Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/301

 man," says Boston, "of great learning, but excessively modest, undervaluing himself, and much valuing the tolerable performances of his students. During this session, the only one Boston appears to have regularly attended in divinity, he also for a time attended the Hebrew class, taught by Mr Alexander Rule, but remarks that he found no particular advantage from it After returning from the university, Mr Boston had different applications made to him, and made various attempts to settle himself in a school, but with no good effect, and in the spring of 161)6, he accepted of an invitation from Lady Mersington to superintend the education of her grand-child, Andrew Fletcher of Aberlady, a boy of nine years of age, whose father having died young his mother was married again to lieutenant-colonel Bruce of Kennet, in Clackmannanshire. This he was the rather induced to undertake, because the boy being in Edinburgh at the High School, it gave his preceptor the power of waiting upon Hie divinity lectures in the college. In less than a month, however, his pupil was taken home to Kennet, whither Boston accompanied him, and never had another opportunity of attending the college. In this situation Mr Boston continued for about a year, and during that period was pressed, once and again, by the united presbyteries of Stirling and Dumblane, to take license as a preacher, which, for reasons not very obvious, he declined. In the month of March, 1697, he returned to Dunse, and by his friend Mr Golden, minister of that place, was induced to enter upon trials for license before the united presbyteries of Dunse and Churnside, by which he was licensed as a probationer in the Scottish church, June 15th, 1697. In this character Mr Boston officiated, as opportunity offered, for two years and three months, partly within the bounds of his native presbytery, and partly within the bounds of the presbytery of Stirling. It Mas first proposed by his friends of the presbytery of Dunse to settle him in the parish of Foulden, the episcopal incumbent of which was recently dead, and, on the first day he officiated there, he gave a remarkably decisive proof of the firmness of his principles. The episcopal precentor was, under the protection of the great men of the parish, still continued. Boston had no freedom to employ him without suitable acknowledgements, which, not being clothed with the ministerial character, he could not take. On the morning, therefore, of the first Sabbath, he told this official, that he would conduct the psalmody himself, which accordingly he did, and there was nothing said about it. In the parish of Foulden, however, he could not be settled without the concurrence of Lord Ross, who had had a great hand in the enormous oppressions of the preceding period. A personal application on the part of the candidate was required by his lordship, and the presbytery were urgent with Boston to make it, but to this he could not bring his mind, so the project came to nothing. He was next proposed for the parish of Abbey; but this scheme also was frustrated through the deceitfulness of the principal heritor, who was a minister himself, and found means to secure the other heritors, through whose influence he was inducted by the presbytery to the living, though the parishioners were reclaiming, and charging the presbytery with the blood of their souls, if they went on with the settlement. "This," remarks Boston, "was the ungospel-like way of settling, that even then prevailed in the case of planting of churches, a way which I ever abhorred." After these disappointments, Mr Boston removed to his former situation in Clackmannanshire, where he remained for a twelvemonth, and in that time was proposed for Carnock, for Clackmannan, and for Dollar, all of which proposals were fruitless, and he returned to Dunse in the month of May, 1699.

Mr Boston had no sooner returned to his native place, than he was proposed by his friend Mr Golden for the parish of Simprin, where, after a great deal of hesitation on his part, and some little chicanery on the part of the presbytery