on my spirit this morning was my utter inability to put away
sin. I saw that it was as possible for a rock to raise itself as it was
for me to raise my heart from sin to holiness.'

But the study of divinity is not a close profession: a profession for men
only, and from which women are shut out; nor is the method of it shut off
from any woman or any man. 'I counsel you to study sanctification,'
wrote Rutherford, the same year to the Lady Cardoness. And if you think
that Rutherford was a closet mystic and an unpractical and head-carried
enthusiast, too good for this rough world, read his letter to Lady
Cardoness, and confess your ignorance of this great and good man. 'Deal
kindly with your tenants,' he writes, 'and let your conscience be your
factor'; and again, 'When your husband's passion overcomes him, my
counsel to your ladyship is, that a soft answer putteth away wrath.' And
lastly, 'Let it not be said that the Lord hath forsaken your house
because of your neglect of the Sabbath-day and its exercises. I counsel
you to study sanctification among your tenants, and beside your husband,
and among your children and your guests. Your lawful and loving pastor,
in his only, only Lord,--SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

XXII. ALEXANDER BRODIE OF BRODIE

'Mr. Rutherford's letter desiring me to deny myself.'--Brodie's
_Diary_.

Alexander Brodie was born at Brodie in the north country in the year
1617. That was the same year that saw Samuel Rutherford matriculate in
the College of Edinburgh. Of young Brodie's early days we know nothing;
for, though he has left behind him a full and faithful diary both of his
personal and family life, yet, unfortunately, Brodie did not begin to
keep that diary till he was well advanced in middle age. Young Brodie's
father died when his son and heir was but fourteen years old, and after
taking part of the curriculum of study in King's College, Aberdeen, the
young laird married a year before he had come to his majority. His
excellent wife was only spared to be with him for two years when she was
taken away from him, leaving him the widowed father of one son and one
daughter.

As time goes on we find the laird of Brodie a member of Parliament, a
member of General Assembly, and a Lord of Session. He was one of the
commissioners also, who were sent out to the Hague to carry on
negotiations with Charles, and during the many troubled years that
followed that mission, we find Brodie co