I am tempted to think it possible that the old, long-experienced, and much-exercised saints of Kilmacolm may have demanded a little too much of their minister: at any rate, I am quite as anxious to hear what Rutherford shall say to them as they can be to hear from him themselves. And all that leads me to believe that not only must there have been some quite remarkable people in the parish church at that date, but that they must also have had some very special pulpit and pastoral work expended on them in former years. Or, if not that, then their case is just another illustration of what Rutherford says in his reassuring answer, namely, that the life of grace among a people is not at all tied up to the lips of their minister. Which, again, is just another way of putting what the Psalmist says of himself in his humble and happy boast: 'I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts.' 1. The first complaint that came to Anwoth from Kilmacolm was expressed in the quaint and graphic language natural to that day. 'Security, strong and sib to nature, is stealing in upon us.' The holy law of God, they mean, was never preached in their parish; at any rate, it was never carried home to any man's conscience. Nobody was ever disturbed. Nobody's feelings were ever hurt. Nobody in all the parish had ever heard a voice of thunder saying, Thou art the man. Toothless and timid generalities made up all the preaching they ever heard either on the ethical or on the evangelical side: and generalities disturb no man's peace of mind. The pulpit of Kilmacolm was but too sib to the pew, and both pulpit and pew slept on together in undisturbed security. And that supplied Samuel Rutherford with an excellent text for a sermon he was continually preaching in every utterance of his--the constant danger we all lie under as long as we are in this life. Danger from sin, and, in its own still subtler way, as much danger from grace; danger from want, and danger from fulness; danger from our weakness, and danger from our strength. So much danger is there that if any man in this life is in a state of security about himself he is surely the foolishest of all foolish men. For, Thy close pursuers' busy hands do plant Snares in thy substance, snares attend thy want; Snares in thy credit, snares in thy disgrace; Snares in thy high estate, snares in thy base; Snares tuck thy bed, and snares attend thy board; Snares watch thy thoughts, and snares attack thy word; Snares in thy quiet, snares in thy commotion; Snares in thy diet, snares in thy devotion; Snares lurk in thy resolves, snares in thy doubt; Snares lurk within thy heart, and snares without; Snares are above thy head, and snares beneath; Snares in thy sickness, snares are in thy death.