Worthy Sir, I hope that ye take to heart the worth of your calling. This great fair and meeting of the people shall skail, and the port is open for us. As fast as time weareth out, we fly away; eternity is at our elbow. Oh, how blessed are they who in time make Christ sure for themselves! Salvation is a great errand. I find it hard to fetch heaven. Oh that we would take pains on our lamps, for the Bridegroom is coming! The other side of this world shall be turned up incontinently, and up shall be down: and those that are weeping in sackcloth will triumph on white horses, with Him whose name is The Word of God. Those dying idols, the fair creatures that we whorishly love better than our Creator, shall pass away like snow-water. The Godhead, the Godhead! a communion with God in Christ! To be halvers with Christ of the purchased house and inheritance in heaven, should be our scope and aim.
For myself, when I lay my accounts, oh what telling, oh what weighing is in Christ! Oh how soft are His kisses! Oh love, love surpassing in Jesus! I have no fault to that love, but that it seemeth to deal niggardly with me; I have little of it. Oh that I had Christ's seen and read bond, subscribed by Himself, for my fill of it! What garland have I, or what crown, if I looked right on things, but Jesus! Oh, there is no room in us on this side of the water for that love. This narrow bit of earth, and these ebb and narrow souls can hold little of it, because we are full of rifts. I would that glory, glory would enlarge us (as it will), and make us tight, and close up our seams and rifts, that we might be able to comprehend it—which is yet incomprehensible.
Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
[CCXLII.—To the Lady Rowallan.]
[Lady Rowallan, whose maiden name was Sarah Brisbane, being the fourth daughter of John Brisbane of Bishoptown, was the third wife of Sir William Mure of Rowallan (Robertson's "Ayrshire Families"). "In 1639 Lady Rowallan lost her husband, who died in the sixty-third year of his age. He was a man of strong body, and delighted much in hunting and hawking." ("The History and Descent of the House of Rowallan. By Sir William Mure, Knight, of Rowallan.")
Rowallan is a mile and a half from the village of Kilmaurs, in which churchyard is a curious tomb of the old Glencairn family. Rowallan Castle was not large; it is now nearly a ruin, though the gardener's family occupy two rooms. It was a mansion as well as a castle. It stands on a rocky ledge, with the ground sinking low on all sides, and a burn flowing near, which sometimes in rainy seasons formed a lakelet, and could at any time be dammed up so as to form a moat to protect the castle.
It is so situated that you do not see it until close upon it, and hence was all the better fitted for a place of meeting in Covenanting times. The room on the highest floor, near the turret, is pointed out as that in which conventicles were held. More than a hundred could assemble in it. The old campstools used to be preserved, but now only the remains of two exist. Another turret is said to be that from the window of which King Robert II.'s queen escaped in olden days.]