Wishart persevered in his work, and his reputation spread all around. The men of Mauchlin came and asked him to preach the Gospel to them on the following Sunday. But the sheriff of Ayr heard of it, and sent a body of men in the night to post themselves about the church. ‘We will enter by force,’ said Hugh Campbell to Wishart. ‘Brother,’ replied the evangelist, ‘it is the word of peace which God sends by me; the blood of no man shall be shed this day for the preaching of it. I find that Christ Jesus oftener preached in the desert, at the seaside, and other places judged profane, than he did in the temple of Jerusalem.’ He then withdrew to the country, saying to the people who followed him that the Saviour was ‘as potent upon the fields as in the kirk.’ He climbed up a dike raised on the edge of the moorland, and there, in the fair warm day, preached for more than three hours. One man present, Lawrence Ranken, laird of Shield, who had previously led a wicked life, was impressed by what he heard. ‘The tears ran from his eyes in such abundance that all men wondered.’[331] Converted by that discourse, the laird of Shield gave evidence in his whole after-life that his conversion was genuine. Wishart preached with like success in the whole district. The harvest was great, says one historian. The reformer heard on a sudden that the plague had broken out at Dundee four days after he left the town, and that it was raging cruelly. He resolved instantly to go there. ‘They are now in trouble and they need comfort,’ he said to those who would fain hold him back: ‘perchance this hand of God will make them now to magnify and reverence that word which before, for the fear of men, they set at light part.’ He reached Dundee in August, 1544, and announced the same morning that he would preach. It was necessary to keep apart the plague-stricken from those who were in health, and for that purpose he took his station at the east gate of the town. Those who were in health had their place within the city, and those who were sick remained without. Such a distribution of an audience was surely never seen before! Wishart opened the Bible and read these words--‘He sent his word and healed them.’ (Ps. cvii. 20.) ‘The mercy of God,’ said he, ‘is prompt to fall on all such as truly turn to Him, and the malice of men can neither eik nor pair [add to nor diminish] his gentle visitation.’[332]--‘We do not fear death,’ said some of his hearers; ‘nay, we judge them more happy that should depart, than such as should remain behind.’ That east gate of Dundee (Cowgate) was left standing in memory of Wishart when the town walls were taken down at the close of the eighteenth century, and it is still carefully preserved. Wishart was not satisfied with speech alone, he personally visited the sick, fearlessly exposing himself to infection in the most extreme cases. He took care that the sick should have what they needed, and the poor were as well provided for as the rich.