visit Cardoness
Castle, and will musingly recall old John Gordon and Lady Cardoness, his
wife, who both worked out each their own salvation in that old fortress,
and found it a task far from easy. For nine faithful years Rutherford
had been the anxious pastor of Cardoness Castle, and then, after he was
banished from his pulpit and his parish, he only ministered to the Castle
the more powerfully and prevailingly with his pen. After reading the
Cardoness correspondence, we do not wonder to find the stout old
chieftain heading the hard-fought battles which the people of Anwoth made
both against Edinburgh and St. Andrews, when those cities and colleges
attempted to take away their minister.

Rough old Cardoness had a warm place in his heart for Samuel Rutherford.
The tough old pagan did not know how much he loved the little fair man
with the high-set voice and the unearthly smile till he had lost him; and
if force of arms could have kept Rutherford in Anwoth, Cardoness would
soon have buckled on his sword. He was ashamed to be seen reading the
letters