some further favour had been designed. Howie says that Dalziel was as good as his word, that he procured a reprieve from the king, but that it came first into the hands of Bishop Paterson, the same who annoyed Marion Harvie in her last hours, who kept it up till it was of no avail. He was executed on the Friday, May 9, 1684. "He died," says Wodrow, "most cheerfully." When on the scaffold, he handed down his Bible to his wife, Janet Millar, from Eaglesham, whom he married some years after the death of his first. He left her a widow, with six children. His oldest daughter was about fifteen. His testimony is a tersely expressed, soldier-like statement, and its evangelical savour tells how much he had profited under the preaching of his beloved minister, William Guthrie. Its closing paragraph is as remarkable for its beauty of expression as for its undoubting faith in a Covenant-keeping God. His Bible is at Lochgoin. It is a 24m0, of date 1653. The metrical Psalms at the close are of a much later year, but they were put in by the author of the "Scots Worthies," that he might use the book at Church. Captain Paton's autograph is on the blank side of the title page. The inscription on the inside of one of the boards tells its history. It is (6 'CAPTAIN JOHN PATON'S BIBLE, WHICH HE GAVE TO HIS WIFE FROM OFF THE AT EDINBURGH, ON THE 8TH OF MAY 1684. AND GAVE IT TO JOHN HOWIE, HIS NEPHEW." At Lochgoin a sword 27 inches in length is shown as his, but it is light and small, and much rusted. His granddaughter, Annabella Paton, married Gavin Rowatt, a much esteemed elder in connection with the Reformed Presbytery during the latter half of last century. Gavin's eldest son was the Rev. Thomas Rowatt, a faithful and diligent minister of the Gospel, in Penpont, from 1796 to 1832. In the possession of the minister's nephew, Thomas Rowatt, Esq. of Bonnanhill, Strathaven, is a sword that has been handed down in the family from generation to generation as the Captain's. It is an Andrea Ferrara of forty inches in length, and in excellent preservation. Its size and weight, when in the hands of a soldier like Captain Paton, would make it a formidable weapon. John Howie has given a life of him in the "Scots Worthies." It is, perhaps, the best in the volume. It contains more traditionary matter than in most of the others. Its close, though somewhat sesquipedalian in its language, is a good specimen of Howie's manner. It is "Thus another gallant soldier of Jesus Christ came to his end, the actions of whose life, and demeanour at death, do fully indicate that he was of no rugged disposition, as has been asserted of these our late sufferers, but rather of a meek, judicious, and Christian conversation, tempered with true zeal and faithfulness for the cause and interest of Zion's King and Lord. He was of a middle stature as accounts bear, strong and robust, somewhat fair of complexion, with large eye-brows. But what enhanced him more, was courage and magnanimity of mind, which accompanied him upon every emergent occasion; and though his extraction was but mean, it might be truly said of him, that he lived a hero and died a martyr." Captain Paton was buried in the corner of Greyfriars' churchyard, Edinburgh, in the sacred spot where the dust of so many martyrs lies. In Fenwick churchyard his fellow-parishioners, soon after the Revolution, erected a monument to his memory. This monument fell down some years ago, but a new one has been erected in its place, and an inscription put on it, written in somewhat fulsome terms, very different from the simple yet all the more effective language characteristic of the monuments put up to the memory of the martyrs last century. ED.] HE LAST TESTIMONY of Captain JOHN PATON, who lived in the parish of Fenwick, and suffered at the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, May 9th, 1684. - You are "DEAR FRIENDS AND SPECTATORS, come here to look upon me a dying man, and you need not expect that I shall say much, for I was never a great orator nor eloquent of tongue, though I may say as much to the commendation of God in Christ Jesus as ever a poor sinner had to say. I have been a great sinner as ever lived; strong corruptions, strong lusts, strong passions, a strong body of death have prevailed against me; yea, I have been chief of sinners. I may say, on every back look of my way (though the world cannot charge me with any gross transgression this day, for which I bless the Lord), Oh! what omissions and commissions, what formality and hyprocrisy, that even my duties have been my grief and fear, lest Thou, a holy God, had made them my dittays [i.e., indictments], and mayest do. My misimproven time may be heavy upon my head, and cause of desertion, and especially my supplicating the council, who have, I think, laid their snares the closer to take away my life, though contrary to their own professed law. I desire to mourn for my giving ear to the counsel of flesh and blood, when I should have been consulting Heaven, and to reflect upon myself, though it lays my blood the closer to their door; and I think the blood of my wife and bairns; I think their supreme magistrate is not ignorant of many of their actings, but these prelates will not be found free when our God makes an inquisition for blood. "And now, I am come here, desired of some indeed, who thirst for my life, though by others not desired. I bless the Lord, I am not come here as a thief or murderer, and I am free of the blood of all men, but hate blood shed directly or indirectly. And now I am a poor sinner, and could never merit anything but wrath, and have no righteousness of my own; all is Jesus Christ's, and His alone; and I have laid claim to His righteousness and His sufferings by faith in Jesus