ve. She answered, Yes, he was, and she
hoped he should prove a better man than he was a boy, and with that she
called upon him to come to his father. He came weeping, and kneeled,
beseeching his father, for Christ's sake, to pardon his misbehaviour,
and deeply engaged to be a new man. His father reproached him and
threatened him. Yet at length, by his tears, and Mrs. Forsyth's
importunities, he was persuaded to a reconciliation. The boy entreated
his father to send him to the college, and there to try his behaviour,
and if ever thereafter he should break, he said, He should be content
his father should disclaim him for ever: So his father carried him home,
and put him to the college, and there he became a diligent student, of
great expectation, and shewed himself a sincere convert; and so he
proceeded to the ministry. His first settlement was at Selkirk, while he
was yet very young, and the country rude. While he was there, his
ministry was rather admired by some, than received by many; for he was
always attended by the prophet's shadow, the hatred of the wicked; yea,
even the ministers of that country, were more ready to pick a quarrel
with his person, than to follow his doctrine, as may appear to this day
in their synodal records, where we find he had many to censure him, and
only some to defend him; yet it was thought his ministry in that place
was not without fruit, though he stayed but short time there. Being a
young man unmarried, he boarded himself in the house of one Mitchelhill,
and took a young boy of his to be his bedfellow, who to his dying day
retained both a respect to Mr. Welch and his ministry, from the
impressions Mr. Welch's behaviour made upon his apprehension, though
but a child. His custom was when he went to bed at night, to lay a Scots
plaid above his bed-clothes, and when he went to his night-prayers, to
sit up and cover himself negligently therewith, and so to continue. For
from the beginning of his ministry to his death, he reckoned the day ill
spent if he stayed not seven or eight hours in prayer; and this the boy
did not forget even to old age.

An old man of the name of Ewart in Selkirk, who remembered Mr. Welch's
being in that place said, He was a type of Christ; an expression more
significant than proper, for his meaning was, That he was an example
that imitated Christ, as indeed in many things he did: He also said,
That his custom was to preach publicly once every day, and to spend his
wh