Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/219

Rh English, [i. e. while Scotland was subject to the English commonwealth,] when there were a great many officers in the church, he was preaching very boldly upon that head, and the officers and soldiers got all up, and many of them drew their swords : all went into confusion. Mr Menzies, his colleague, was very timorouse and crap in beneath the pulpit, as is said. The soldiers advanced towards the pulpit. After he had stopped a little, he said, with much boldness, here is the man spoke soe and soe, and opened his breast ready to receive the thrusts, if any will venture to give them for the truth. He had once been a captain, and was one of the most bold and resolute men in his day.—iii, 1 53.

"Mr Andrew Cant was minister of the new town of Aberdeen. He was a most zealous straight man for the covenant and cause of God. I hear he had that expression at his death, that his conscience bare him witness that he never gave a wrong touch to the ark of God all his dayes. The malignants used to call him one of the apostles of the covenant" iv, 265.

CARGILL,, an eminent preacher of the more uncompromising order of presbyterians in the reign of Charles II., was the son of respectable parents in the parish of Rattray, in Perthshire, where he was born, about the year 1610. We find the following account of the state of his mind in early life, amongst the memoranda of Mr Wodrow, who appears to have written down every tradition of the fathers of the church, which came to his ears. "Mr Donald Cargill," says the pious historian, "for some twenty or thirty years before his death, was never under doubts as to his interest, and the reason was made known to him in ane extraordinary way, and the way was this, as Mr C. told my father. When he was in his youth, he was naturally hasty and fiery, and he fell under deep soul exercise, and that in a very high degree, and for a long time after all means used, public and private, and the trouble still increasing, he at length came to a positive resolution to make away with himself, and accordingly went out more than once to drown himself in a water, but he was still scarred by people coming by, or somewhat or other. At length, after several essays, he takes on a resolution to take a time or place where nothing should stop, and goes out early one morning by break of day to a coal pit, and when he comes to it, and none at all about, he comes to the brink of it to throw himself in, and just as he was going to jump in he heard ane audible voice from heaven, ' Son, be of cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee,' and that stopped him, and he said to ——, that he never got leave to doubt of his interest But, blessed be God, we have a more sure word of prophecy to lean to, though I believe where such extraordinary revelations are, there is ane inward testimony of the spirit cleaving marks of grace to the soul too."

We learn from other sources that Mr Cargill, having studied at Aberdeen, and, being persuaded by his father to enter the church, became minister of the Barony Parish in Glasgow, some time after the division among the clergy, in 1650. He continued to exercise the duties of this situation in a very pious and exemplary manner, until the restoration of the episcopal church, when his refusing to accept collation from the archbishop, or celebrate the king's birth-day, drew upon him the attention of the authorities, and he was banished, by act of council to the country, beyond the Tay. To this edict, he appears to have paid little attention; yet he did not awake the jealousy of the government till 1668, when he was called before the council, and commanded peremptorily to observe their former act. In September, 1669, upon his petition to the council, he was permitted to come to Edinburgh upon some legal business, but not to reside in