Robert Gordon of Knockbrex, in his religious character, was a combination of Old Honest and Mr. Fearing in the _Pilgrim's Progress_. He was as single-hearted and straightforward as that worthy old gentleman was who early trysted one Good-Conscience to meet him and give him his hand over the river which has no bridge; and he was at the same time as troublesome to Samuel Rutherford, his minister and correspondent, as Greatheart's most troublesome pilgrim was to him. In two well-chosen words John Livingstone tells us the deep impression that the laird of Knockbrex made on the men of his day. With a quite Scriptural insight and terseness of expression, Livingstone simply says that Robert Gordon was the most 'single-hearted and painful' of all the Christian men known to his widely- acquainted and clear-sighted biographer. Now there may possibly be some need that the epithet 'painful' should be explained, as it is here applied to this good man, but everybody knows without any explanation what it is for any man to be 'single-hearted.' This was the fine character our Lord gave to Nathanael when He saluted him as an Israelite indeed in whom was no guile. It is singleness of heart that so clears up the understanding and the judgment that, as our Lord said at another time, it fills a man's whole soul with light. And Paul gives it as the best character that a servant can bring to or carry away from his master's house, that he is single-hearted and not an eye- servant in all that he says and does. I keep near me on my desk a book called Roget's _Thesaurus_, which is a rich treasure-house of the English language. And though I thought I knew what Livingstone meant when he called Robert Gordon a single-hearted man, at the same time I felt sure that Roget would help me to see Gordon better. And so he did. For when I had opened his book at the word 'single-hearted,' he at once told me that Knockbrex was an open, frank, natural, straightforward, altogether trustworthy man. He was above-board, outspoken, downright, blunt even, and bald, always calling a spade a spade. And with each new synonym Robert Gordon's honest portrait stood out clearer and clearer before me, till I thought I saw him, and wished much that we had more single-hearted men like him in the public and the private life of our day.