“It was very confidently asserted at this time, that some weeks after Mr. Guthrie’s head had been set up on the Netherbow Port in Edinburgh, the commissioner’s coach coming down that way, several drops of blood fell from the head upon the coach, which all their art and diligence could not wipe off. I have it very confidently affirmed, that physicians were called, and inquired if any natural cause could be assigned for the blood dropping so long after the head was put up, and especially for it not washing out of the leather; and they could give none. This odd incident beginning to be talked of, and all other methods being tried, at length the leather was removed, and a new cover put on: this was much sooner done than the wiping off the guilt of this great and good man’s blood from the shedders of it, and this poor nation. The above report I shall say no more of; it was generally spoken of at the time, and is yet firmly believed by many: at this distance I cannot fully vouch it as certain; perhaps it may be thought too miraculous for the age we are now in: but this I will affirm, that Mr. Guthrie’s blood was of so crying a nature, that even Sir George Mackenzie was sensible that all his rhetoric, though he was a great master in that sort, had not been sufficient to drown it, for which cause he very wisely passed it over in silence.”[228] This is rather a remarkable instance of a common superstition. The reader who will consult the original authorities, will be struck by the elevated tone of joyful anticipation with which the sufferers of this period almost uniformly met death. See the accounts of King, Mackail, Renwick, and many others. Compare these deaths with those of Socrates or Cato, and we have the best exemplification of the practical difference between Christianity and Heathenism, even in its purest forms. “The Heathen looked on death without fear, the Christian exulted.”[229]