ster, finding him weaker, said, My lord, the marriage
day is drawing near; make ready; set aside all care of your estate and
the world, and give yourself to meditation and prayer and spiritual
conference. After that he was observed to be still upon that exercise,
and when none were near him, he was found praying; yea, when to
appearance sleeping, he was overheard to be engaged in that duty. After
some sleep, he called for one of his kinsmen with whom he was not
reconciled, and also for a minister who had before offended him, that
they might be friends again, which was done quickly. To the preacher he
said, "I have ground of offence against you, as a natural man, and now I
do to you that which all men breathing could not have moved me to do;
but now because the Holy Spirit commands me, I must obey, and therefore
freely forgive you as I would wish you to forgive me. You are in an
eminent station, walk before God and be faithful to your calling; take
heed to your steps; walk in the right road; hold your eye right; for all
the world decline not from holiness; and take example by me." To his
cousin he said, "Serve the Lord, and follow not the footsteps of your
father-in-law" (for he had married the bishop of Galloway's daughter);
"learn to know that you have a soul, for I say unto you the thousandth
part of the world know not that they have a soul: The world liveth
without any sense of God."

He desired the minister to sleep in a bed made upon the ground in the
chamber by him, and urged him to take a sleep, saying, "You and I have a
far journey to go; make ready for it." Four nights before his death, he
would drink a cup of wine to the minister, who said, "Receive it, my
lord, in hope you shall drink of the pure river of the water of life,
proceeding from the throne of God and from the Lamb." And when the cup
was in his hand, with a smiling countenance he said "I think I have good
cause to drink with a good will to you." After some heaviness the
minister said, "My lord, I have good news to tell you.----Be not afraid
of death and judgment, because the process that your Judge had against
you is cancelled and rent in pieces, and Christ hath trampled it under
his feet."----My lord answered with a smile, "Oh! that is a lucky tale,
I will then believe and rejoice, for sure I am, that Christ and I once
met, and will he not come again." The minister said, "You have gotten
the first fruit of the Spirit, the earnest thereof, and Christ