in and sat next Miss Porterfield. After sermon was
over he asked the minister's name. She sullenly enough told him, and
desired to know wherefore he asked. He said because he perceived him
to be a very great man, and in his opinion might be chaplain to any
prince in Europe, though he had never seen him nor heard of him
before. She inquired about him, and found it was O. Cromwell"
(Wodrow's Anal., vol. v. p. 186, MSS in Bib. Ad.).

Mr. Durham sided neither with the Resolutionists nor Protestors. For
this he was strongly blamed at the time by Principal Baillie, who
took a keen part in the controversy, (Let. and Jour., vol. ii. p.
376) though after his death, he recorded, in the following terms,
his opinion of Mr. Durham's character and talents. "From the day I
was employed by the presbytery to preach, and to pray, and to
impose, with others, hands upon him, for the ministry at Glasgow, I
did live to the very last with him in great and uninterrupted love,
and in high estimation of his egregious endowments, which made him
to me precious among the most excellent divines I have been
acquainted with in the whole isle. O, if it were the good pleasure
of the Master of the vineyard to plant many such noble vines in this
land!" (Durham's Commentary upon the book of Revelation, Address to
the Reader, p. vi). The work written by Durham, entitled, "The Law
Unsealed, or a Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments," has
commendatory prefaces prefixed to it, by two distinguished English
puritans, Dr. John Owen, and Mr. William Jenkyn. Dr. Owen wrote
likewise a preface to the Clavis Cantici, or an Exposition of the
Song of Solomon, by James Durham, minister at Glasgow, 4to, 1669.
Doubts have been expressed, however, whether Wood, in his Athenae
Oxomenses, (vol. ii, p. 747, Lond. 1721) was warranted to attribute
this preface to Owen, "as the preface is anonymous" (Orme's Life of
Owen, Append., p. 505). But the only copy of the work, which is in
my possession, (Glas. 1723) has attached to it the name of "John
Owen, May 20, 1669."

The widow of Mr. Durham, who was the daughter of Mr. William Muir of
Glanderston, a branch of the family of the Muirs of Caldwell, was,
in 1679, twice committed to prison, for having in her house
religio