Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/68

411 upon ft, that he should be so wonderfully sanctified in body, as well as in soul and spirit, as that, for all the future years of his life, he, from that hour, should find so constant a disinclination to, and abhorrence of, those criminal sensualities, to which he fancied he was before so invincibly impelled by his very constitution, that he was used strangely to think and to say, that Omnipotence itself could not reform him, without destroying that body and giving him another.

Nor was he only delivered from that bondage of corruption which had been habitual to him for many years, but felt in his breast so contrary a disposition, that he was grieved to see human nature, in those to whom he was most entirely a stranger, prostituted to such low and contemptible pursuits He, therefore, exerted his natural courage in a very new kind of combat, and became an open advocate for religion, in all its principles, so far as he was acquainted with them, and all its precepts, relating to sobriety, righteousness and godliness. Yet he was very desirous and cautious that he might not run into an extreme, and made it one of his first petitions to God, the very day after these amazing impressions had been wrought in his mind, that he might not be suffered to behave with such an affected strictness and preciseness, as would lead others about him into mistaken notions of religion, and expose it to reproach or suspicion, as if it were an unlovely or uncomfortable thing. For this reason he endeavoured to appear as cheerful in conversation as he conscientiously could; though, in spite of all his precautions, some traces of that deep inward sense which he had of his guilt and misery, would at times appear. He made no secret of it, however, that his views were entirely changed, though he concealed the particular circumstances attending that change. He told his most intimate companions freely, that he had reflected on the course of life in which he had so long joined them, and found it to be folly and madness, unworthy a rational creature, and much more unworthy persons calling themselves Christians. And he set up his standard, upon all occasions, against principles of infidelity and practices of vice, as determinately and as boldly as ever he displayed or planted his colours, when he bore them with so much honour in the field.

Such is the account given by an exceedingly honest, able, and pious writer of the remarkable conversion of colonel Gardiner; an account too minute and curious to be passed over by a modern biographer, whatever credence may be given to the circumstances of which it is composed. While the minds of our readers will probably find an easy explanation of the "phenomenon" in the theories which some late writers have started respecting such impressions of the senses, we shall present a remarkably interesting notice of the pious soldier, which was written twenty years before his death, and a still longer period antecedent to Doddridge's publication, and must therefore be considered as entitled to particular attention and credit. It is extracted from a journal of the historian Wodrow, [MS. Advocates' Library,] where it appears under date May 1725, as having just been taken down from the mouths of various informants:

"From him and others, I have a very pleasant account of major Gardiner, formerly master of horse to the earl of Stair, and now lately on the death of ——— Craig, made major of Stair's grey horse. He seems to be one of the most remarkable instances of free grace that has been in our times. He is one of the bravest and gallantest men in Britain, and understands military affairs exactly well. He was a lieutenant or a captain many years ago in Glasgow, where he was extremely vicious. He had a criminal correspondence with ——— ———, as my informer tells us he owns with sorrow. He acknow-