James Guthrie was the son of the laird of that ilk in the county of Angus. St. Andrews was his _alma mater_, and under her excellent nurture young Guthrie soon became a student of no common name. His father had destined him for the Episcopal Church, and, what with his descent from an ancient and influential family, his remarkable talents, and his excellent scholarship, it is not to be wondered at that a bishop's mitre sometimes dangled before his ambitious eyes. 'He was then prelatic,' says Wodrow in his _Analecta_, 'and strong for the ceremonies.' But as time went on, young Guthrie's whole views of duty and of promotion became totally changed, till, instead of a bishop's throne, he ended his days on the hangman's ladder. After having served his college some time as regent or assistant professor in the Moral Philosophy Chair, Guthrie took licence, and was immediately thereafter settled as parish minister of Lauder, in the momentous year 1638. And when every parish in Scotland sent up its representatives to Edinburgh to subscribe the covenant in Greyfriars Churchyard, the parish of Lauder had the pride of seeing its young minister take his life in his hand, like all the best ministers and truest patriots in the land. But just as Guthrie was turning in at the gate of the Greyfriars, who should cross the street before him, so as almost to run against him, but the city executioner! The omen--for it was a day of omens--made the young minister stagger for a moment, but only for a moment. At the same time the ominous incident made such an impression on the young Covenanter's heart and imagination, that he said to some of his fellow-subscribers as he laid down the pen, 'I know that I shall die for what I have done this day, but I cannot die in a better cause.' In the lack of better authorities we are compelled to trace the footsteps of James Guthrie through the Laodicean pages of Robert Baillie for several years to come. Baillie did not like Guthrie, and there was no love lost between the two men. The one man was all fire together in every true and noble cause, and the other we spew out of our mouth at every page of his indispensable book. As Carlyle says, Baillie contrived to 'carry his dish level' through all that terrible jostle of a time. And accordingly while we owe Baillie our very grateful thanks that he kept such a diary, and carried on such an extensive and regular correspondence during all that distracted time, we owe him no other thanks. He carried his dish level, and he had his reward.