At four o’clock in the morning, according to Baillie, there was ‘a sensible earthquake’ in all parts of the town of Glasgow, ‘though I felt it not.’ ‘Five or six years ago, there was ane other in the afternoon, which I felt, and was followed by that fearful burning, and all the other shaking [that] has been among us since. The Lord preserve us from his too well-deserved judgments!’ * * * * * [Sidenote: SEP. 4.] The efforts of the presbytery of Lanark to make sincere Presbyterians of the Marquis and Marchioness of Douglas had signally failed. Their parish minister reported sundry ‘outbreakings of sin’ in their house, ‘whereof he could get no order;’ above all, there was a neglect of family worship. After many ineffectual dealings, the presbytery declared at this date, that, ‘considering how the marquis and his lady and family continue to be an ill example, and scandalous divers ways, in regard that he himself does not ordinarily attend the public ordinance, but some time the forenoon withdrawing himself, and ofttimes the servants in the afternoon, in sight of the whole congregation; [and that] he and his lady cometh scarce to the kirk once in a year, and that there is no worship of God at all in their family,’ they must, ‘if he do not redress the foresaid scandals in some satisfying way, enter in process of excommunication with him and his lady at the next meeting.’ After many months, the reverend brethren are still found only ‘dealing’ with the noble marquis and his lady. A peer or peeress seems to have been a particularly difficult person to excommunicate. Years elapse in such cases without effecting the object, while a Quaker villager could be conclusively thrust out of the church in a few weeks.--_R. P. L._ * * * * * [Sidenote: 1657. JUNE.] Cromwell having been formally installed as Protector, Mr Robert Baillie notes a popular expectation in Scotland that a storm--that is, a storm of political trouble--would follow; and some things seemed to foretell it: for example, the blowing up of a powder-magazine, destroying many houses and persons; an army of pikemen appearing about the house of Foggo Muir, near Dunse Law; and the discovery of some thousands of objects in the form of cannon, shaped from snow without the hand of man. Yet, to the surprise of the reverend gentleman, months passed on without any interruption of peace. [Sidenote: 1657.]