ll, there is what we call the
death-grip. A dying man feels the whole world giving way under him. All
he built upon, leaned upon, looked to, is like sliding sand, like sinking
water; and he grasps at anything, anybody, the bedpost, the bed-curtains,
the bed-clothes, his wife's hand, his son's arm, the very air sometimes.
On what, on whom will you seize hold in your last gasp and death-grip?

'Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!'

XVI. JAMES GUTHRIE

'The short man who could not bow.'--_Cromwell_.

James Guthrie was the son of the laird of that ilk in the county of
Angus. St. Andrews was his _alma mater_, and under her excellent nurture
young Guthrie soon became a student of no common name. His father had
destined him for the Episcopal Church, and, what with his descent from an
ancient and influential family, his remarkable talents, and his excellent
scholarship, it is not to be wondered at that a bishop's mitre sometimes
dangled before his ambitious eyes. 'He was then prelatic,' says Wodrow
in his _Analecta_, 'and strong for the ceremonies.' But as time went on,
young Guthrie's whole views of duty and of promotion became totally
changed, till, instead of a bishop's throne, he ended his days on the
hangman's ladder. After having served his college some time as regent or
assistant professor in the Moral Philosophy Chair, Guthrie took licence,
and was immediately thereafter settled as parish minister of Lauder, in
the momentous year 1638. And when every parish in Scotland sent up its
representatives to Edinburgh to subscribe the covenant in Greyfriars
Churchyard, the parish of Lauder had the pride of seeing its young
minister take his life in his hand, like all the best ministers and
truest patriots in the land. But just as Guthrie was turning in at the
gate of the Greyfriars, who should cross the street before him, so as
almost to run against him, but the city executioner! The omen--for it
was a day of omens--made the young minister stagger for a moment, but
only for a moment. At the same time the ominous incident made such an
impression on the young Covenanter's heart and imagination, that he said
to some of his fellow-subscribers as he laid down the pen, 'I know that I
shall die for what I have done this day, but I cannot die in a better
cause.'

In the lack of better authorities we are compelled to trace the footsteps
of James Guthrie through the Laodicean pages of