after that such a far-off tone in his letters, and such a far-off
look in his eyes, and such a far-off sound in his voice as they all felt
must have come from some great, and, to them, mysterious advance in his
spiritual life; but he never told even his son William what it was that
had of late so softened and quieted his proud and stormy heart. But, all
the time, it was his motives. The baseness of his motives even when he
did what it was but his duty and his praise to do, that quite killed
Earlston every day. The loathsomeness of a heart that hid such motives
in its unguessed depths made him often weep in the woods which his
grandfather had sanctified by his Bible readings a century before.
Rutherford saw with the glance of genius what was going on in his
friend's heart, when, in one letter, not referring to himself at all,
Earlston suddenly said, 'If Lucifer himself would but look deep enough
and long enough into his own heart, the sight of it would make him a
little child.' 'Did not I say,' burst out Rutherford, as he read, 'that
Alexander Gordon would lead the ring in Galloway?'

Earlston frightened into silence the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright on one
occasion also, when at their first meeting after he had spoken out so
bravely before the king and the Parliament, and they were to move him a
vote of thanks, he cried out: 'Fathers and brethren, the heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and you do not know
it. For I had a deep, malicious, revengeful motive in my heart behind
all my fine and patriotic speeches in Parliament. I hated Montrose more
than I loved the freedom of the Kirk. Spare me, therefore, the sentence
of putting that act of shame on your books!' It was discoveries like
this that accumulated in John Livingstone's note-book till he blotted out
all his instances and left only the blessed result, 'Alexander Gordon, a
man of great spirit, but much subdued by inward exercise, and who was
visited with most rare experiences of downcasting and uplifting.' No
doubt, dear John Livingstone; we can well believe it. Too rare with us,
alas! but every day with your noble friend; every day and every night,
when he lay down and when he rose up. His very dreams often cast him
down all day after them; for he said, If my heart were not one of the
chambers of hell itself, such hateful things would not stalk about in it
when the watchman is asleep. Downcastings! downcastings! Yes, down to
suc