“His wife seeing the time draw near, spake to him and said, ‘The time of your relief is now near, and hard at hand.’ He answered, ‘I long for that time. O! happy they that are there.’ This was the last word he was heard sensibly to speak. Mr Frederick Carmichael being there, they went to prayer, expecting death so suddenly. In the midst of prayer he left his rattling(9) and the pangs and fetches of death begin thence, his senses went away. Whereupon they rose from prayer, and beheld till, in a very gentle manner, the pins of his tabernacle were loosed. “He said (_supra_) ‘Say not over good,’ because he thought she wronged him so far in wishing the contrary of what he longed for. “Mr Carmichael said, ‘You have been very faithful, and the Lord has honoured you to do him very much service, and now you are to get your reward.’ He answered ‘I think it reward enough, that ever I got leave to do him any service in truth and sincerity.’ ” This account was dictated to me by Mr Patrick Simson, Mr Gillespie’s cousin, who was with him to his last sickness, and at his death, and took minutes at the time of these his expressions. I read it over, after I had written it, to him. He corrected some words, and said to me, “This is all I mind about his expressions toward his close. They made some impression on me at the time, and I then set them down. I have not read the paper that I mind these forty years, but I am pretty positive these were his very words.” A day or two after, I went in with him to his closet to look for another paper, for now he had almost lost his sight, and in a bundle, I fell on the paper he wrote at the time, and told him of it. When we compared it with what I wrote, there was not the least variation betwixt the original and what I wrote, save an inconsiderable word or two, here altered; which is an instance of a strong memory, the greatest ever I knew. (Subscribed) R WODROW Sept. 8, 1707 WODROW’s ANALECTA, vol. I, pp. 154-159 * * * * * _What follows about Mr Gillespie I wrote also from Mr Simson’s mouth._ “George Gillespie was born January 21st, 1613. He was first minister at Weemyse, the first admitted under Presbytery 1638. He was minister at Weemyse about two years. He was very young when laureate, before he was seventeen. He was chaplain first to my lord Kenmure, then to the Lord of Cassilis. When he was with Cassilis, he wrote his ‘English Popish Ceremonies,’ which when printed, he was about twenty-two. He wrote a ‘Dialogue between a Civilian and Divine,’ a piece against Toleration, entitled ‘Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty.’ He died in strong faith of adherence, though in darkness as to assurance, which faith of adherence he preached much. He died December seventeen, 1648. If he had lived to January 21, 1649, he had been thirty six years.