I have experience to speak this; for I would not exchange my prison and sad nights with the court, honour, and ease of my adversaries. My Lord is pleased to make many unknown faces to laugh upon me, and to provide a lodging for me; and He Himself visiteth my soul with feasts of spiritual comforts. Oh, how sweet a Master is Christ! Blessed are they who lay down all for Him. I thank you kindly for your love to my distressed brother. Ye have the blessing and prayers of the prisoner of Christ to you, your wife and your children. Remember my love and blessing to William and Samuel. I desire them in their youth to seek the Lord, and to fear His great name; to pray twice a-day, at least, to God, and to read God's word; to keep themselves from cursing, lying, and filthy talking. Now the only wise God, and the presence of the Son of God, be with you all. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R. ABERDEEN, _March 13, 1637_. CXXXVI.--_To ROBERT GLENDINNING, Minister of Kirkcudbright._ (_PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD--CHRIST HIS JOY._) MY DEAR FRIEND,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I thank you most kindly for your care of me, and your love and respective[229] kindness to my brother in his distress. I pray the Lord that ye may find mercy in the day of Christ; and I entreat you, Sir, to consider the times which ye live in, and that your soul is more worth to you than the whole world, which, in the day of the blowing of the Last Trumpet, shall lie in white ashes, as an old castle burned to nothing. And remember that judgment and eternity is before you. My dear and worthy friend, let me entreat you in Christ's name, and by the salvation of your soul, and by your compearance before the dreadful and sin-revenging Judge of the world, to make your accounts ready. Redd them ere ye come to the water-side; for your afternoon will wear short, and your sun fall low and go down; and ye know that this long time your Lord hath waited on you. Oh, how comfortable a thing it will be to you, when time shall be no more, and your soul shall depart out of the house of clay to vast and endless eternity, to have your soul dressed up, and prepared for your Bridegroom! No loss is comparable to the loss of the soul; there is no hope of regaining that loss. Oh, how joyful would my soul be to hear that ye would start to the gate, and contend for the crown, and leave all vanities and make Christ your garland! Let your soul put away your old lovers, and let Christ have your whole love. [229] Perhaps this word means kindness that had respect to his special needs.