Let me hear from your Ladyship, and your dear child. Pray for the prisoner of Christ, who is mindful of your Ladyship. Remember my obliged obedience to my good Lady Marr. Grace, grace be with you. I write and pray blessings to your sweet child. Yours in all dutiful obedience in his only Lord Jesus, S. R. ABERDEEN, _Nov. 22, 1636_. LXX.--_To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, my_ LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE. (_EXERCISE UNDER RESTRAINT FROM PREACHING--THE DEVIL--CHRIST'S LOVING KINDNESS--PROGRESS._) MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your Ladyship's letter. It refreshed me in my heaviness. The blessing and prayer of a prisoner of Christ come upon you. Since my coming hither, Galloway sent me not a line, except what my brother, Earlston, and his son, did write. I cannot get my papers transported; but, Madam, I want not kindness of one who hath the gate of it. Christ (if He had never done more for me since I was born) hath engaged my heart, and gained my blessing in this house of my pilgrimage. It pleaseth my Well-beloved to dine with a poor prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a fragrant smell. Nothing grieveth me, but that I eat my feasts my lone, and that I cannot edify His saints. O that this nation knew what is betwixt Him and me; none would scar at the cross of Christ! My silence eats me up, but He hath told me He thanketh me no less, than if I were preaching daily. He sees how gladly I would be at it; and therefore my wages are going to the fore, up in heaven, as if I were still preaching Christ. Captains pay duly bedfast soldiers, howbeit they do[164] nor march, nor carry armour. "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength" (Isa. xlix. 5). My garland, "the banished minister" (the term of Aberdeen), ashameth me not. I have seen the white side of Christ's cross; how lovely hath He been to His oppressed servant! "The Lord executeth judgment for the oppressed, He giveth food to the hungry: the Lord looseth the prisoner; the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord preserveth the stranger" (Ps. cxlvi. 7, 9). If it were come to exchanging of crosses, I would not exchange my cross with any. I am well pleased with Christ, and He with me; I hope none shall hear us.[165] It is true for all this, I get my meat with many strokes, and am seven times a-day up and down, and am often anxious and cast down for the case of my oppressed brother; yet I hope the Lord will be surety for His servant. But now upon some weak, very weak experience, I am come to love a rumbling and raging devil best. Seeing we must have a devil to hold the saints waking, I wish a cumbersome devil, rather than a secure and sleeping one.[166] At my first coming hither, I took the dorts at Christ, and took up a stomach against Him; I said, He had cast me over the dike of the vineyard, like a dry tree.