Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/183

 when young, doubtless had its desired effect upon them, for as they grew in years, they also grew in the knowledge of the blessed truth; and since that time, some of them have become public preachers thereof." Believing it to be her duty to appear a preacher of righteousness, she was very solicitous that her example might, in all respects, correspond with her station.

Robert Barclay, after his marriage, lived about sixteen years with his father; in which time he wrote most of those works by which his fame has been established. All his time, however, was not passed in endeavouring to serve the cause of religion with his pen. He both acted and suffered for it. His whole existence, indeed, seems to have been henceforth devoted to the interests of that profession of religion which he had adopted. In prosecution of his purpose, he made a number of excursions into England, Holland, and particular parts of Germany; teaching, as he went along, the universal and saving light of Christ, sometimes vocally, but as often, we may suppose, by what he seems to have considered the far more powerful manner, expressive silence. In these peregrinations, the details of which, had they been preserved, would have been deeply interesting, he was on some occasions accompanied by the famous William Penn, and probably also by others of the brethren.

The first of his publications in the order of time was, "Truth cleared of Calumnies, occasioned by a book entitled, A Dialogue between a Quaker and a Stable Christian, written by the Rev. William Mitchell, a minister or preacher in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen." "The Quakers," says a defender of the Scottish church, "were, at this time, only newly risen up; they were, like every, new sect, obtrusively forward; some of their tenets were of a startling, and some of them of an incomprehensible kind, and to the rigid presbyterians especially, they were exceedingly offensive. Hearing these novel opinions, not as simply stated and held by the Quakers, who were, generally speaking, no great logicians, but in their remote consequences, they regarded them with horror, and in the heat of their zeal, it must be confessed, often lost sight both of charity and truth. They thus gave their generally passive opponents great advantages over them. Barclay, who was a man of great talents, was certainly in this instance successful in refuting many false charges, and rectifying many forced constructions that had been put, upon parts of their practice, and, upon the whole, setting the character of his silent brethren in a more favourable light than formerly, though he was far from having demonstrated, as these brethren fondly imagined, 'the soundness and scripture verity of their principles.'" This publication was dated at Ury, the 19th of the second Month, 1670, and in the eleventh month of the same year, he added to it, by way of appendix, "Some things of weighty concernment proposed in meekness and love, by way of queries, to the serious consideration of the inhabitants of Aberdeen, which also may be of use to such as are of the same mind with them elsewhere in this nation." These queries, twenty in number, were more particularly directed to Messrs David Lyal, George Meldrum, and John Menzies, the ministers of Aberdeen who had, not only from the pulpit, forbidden their people to read the aforesaid treatise, but had applied to the magistrates of Aberdeen to suppress it. Mitchell wrote a reply to "Truth cleared of calumnies," and, on the 24th day of the tenth Month, 1671, Barclay finished a rejoinder at Ury, under the title of "William Mitchell unmasked, or the staggering instability of the pretended stable Christian discovered; his omissions observed, and weakness unvailed," &c. This goes over the same ground with the former treatise, and is seasoned with several severe strokes of sarcasm against these Aberdonians, who, "notwithstanding they had sworn to avoid a detestable neutrality, could now preach under the bishop, dispense with the doxology, forbear lecturing and other parts of the Directorial discipline, at the bishop's order, and yet keep a reserve for