God, and whence it comes that the wicked speak good of him . . . The Lord
pity the proneness of his heart to comply with the men who have the power
. . . Lord, he is unsound and double in his heart, politically crafty,
selfish, not savouring nor discerning the things of God . . . Let not
self-love, wit, craft, and timorousness corrupt his mind, but indue him
with fortitude, patience, steadfastness, tenderness, mortification . . .
Shall I expose myself and my family to danger at this time? A grain of
sound faith would solve all my questions.' 'Die Dom. I stayed at home,
partly to decline the ill-will and rage of men and to decline
observation.' Or, take another Sabbath-day entry: 'Die Dom. I stayed at
home, because of the time, and the observation, and the Earl of Moray . .
. Came to Cuttiehillock. I am neither cold nor hot. I am not rightly
principled as to the time. I suspect that it is not all conscience that
makes me conform, but wit, and to avoid suffering; Lord, deliver me from
all this unsoundness of heart.' And after this miserable fashion do
heaven and earth, duty and self-interest, the covenant and the crown pull
for Lord Brodie's soul through 422 quarto pages. Brodie's diary is one
of the most humiliating, heart-searching, and heart-instructing books I
ever read. Let all public men tempted and afflicted with a facile,
pliable, time-serving heart have honest Brodie at their elbow.

'Glad I am, my good companion,' said Pliable, after the passage about the
cherubim and the seraphim, and the golden crowns and the golden harps,
'it ravishes my very heart to hear all this. Come on, let us mend our
pace.' This is delightful, this is perfect. How often have we ourselves
heard these very words of challenge and reproof from the pliable
frequenters of emotional meetings, and from the emotional members of an
emotional but rootless ministry. Come on, let us mend our pace! 'I am
sorry to say,' replied the man with the burden on his back, 'that I
cannot go so fast as I would.' 'Christian,' says Mr. Kerr Bain, 'has