'A single-hearted and painful Christian, much employed in parliaments
and public meetings after the year 1638.'--_Livingstone_.

'Hall-binks are slippery.'--_Gordon to Rutherford_.

Robert Gordon of Knockbrex, in his religious character, was a combination
of Old Honest and Mr. Fearing in the _Pilgrim's Progress_. He was as
single-hearted and straightforward as that worthy old gentleman was who
early trysted one Good-Conscience to meet him and give him his hand over
the river which has no bridge; and he was at the same time as troublesome
to Samuel Rutherford, his minister and correspondent, as Greatheart's
most troublesome pilgrim was to him. In two well-chosen words John
Livingstone tells us the deep impression that the laird of Knockbrex made
on the men of his day. With a quite Scriptural insight and terseness of
expression, Livingstone simply says that Robert Gordon was the most
'single-hearted and painful' of all the Christian men known to his widely-
acquainted and clear-sighted biographer.

Now there may possibly be some need that the epithet 'painful' should be
explained, as it is here applied to this good man, but everybody knows
without any explanation what it is for any man to be 'single-hearted.'
This was the fine character our Lord gave to Nathanael when He saluted
him as an Israelite indeed in whom was no guile. It is singleness of
heart that so clears up the understanding and the judgment that, as our
Lord said at another time, it fills a man's whole soul with light. And
Paul gives it as the best character that a servant can bring to or carry
away from his master's house, that he is single-hearted and not an eye-
servant in all that he says and does. I keep near me on my desk a book
called Roget's _Thesaurus_, which is a rich treasure-house of the English
language. And though I thought I knew what Livingstone meant when he