to the limited and imperfect usage of the times) for the church. When only twenty years of age, his learning and piety gained him an unanimous call from the adjoining parish of Penpont, where, at the period to which my narrative more particularly refers, he had laboured successfully and most acceptably for many years. In the meantime, his good friend, his uncle, had died, as also his parents; whilst a blind girl, his only sister, had come to live with him at the manse. About twelve months after his settlement, he married. For many years after Samuel Austin became minister of Penpont, all seems to have gone on well. I find his settlement noticed in the diary referred to in the following terms:—“16th September, 16—. This day I have been solemnly inducted into the pastoral charge of many souls. Lord, what am I or my father’s house, that thou shouldst honour me thus!” Though re-instated on his throne, principally, by the Scottish Presbyterians, through the agency and address of the famous General Monk, and notwithstanding his having more than once sworn to the famous National League and Covenant, yet no sooner was Charles the Second, of infamous and treacherous memory, fairly established on the throne, than, yielding to the interested suggestions of intriguing and selfish counsellors, and to those of the arch-traitor Sharp, in particular, did this monarch set about establishing Prelacy in Scotland as well as in England, under the agency of Middleton and Lauderdale. By them, Sharp, Fairful, Wishart, Sydserff, Mitchel, Hamilton, Wallace, Fletcher, Haliburton, Forbes, Paterson, M’Kenzie, and Leighton, were ordered to be consecrated, and sent down to Scotland, with the titles of Bishop and Archbishop, to take their seats as an Estate in the Scottish Parliament and to forbid all induction into benefices, unless by the imposition of the prelates’ hands. This was immediately and extensively remonstrated against by Synods and Presbyteries, as well as by lay and clerical individuals, throughout Scotland in general, but more particularly throughout the countries south of the Forth and Clyde. It was throwing up, in spirit at least, all that their ancestors had been contending for, even unto the death by _fire_, for more than 150 years, and was, at the same time, submitting to an illegal and arbitrary adjustment of star-chambers and councils. With Presbytery was there all along entwined and commingled political freedom and equal law; and the Covenanters of the year 1662 saw full well, that if they sacrificed the one, they must likewise surrender the other. It was about this time, that, on account of Mr Austin’s neglect of obtaining conformation or induction of the then Bishop of Galloway, within whose diocese Penpont lay, he received a summons ordering him to appear incontinently before Bishop Hamilton (brother to Lord Belhaven), to answer for his contumacious neglect. As Mr Austin had originally been inducted and ordained, according to the rules of