it was not his wont to allude to these in later life, when he could have said in the words of George Fox, "I cannot fight, for the spirit of strife is slain within me." He had enlisted in the army of the Lord of Hosts, who not only forbids revenge but commands the heartfelt forgiveness of all injury; without granting His followers the option, which they are sometimes tempted to allow themselves, of saying, This wrong is too great, or that slight is too small for me to forgive "from the heart." When Governor of Strathbogie, and at the age of thirty-eight, David Barclay married Katherine, daughter of Sir Robert Gordon, of Gordonstown, son of the Earl of Sutherland, and cousin to James I. When, at the time of Charles the First's captivity in the Isle of Wight, the Scotch nation made a vigorous effort to rescue him, one army under the command of the Duke of Hamilton was sent into England; the protection of Scotland and of the person of the Prince of Wales-who was expected to land there-being meanwhile committed to three persons, of whom Colonel Barclay was one. The whole country, indeed, north of the Tay was confided to his care, at the head of his own regiment and 500 horse, a trust which he fulfilled with faithfulness and energy.* When Cromwell came into power, Colonel Barclay was dismissed from his post, and, finding himself unable to render further service to the Prince, he took up his abode at Gordonstown, where he lived for several years. After a time he purchased the estate of Ury, near Aberdeen, which became the seat of the family. He sat in several successive Parliaments, and was so popular that he had much influence in Scotland * "Colonel Barclay's locality was to be all benorth St. Johnston to Dings-bey-head, which was all Scotland benorth the water of Tay."-Gilbert Gordon of Sallach. and particularly in his own neighbourhood. Letters from his constituents still exist, signed by the chief gentlemen of the shires he represented, containing thanks for the great services he had rendered his country. There is one from his cousin, the Earl Marischal, who, after returning a hearty acknowledgment for many favours, adds-"And that I may in some measure express it, . . . I have thought fit to signify that I shall be very willing to strengthen your conveyance by all that's in my power, as ye shall desire the same, with jovial heartiness. And I do entreat that when anything relating to me shall come before you, that ye will own the same for my interest and good. My wife remembers her service to you, and we both to your lady and little Robin." In 1663 David Barclay had the great sorrow of losing his excellent wife, whose dying request it was that their eldest boy, Robert, should be removed from Paris, where he was pursuing his studies in the Scotch Roman Catholic College, of which his uncle was the Rector. Here, as Croese says, he was "brought up in good literature, and after a manner that suited to his quality, and those noble youths that were his fellow-students." But his mother's heart was uneasy about his best welfare, though letters home had always told of the honours he was winning, and of the brilliant course that lay before him. It was about this time that David Barclay-owing to some strange misapprehension, or fell design of depriving him of his estate and life-was committed a close prisoner to Edinburgh Castle. That this should be done by an order from Government after the Restoration caused great surprise, as Colonel Barclay had suffered much from his faithful adherence to the cause of the late King. When liberated, in consequence of the urgent interposition of his neverfailing friend the Earl of Middleton, nothing whatever was laid to his charge nor any reason assigned for his committal. Colonel Barclay was now between fifty and sixty years of age, and for some time, with a keen sense of the instability of all carthly things, he had longed to devote the remainder of his days wholly to the service of the King of kings. But to which of the many religious bodies should he give his adherence? The wide experience of the more active years of his life had given him the opportunity to observe their varied practices; whilst the more recent and leisurely study of systems of divinity had made him familiar with their several doctrines. But each sect laid claim to be the only true Christians, and violently persecuted those who differed from them. In this perplexity he betook himself to the careful reading of the New Testament, yearning to know the religion of Christ in its first purity; by which-so his eldest grandson records" He came clearly to see the difference between what it was in itself, and the strange shape that several pretenders thereto had put it in; that in itself it was love, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost; that it taught to be humble, patient, self-denied, to endure all things and to suffer all things.' Strange stories of a people scoffingly called Quakers now reached his ears, which gave him the impression that if they were really such as even their enemies portrayed them, there was something so remarkable about them as to be well worthy of the most earnest investigation. He accordingly turned his whole attention to diligent inquiry relative to "this way,' which was everywhere spoken against. And when in London, some months before his imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle, he clearly ascertained by conversation with the leaders of the Society of Friends there what they were setting forth as the truth of God; and then (as a writer in the Theological Review remarks) "gripped fast by that truth with his whole soul, and never let it go." He noticed, moreover, that the Friends loved one another, and remembered that this was the test which Christ has given by which His disciples may be known; and whilst he thought their principles coincided with the teaching of the New Testament, he observed that they practised what they taught. Of the inner working of his mind meanwhile we see nothing, but his subsequent life is a sufficient proof that earnestly seeking after truth he had "found Him of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets, did write," and accepted Him as his Saviour and his Lord. During his confinement in Edinburgh Castle he was much helped by earnest converse with an old comrade in arms, who shared his room, and who encouraged him to make an open avowal of his views, as he himself had done. This was Lord Swintoune, of Swintoune (an ancestor of Sir Walter Scott), who during his imprisonment seemingly cared more for spreading Christian truth than for defending his own life; so that the governor of the castle, in the fear that he would press his "heretical" opinions on his fellow-prisoners, shut him up alone for several weeks. This John, Lord Swintoune, nineteenth baron in descent of the old and once powerful family of Swintoune, had, in conjunction with Sir William Lockhart, of Lee, been entrusted by Cromwell with the chief management of Scotch affairs during the Commonwealth, when he sat in the Scotch Parliament, was one of the Lords of the Court of Sessions, and member of the Council of State. After the Restoration he was tried for his life. Bishop Burnet writes:-" He was then become a Quaker, and did, with a sort of eloquence that moved the whole house, lay out all his own errors, and the ill-spirit he was in when he did the things that were charged on him, with so tender a sense that he seemed as one indif D ferent what they should do with him; and, without so much as moving for mercy, or even delay, he did so effectually prevail on them that they recommended him to the King as a fit subject for mercy." He was liberated after a long imprisonment. Whilst the great change that had passed over the Laird of Ury did not cost him the friendship of the most generous and liberal of his acquaintance, it was yet the cause of insult and abuse from the low and malicious. In the north of Scotland, and chiefly at Aberdeen, the Friends were frequently mobbed by the dregs of the people, set on by the zealots of that day. Patient under oppression, unprovoked by unkindness, unmoved by scorn as the Friends usually were, it was said that none surpassed David Barclay in the calmness with which he bore these trials. On the occasion of some special indignity one of his relatives expressed sorrow that the laird should be treated thus in the city where he had once stood so high in public favour. But he replied that he now thought it a higher honour to be insulted for his religious principles than he had formerly considered it to be met by the magistrates some miles outside the city and escorted to a public banquet: "Happier I, with loss of all, Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall, Than when shrieve and squire were seen With bared heads to meet me, "When each goodwife o'er and o'er, From red fields of slaughter." David Barclay had counted the cost of his decision, and never doubted that he had chosen aright; but he |