“4.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do, that I may be a blessing to my relatives?  I keep a catalogue of them, and not a week passes me without some good devised for some or other of them, till I have taken all of them under my cognizance.  And yet where is the man who has been so tormented with such monstrous relatives?  Job said, ’I am a brother to dragons.’

“5.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do for the vindication and reputation of the Scottish nation?  And yet no Englishman has been so vilified by the tongues and pens of Scots as I have been.

“6.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do for the good of the country, in applications without number for it in all its interests, besides publications of things useful to it and for it?  And yet there is no man whom the country so loads with disrespect and calumnies and manifold expressions of aversion.

“7.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do for the upholding of the government, and the strengthening of it, and the bespeaking of regards unto it?  And yet the discountenance I have almost perpetually received from the government!  Yea, the indecencies and indignities which it has multiplied upon me are such as no other man has been treated with.

“8.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do, that the COLLEGE may be owned for the bringing forth such as are somewhat known in the world, and have read and wrote as much as many have done in other places?  And yet the College for ever puts all possible marks of disesteem upon me.  If I were the greatest blockhead that ever came from it, or the greatest blemish that ever came to it, they could not easily show me more contempt than they do.

“9.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do for the study of a profitable conversation?  For nearly fifty years together, I have hardly ever gone into any company, or had any coming to me, without some explicit contrivance to speak something or other that they might be the wiser or the better for.  And yet my company is as little sought for, and there is as little resort unto it, as any minister that I am acquainted with.

“10.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do in good offices, wherever I could find opportunities for the doing of them?  I for ever entertain them with alacrity.  I have offered pecuniary recompenses to such as would advise me of them.  And yet I see no man for whom all are so loth to do good offices.  Indeed I find some cordial friends, but how few!  Often have I said, What would I give if there were any one man in the world to do for me what I am willing to do for every man in the world!

“11.  What has a gracious Lord given me to do in the writing of many books for the advancing of piety and the promoting of his kingdom?  There are, I suppose, more than three