ed thereby according to the house's desire, to use
all freedom becoming the integrity of your consciences, the weight of
the cause, and the integrity and honour of such an assembly. I will no
more, Sir, trouble you, but with one word upon the whole matter, to
desire you seriously to consider if this business, whereon the eyes of
God are fixed, deserves not a special day of humiliation and prayer, for
the Lord's extraordinary assistance and direction of this assembly.

_The Lives of Messrs. ROBERT TRAILS._

Messrs. Robert Trails, the father and son, deserve a place among the
Scots Worthies, as they were brought to much trouble for their
faithfulness and zeal for our reformation-principles. Old Mr. Robert
Trail, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, along with Mr. James Guthrie
and others, met in a private house in Edinburgh, and assisted in drawing
up a humble address and supplication to the king; but before it was
finished, they were apprehended by the managers of the times, and
committed prisoners to the castle of Edinburgh, without a hearing;
matters went so high at that time, that a simple proposal of petitioning
the king for a redress of grievances was reckoned criminal. Mr. Robert
Trail was brought Aug. 1661. before the lords of articles, and
afterwards before the parliament, where he delivered an excellent speech
in his own defence, and pointed out the cruelty and injustice then
exercised, and the many false accusations that were exhibited against
him and his reverend brethren at that time. This excellent speech of his
may be seen in Wodrow's history, vol. I. page 73. After seven months
imprisonment he wrote to Mr. Thomas Wylie minister at Kirkudbright. He
says, "I need not write to you how matters do here. This I must say,
your imprisoned brethren are kindly dealt with by our kind Lord, for
whose cause and interest we suffer; and if any of us be straitened, it
is not in him, for we have large allowance from him, could we take it.
We know it fares the better with us, that you and such as you, mind us
at the throne. We are waiting from day to day what men will do with us;
at best we are expecting banishment, but our sentence must proceed from
the Lord; and whatsoever it shall be as good from him; and whithersoever
he shall send us, he will be with us, and shall let us know that the
earth is his, and the fulness thereof." This was the resigned Christian
temper of these worthies. He was afterwards banished, and