the life of God in their own hearts! How thin and poor our religious
life appears beside theirs! What minister in Scotland to-day could write
such letters? And to whom could he address them after they were written?
Was it the persecution? Was it the new reformation doctrines? Was it
the masculine and Pauline preaching: preaching, say, like Robert Bruce's
and Rutherford's that did it? What was it that raised up in Scotland
such a crop of ripe and rich saints? Who are these, and whence came
they?

Rutherford was always on the outlook for opportunities to employ his
private pen for the conversion of sinners, and for the comfort, the
upbuilding, and the holiness of God's people. From his manse at Anwoth,
from his prison at Aberdeen, from his class-room at St. Andrews, and from
the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster, his letter-bag went out full of
those messages, so warm, so tender, so powerful, to his multitudinous
correspondents. Public events, domestic joys and sorrows, personal
matters, special providences,--to turn them all to a good result
Rutherford was always on the watch.

News had come to Rutherford's ears of an almost fatal accident that
Kennedy had had through his boat being swept out to sea; and that was too
good a chance to lose of trying to touch his correspondent's heart yet
more deeply about death, and the due preparation for it. Read his letter
to John Kennedy on his deliverance from shipwreck. See with what
apostolic dignity and sweetness he salutes Kennedy. See how he lifts up
Kennedy's accident out of the hands of winds and waves, and traces it all
up to the immediate hand of God. See how he speaks of Kennedy's reprieve
from death; and how the spared man should make use of his lengthened
days. Altogether, a noble, powerful, apostolic letter; a letter that
must have had a great influence in making Bailie Kennedy the choice