“When he came to review his regiment at Linlithgow, in summer 1743, after having given me the wonderful story as above, he concluded in words to this purpose:  Let me die whenever it shall please God, or wherever it shall be, I am sure I shall go to the mansions of eternal glory, and enjoy my God and my Redeemer in heaven for ever.”

While he was with us at this time he appeared deeply affected with the sad state of things as to religion and morals, and seemed to apprehend that the rod of God was hanging over so sinful a nation.  He observed a great deal of disaffection which the enemies of the government had, by a variety of artifices, been raising in Scotland for some years; and the number of Jacobites there, together with the defenceless state in which our island then was, with respect to the number of its forces at home, (of which he spoke at once with great concern and astonishment,) led him to expect an invasion from France, and an attempt in favour of the Pretender, much sooner than it happened.  I have heard him often say, many years before it came so near being accomplished, “that a few thousands might have a fair chance for marching from Edinburgh to London uncontrolled, and throw the whole Kingdom into an astonishment.”  And I have great reason to believe that this was one main consideration which engaged him to make such haste to his regiment, then quartered in those parts, as he imagined there was not a spot of ground where he might be more likely to have a call to expose his life in the service of his country, and perhaps, by appealing on a proper call early in its defences, be instrumental in suppressing the beginnings of most formidable mischief.  How rightly he judged in these things, the event too evidently showed.

The evening before our last separation, as I knew I could not more agreeably entertain the valuable friend who was then my guest, I preached a sermon in my own house, with some peculiar reference to his case and circumstances, from those ever-memorable words, than which I have never felt any more powerful and more comfortable:  Psalm xci. 14, 15, 16, “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him:  I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.  He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him, and honour him:  with long life (or length of days) will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.”  This scripture could not but lend our meditations to survey the character of the good man, as one who so knows the name of the blessed God—­has such a deep apprehension of the glories and perfections of his nature—­as determinately to set his love upon him, to make him the supreme object of his most ardent and constant affection.  And it suggested the most sublime and animating hopes to persons of such a character, that their prayers shall be always acceptable to God; that though they may, and must, be called to their share in the troubles and calamities of life, yet