Ye have heard of the patience of Job. When he lay in the ashes, God was with him, clawing and curing his scabs, and letting out his boils, comforting his soul; and He took him up at last. That God is not dead yet; He will stoop and take up fallen bairns. Many broken legs since Adam's days hath He spelked, and many weary hearts hath He refreshed. Bless Him for comfort. Why? None cometh dry from David's well. Let us go among the rest, and cast down our toom buckets into Christ's ocean, and suck consolations out of Him. We are not so sore stricken, but we may fill Christ's hall with weeping. We have not gotten our answer from Him yet. Let us lay up our broken pleas to a full sea, and keep them till the day of Christ's Coming. We and this world will not be even till then: they would take our garment from us; but let _us_ hold and _them_ draw. Brother, it is a strange world if we laugh not. I never saw the like of it, if there be not "paiks the man," for this contempt done to the Son of God. We must do as those who keep the bloody napkin to the Bailie, and let him see blood; we must keep our wrongs to our Judge, and let Him see our bluddered and foul faces. Prisoners of hope must run to Christ, with the gutters that tears have made on their cheeks. Brother, for myself, I am Christ's dawted one for the present; and I live upon no deaf nuts, as we use to speak. He hath opened fountains to me in the wilderness. Go, look to my Lord Jesus: His love to me is such, that I defy the world to find either brim or bottom to it. Grace be with you. Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R. ABERDEEN, _March 13, 1637_. CXXXIX.--_To my_ LORD BALMERINOCH.