Culross's first letter to John Livingstone is in every point of view, a
remarkable piece. It has a strength, an irony, and a tenderness in it
that at once tell the reader that he is in the hands of a very remarkable
writer. But it is not Lady Culross's literature that so much interests
us and holds us, it is her religion; and it is its depth, its intensity,
and the way it grows in winter. After a long and racy introduction,
sometimes difficult to decipher, from its Fife idioms and obsolete
spelling, she goes on thus: 'Did you get any heart to remember me and my
bonds? As for me, I never found so great impediment within. Still, it
is the Lord with whom we have to do, and He gives and takes, casts down
and raises up, kills and makes alive as pleases His Majesty. . . . My
task at home is augmented and tripled, and yet I fear worse. Sin in me
and in mine is my greatest cross. I would, if it were the Lord's will,
choose affliction rather than iniquity.--Yours in C., E. MELVIL.'

It was now winter with John Livingstone. The persecution had overtaken
him, and this is how her ladyship writes to him:--

'My very worthy and dear brother: Courage, dear brother: it is all in
love, all works together for the best. You must be hewn and hammered and
drest and prepared before you can be a _Leiving-ston_ fit for His
building. And if He is minded to make you meet to help others, you must
look for another manner of strokes than you have yet felt, . . . but when
you are laid low, and are vile in your own eyes, then He will raise you
up and refresh you with some blinks of His favourable countenance, that
you may be able to comfort others with those consolations wherewith you
have been comforted of Him. . . . Since God has put His work in your
weak hands, look not for long ease here: you must feel the full weight of
your calling: a weak man with a strong God. The pain is but a moment,
the pleasure is everlasting, . . . cross upon cross: the end of one with