y the divine force of this discourse, as not to regard death,
but to judge them the more happy who should then be called, not knowing
whether he should have such comfort again with them.

After this the plague abated; though, in the midst of it, Wishart
constantly visited those that lay in the greatest extremity, and
comforted them by his exhortations.

When he took his leave of the people of Dundee, he said, "That God had
almost put an end to that plague, and that he was now called to another
place."

He went from thence to Montrose; where he sometimes preached, but spent
most of his time in private meditation and prayer.

It is said, that before he left Dundee, and while he was engaged in the
labours of love to the bodies, as well as to the souls, of those poor
afflicted people, cardinal Beaton engaged a desperate popish priest,
called John Weighton, to kill him; the attempt to execute which was as
follows: one day, after Wishart had finished his sermon, and the people
departed, a priest stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs, with a
naked dagger in his hand under his gown.--But Mr. Wishart having a
sharp, piercing eye, and seeing the priest as he came from the pulpit,
said to him, "My friend, what would you have?" and immediately clapping
his hand upon the dagger, took it from him. The priest being terrified,
fell on his knees, confessed his intention, and craved pardon. A noise
being hereupon raised, and it coming to the ears of those who were sick,
they cried, "Deliver the traitor to us, we will take him by force;" and
they burst in at the gate. But Wishart, taking the priest in his arms,
said, "Whatsoever hurts him shall hurt me; for he hath done me no
mischief, but much good, by teaching more heedfulness for the time to
come." By this conduct he appeased the people and saved the life of the
wicked priest.

Soon after his return to Montrose, the cardinal again conspired his
death, causing a letter to be sent to him as if it had been from his
familiar friend, the Laird of Kennier, in which he was desired with all
possible speed to come to him, as he was taken with a sudden sickness.
In the mean time the cardinal had provided sixty men armed to lie in
wait within a mile and a half of Montrose, in order to murder him as he
passed that way.

The letter coming to Wishart's hand by a boy, who also brought him a
horse for the journey. Wishart, accompanied by some honest men, his
friends, set forward; but someth