and long enough into his own heart, the sight of it would make him a
little child.' 'Did not I say,' burst out Rutherford, as he read, 'that
Alexander Gordon would lead the ring in Galloway?'

Earlston frightened into silence the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright on one
occasion also, when at their first meeting after he had spoken out so
bravely before the king and the Parliament, and they were to move him a
vote of thanks, he cried out: 'Fathers and brethren, the heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and you do not know
it. For I had a deep, malicious, revengeful motive in my heart behind
all my fine and patriotic speeches in Parliament. I hated Montrose more
than I loved the freedom of the Kirk. Spare me, therefore, the sentence
of putting that act of shame on your books!' It was discoveries like
this that accumulated in John Livingstone's note-book till he blotted out
all his instances and left only the blessed result, 'Alexander Gordon, a
man of great spirit, but much subdued by inward exercise, and who was
visited with most rare experiences of downcasting and uplifting.' No
doubt, dear John Livingstone; we can well believe it. Too rare with us,
alas! but every day with your noble friend; every day and every night,
when he lay down and when he rose up. His very dreams often cast him
down all day after them; for he said, If my heart were not one of the
chambers of hell itself, such hateful things would not stalk about in it
when the watchman is asleep. Downcastings! downcastings! Yes, down to
such depths of self-discovery and self-detestation and self-despair as
compelled his Heavenly Master to give commandment that His prostrate
servant should be lifted up as few men on the earth have ever been lifted
up, or could bear to be. Yes; they were rare experiences both of
downcastings and of upliftings; when such downcastings and upliftings
become common the end of this world will have come, and with it the very
Kingdom of Heaven.