Sir, ye were once my hearer: I desire now to hear from you and your wife. I salute her and your children with blessings. I am glad that ye are still handfasted with Christ. Go on in your journey, and take the city by violence. Keep your garments clean. Be clean virgins to your husband the Lamb. The world shall follow you to heaven's gates: and ye would not wish it to go in with you. Keep fast Christ's love. Pray for me, as I do for you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R. ABERDEEN, _March 13, 1637_. CXLIV.--_To_ MR. GEORGE GILLESPIE. [GEORGE GILLESPIE was the son of Mr. John Gillespie, some time minister of the Gospel at Kirkcaldy. He was licensed to preach the Gospel some time prior to 1638: and in April, that year, was ordained minister of Wemyss. In 1642, by the General Assembly he was translated to one of the churches in Edinburgh, where he continued till his death. Gillespie possessed talents of the highest order; and so much were these appreciated that, young as he was, he was one of the four ministers sent as commissioners from the Church of Scotland to the Westminster Assembly in 1643. There he attracted general notice, by the cogency of argument, and the rare learning which he showed in pleading the cause of Presbytery and opposing Erastianism. At one of the meetings of that Assembly, when the learned Selden had delivered a long and an elaborate discourse in favour of Erastianism, to which none seemed prepared to reply, Gillespie, who was still a young man, was observed to be writing. A venerable friend went to his chair, and asked if he had taken notes, but found that he had written nothing except these words, frequently repeated, "Give light, Lord." His friend urged him to answer. Gillespie at last rose, and in an extempore speech refuted Selden with a power of reasoning and an amount of learning which excited the admiration of all present. Selden himself is said to have observed, after hearing this reply, "That young man, by a single speech, has swept away the labour and the learning of ten years of my life!" Gillespie died in December 1648, in the 36th year of his age. During his last illness he enjoyed little comfort, but was strong in the faith of adherence to the divine promises--a subject on which he insisted much in his sermons. When asked if he had any comfort, he said, "No; but though the Lord allow me no comfort, yet I will _believe_ that my Beloved is mine, and that I am His." To two ministers, who asked what advice he had to give them, he answered: "I have little experience of the ministry, having been in it only nine years; but I can say that I have got more assistance in the work of preaching from prayer than study; and much more help from the assistance of the Spirit than from