Christ; through imputation they are mine; for I have accepted of His offer on His own terms, and sworn away myself to Him, to be at His disposal, both privately and publicly, many times; and, now, I have put it upon Him to ratify in heaven all that I have essayed to do on earth, and to do away all my imperfections and failings, and to stay my heart on Him. And I seek mercy for all my sins, and believe to get all my challenges and sins sunk in the blood and sufferings of Jesus and His righteousness, and that He shall see of the travail of His soul on me, and the Father's pleasure shall prosper in His hand. "I bless the Lord that ever He led me out to behold any part of His power in the Gospel, in kirk or fields, or any of His actings for His people in their straits. The Lord is with His people while they be with Him; we may set to our seal to this; and while they be united; and oh! for a day of His power in cementing of this dis tempered age. It is sad to see His people falling out by the way, and of such a fiery spirit, that look to be at one lodging at night, especially these who profess to keep by our glorious Work of Reformation and Solemn Engagements to God, and to hold off the sins of these times. Oh hold off extremities on both hands, and follow the example of our blessed Lord, and the cloud of witnesses in the eleventh of the Hebrews. And let your way be the good old path, the Word of God and best times of the Church, for if it be not according to His Word, it is because there is no truth in it. "Now, as to my interrogations: "I was not clear to deny Pentland or Bothwell. They asked me how long I was at them? I said eight days, and the assize had no more to sentence upon, for the Advocate said he would not pursue for Pentland, by reason of an indemnity before the Privy Council. "The Council asked me, If I acknowledged authority? I said, All authority according to the Word of God. "They charged me with many things, as if I had been a rebel since the year 1640, and at Montrose's taking at Mauchline Moor. "Lord! forgive them, they know not what they do. "I adhere to the sweet Scriptures of truth of the Old and New Testaments, and preached Gospel by a faithful sent ministry, whereby He many times communicated Himself to the souls of His people, and to me in particular, both in the kirks, and since on the fields, and in the private meetings of His people for prayer and supplication to Him. "I adhere to our Solemn Covenants, National and Solemn League, Acknowledgment of Sins and Engagement to Duties, which became national. "I adhere to our Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, Causes of Wrath, and to all the testimonies given by His people formerly, and of late, either on fields or scaffolds, these years bygone, in so far as they are agreeable to His Word, and the practice of our worthy Reformers, and holy, pure zeal, according to His rule. "I adhere to all our glorious work of Reformation. "Now, I leave my testimony, as a dying man, against the horrid usurpation of our Lord's prerogative and crown-right; I mean that Supremacy, established by law in these lands, which is a manifest usurpation of His crown, for He is given by the Father to be head to His Church; And He is the head of the body, the Church; who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence: For it pleased the Father, that in Him should all fulness dwell' (Col. i. 18, 19); and against all Popery, Prelacy, and Erastianism, and all that depend on that hierarchy, which is a yoke that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear, which the poor remnant is groaning under this day, by that horrid cruelty rending their consciences by tests and bonds; taking away their substance and livelihoods by fines and illegal exactions, plunderings and quarterings, and compelling them to sin, by hearing, joining, and complying with these malicious curates. 'Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in' (Matt. xxiii. 13). "I leave my testimony against the Indulgence, first and last, for I ever looked on it as a snare, and so I never looked upon them as a part of the hopeful remnant of our Church; and now it is sad to see how some of them have joined by their deeds in the persecution of the poor remnant, and almost all in tongue persecution. "Now, I would speak a short word to two or three sorts of folks ; but I think, if one would rise from the dead, he would not be heard by this generation, who are mad upon idols and this world. and "First, These who have joined deliberately with the persecutors, in all their robberies and haling innocent souls to prison, death, banishment. The Lord will not hold them guiltless. They may read what the Spirit of God hath recorded of them in Jude 11th verse and downward, and Obadiah's prophecy. A second sort are these who seem to be more sober and knowing; yet, through timorousness and fear, have joined with them in all their corrupt courses for ease, and their own things. Do not think that these fig-leaves will cover you in the cool of the day. It is a hazard to be mingled with the heathen, lest we learn of them their way. Oh! sirs, be zealous and repent. Seek repentance from Christ; He purchased it with His blood; and do your first works if ever there was any saving work on your souls, for He will come quickly; and who may abide the day of His coming.' Oh! sirs, the noble grace of repentance grows not in every field; many could not get it, though they sought it carefully with tears. Oh! work while it is to-day; the night draweth on, and it may be very dark. "The third sort are these who have been most tender; and oh! who of us can say, that we have, out of love to His glory, singly followed Him. Upon examination, we fear we find it not so, but that |