After Christmas he passed into Haddingtonshire. The cardinal, hearing of his purpose, had informed the earl of Bothwell, who immediately let it be known, both in the town and in the country, that no one was to go and hear that heretic under pain of his displeasure. The prohibition of this powerful lord had its effect. The first day there was a large gathering to hear Wishart, but the next day his audience was very small. A new trial now came to afflict him. His friends in western Scotland had promised to come to Edinburgh to discuss with him the means of advancing the cause of the Gospel. Now on the third day after his arrival in Haddingtonshire, when he had already entered the church and was about to go into the pulpit, a messenger approached and handed him a letter. He opened it. His friends at Ayr and other places wrote to tell him that certain obstacles prevented them from fulfilling their promises. Struck with sorrow, ‘he called for John Knox, who had waited upon him carefully from the time he came to Lothian.’[339] ‘I am wearied of the world,’ said he, ‘for I perceive that men begin to be weary of God.’ Knox wondered that Wishart should enter into conversation with him before sermon, which he was never accustomed to do, and said to him, ‘Sir, the time of sermon approaches, I will leave you for the present to your meditations.’ He then took the letter and withdrew. [Sidenote: HIS LAST SERMON.] Wishart, left to himself, began to walk about slowly at the back of the high altar. He paced to and fro, sadness depicted on his countenance, and everything about him revealing the deep grief that was in his soul. This lasted about half an hour. At length he passed into the pulpit. The audience was small, as it had been the day before. He had not power to treat the subject which he had proposed: his heart was too full, and he must needs unburden it before God. ‘O Lord,’ said he, ‘how long shall it be that thy holy Word shall be despised and men shall not regard their own salvation? I have heard of thee, Haddington, that in thee would have been at a vain clerk-play two or three thousand people, and now to hear the messenger of the eternal God, of all the town or parish cannot be numbered one hundred persons. Sore and fearful shall the plagues be that shall ensue this thy contempt, with fire and sword shalt thou be plagued. And that because ye have not known nor will not know the time of God’s merciful visitation.’ After saying these words he made a short paraphrase of the second table of the law. He exhorted to patience, to the fear of God, and to works of mercy; and impressed by the presentiment that this was the last time he should publicly preach, he made (so to speak) his last testament, declaring that the spirit of truth and judgment were both in his heart and on his lips.[340]