written in the Jerusalem Chamber at
Westminster, consoling and sanctifying her for the death of his old
friend William Hume, lately chaplain in the Covenanters' army at
Newcastle.

By the time that Rutherford was minister at Anwoth, and then prisoner in
Aberdeen, John Meine, junior, had grown up to be almost a minister
himself. He is not yet a minister, but he is now a divinity student,
hard at work at his books, and putting on the shopkeeper's apron an hour
every afternoon to let his father have a rest. The old merchant used to
rise at all hours in the morning, and spend the early summer mornings on
Arthur's Seat with his Psalm-book in his hand, and the winter mornings at
his shop fire, reading translations from the Continental Reformers,
comparing them with his Bible, singing Psalms by himself and offering
prayer. Till his student son felt, as he stood behind the counter for an
hour in the afternoon, that he was like Aaron and Hur holding up his
father's praying and prevailing hands.

There have always been speculative difficulties and animated debates in
our Edinburgh Theological Societies, and, from the nature of the study,
from the nature of the human mind, and from the nature of the Scottish
mind, there will always be. John Meine's difficulties were not the same
difficulties that exercise the minds of the young divines in our day, but
they were anxious and troublesome enough to him, and he naturally turned
to his old friend at Anwoth for counsel and advice. When Rutherford came
in to Edinburgh, there was always a prophet's chamber in Barbara
Hamilton's house ready for him; and when the winter session came to a
close her young son would set off to Anwoth with a thousand questions in
his head. But Aberdeen was too far away, and, though the posts of that
day were expensive and uncertain, the old merchant did not grudge to see
his son's letters sent off to Samuel Rutherford. Samuel Rutherford knew
that John Meine, junior, was not shallow in his divinity, young as he
was, nor an entire stranger to sanctification, else he would not have
written that still extant letter back to him:--'I have little of Christ
in this prison, little but desires. All my present stock of Christ is
some hunger for Him; I cannot say but that I am rich in that. But,
blessed be my Lord, who taketh me as I am. Christ had only one summer in
His year, and shall we insist on two? My love to your father. And, for
yourself, if you would b