----Upon which the
provost, going along with him to the house where the pretended jesuit
was, and entering the room, he immediately knew Mr. Durham, and saluted
him as laird of Easter Powrie, craving his pardon for their mistake, and
turning to the parson, asked where the person was he called the
jesuit?--Mr. Durham smiled, and the parson ashamed, asked pardon of them
both, and was rebuked by the provost, who said, Fy, fy! that any country
gentleman should be able to put our parson thus to silence.

His call and coming forth to the ministry was somewhat remarkable, for
in the time when the civil wars broke forth, several gentlemen being in
arms for the cause of religion, among whom he was chosen and called to
be a captain, in which station he behaved himself like another
Cornelius, being a devout man, and one that feared God with all his
house, and prayed to God always with his company, &c. When the Scots
army were about to engage with the English, he judged meet to call his
company to prayer before the engagement, and as he began to pray, Mr.
David Dickson, then professor of divinity at Glasgow coming past the
army, seeing the soldiers addressing themselves to prayer, and hearing
the voice of one praying, drew near, alighted from his horse, and joined
with them; and was so much taken with Mr. Durham's prayer, that he
called for the captain, and having conversed with him a little, he
solemnly charged him, that as soon as this piece of service was over, he
should devote himself to serve God in the holy ministry, for to that he
judged the Lord called him. But though, as yet, Mr. Durham had no
clearness to hearken to Mr. Dickson's advice, yet two remarkable
providences falling out just upon the back of this solemn charge,
served very much to clear his way to comply with Mr. Dickson's
desire:--The first was, In the engagement his horse was shot under him,
and he was mercifully preserved: the second was, In the heat of the
battle, an English soldier was on the point of striking him down with
his sword, but apprehending him to be a minister by his grave carriage,
black cloth and band (as was then in fashion with gentlemen), he asked
him if he was a priest? To which Mr. Durham replied, I am one of God's
priests;--and he spared his life. Mr. Durham, upon reflecting how
wonderfully the Lord had spared him, and preserved his life, and that
his saying he was a priest had been the mean thereof, resolved
therefore, as a testimony of