preachers, and ſhorter preachings, fewer and ſhorter prayers among profeſſors; they would not ſleep and wake people, gaſping and gollering, and few underſtanding what they are ſaying, as if they were to be heard for much ſpeaking, or as if God could not or would not hear them without they cry loud, and loving to hear themſelves ſpeak, and others to admire and adore them: But theſe who are long and loud in public for ordinary, will be ſeldom and ſhort in ſecret; and when they are, they will extend their voice that others may hear them; which is expreſly forbiddenː When we enter into our cloſets, we may hear ourſelves, but no other. If that loud way of praying in ſecret had been practiſed by our ſufferers in throng priſons, eſpecially in Dunnotar caſtle, there would have been a frightful confuſed noiſe amongſt them, to confuſe one another, and to expoſe them to the mockage of the world as madmen. I am fore it was the only ſtraitening thing to ſufferers, eſpecially when under ſentence of death, and upon their dying days, when they could not get out their breath.
When he went from Loudon-bill, he paſſed thro' the ſhire of Air, Carrick, and into Galloway, preaching, baptizing, and marrying, but ſaid a ſhort time there. When he left Galloway, he ſaid, Farewel, Galloway, for I will never come back to thee again: Thou art now Galloway, but thou wilt become a Wallaway, and I fear other ſhires in the ſouth and weſt of Scotland will be little better. Mr. Peden had the ſame expreſſions.
He came to Clydeſdale, where he took moſt delight, and had greateſt liberty in preaching and praying, and ſeveral other miniſter's at that time had the ſame. He deſigned to have preached at Tinto-hill, but the lady of St. John's-Kirk got notice, and wrote to ſome public men that he was to preach at Home's common, in the back of Coulter-heights: He was that night in John Liddle's in Heldmire, near Tinto-hill: he went early in the Sabbath morning to it, thinking to ſpend
