If you think that I am exaggerating and magnifying the parish pulpit of Mansoul, take this out of the parish records for yourselves.  ‘And now,’ you will read in one place, ’it was a day gloomy and dark, a day of clouds and thick darkness with Mansoul.  Well, when the Sabbath-day was come he took for his text that in the prophet Jonah, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”  And then there was such power and authority in that sermon, and such dejection seen in the countenances of the people that day that the like had seldom been heard or seen.  The people, when the sermon was done, were scarce able to go to their homes, or to betake themselves to their employments the whole week after.  They were so sermon-smitten that they knew not what to do.  For not only did their preacher show to Mansoul its sin, but he did tremble before them under the sense of his own, still crying out as he preached, Unhappy man that I am! that I, a preacher, should have lived so senselessly and so sottishly in my parish, and be one of the foremost in its transgressions!  With these things he also charged all the lords and gentry of Mansoul to the almost distracting of them.’  It was Sabbaths like that that made the people of Mansoul call their minister a seer.

5.  And, then, there was another thing that I do not know how better to describe than by calling it the true catholicity, the true humility, and the true hospitality of the man.  It is true he had no choice in the matter, for in setting up a standing ministry in Mansoul Emmanuel had done so with this reservation and addition.  We have His very words.  ’Not that you are to have your ministers alone,’ He said.  ’For my four captains, they can, if need be, and if they be required, not only privately inform, but publicly preach both good and wholesome doctrine, that, if heeded, will do thee good in the end.’  Which, again, reminds me of what Oliver Cromwell wrote to the Honourable Colonel Hacker at Peebles.  ’These:  I was not satisfied with your last speech to me about Empson, that he was a better preacher than fighter—­or words to that effect.  Truly, I think that he that prays and preaches best will fight best.  I know nothing that will give like courage and confidence as the knowledge of God in Christ will.  I pray you to receive Captain Empson lovingly.’

6.  The standing ministry in Mansoul was endowed also; but I cannot imagine what the court of teinds would make of the instrument of endowment.  As it has been handed down to us, that old ecclesiastical instrument reads more like a lesson in the parish minister’s class for the study of Mysticism than a writing for a learned lord to adjudicate upon.  Here is the Order of Council:  ’Therefore I, thy Prince, give thee, My servant, leave and licence to go when thou wilt to My fountain, My conduit, and there to drink freely of the blood of My grape, for My conduit doth always run wine.  Thus doing, thou shalt drive from thine heart all foul, gross, and hurtful humours.  It will also lighten thine eyes, and it will strengthen thy memory for the reception and the keeping of all that My Father’s noble secretary will teach thee.’  Thus the Prince did put Mr. Conscience into the place and office of a minister to Mansoul, and the chosen and presented man did thankfully accept thereof.