Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/99

Rh duty. He possessed great talents in conversation, and could suit himself in such a manner to every kind of company, that old and young, cheerful and grave, were alike pleased. He had an immense fund of humour ; and what gave it perhaps its best charm, was the apparently unintentional manner in which he gave it vent, and the fixed serenity of countenance which he was able to preserve, while all were laughing around him. There are few men in whom the elements of genius are so admirably blended with those of true goodness, and all that can render a man beloved, as they were in Patrick Gibson.

GILLESPIE,, an eminent divine at a time when divines were nearly the most eminent class of individuals in Scotland, was the son of the Rev. John Gillespie, minister at Kirkaldy, and was born January 21, 1613. His advance in his studies was so rapid, that he was laureated in his seventeenth year. About the year 1634, when he must have still been very young, he is known to have been chaplain to viscount Kenmure: at a subsequent period, he lived in the same capacity with the earl of Cassils. While in the latter situation, he wrote a work called "English Popish Ceremonies," in which, as the title implies, he endeavoured to excite a jealousy of the episcopal innovations of Charles I., as tending to popery. This book he published when he was about twenty -two years of age, and it was soon after prohibited by the bishops. Had episcopacy continued triumphant, it is likely that Mr Gillespie's advance in the church would have been retarded; but the signing of the national covenant early in 1638, brought about a different state of things. In April that year, a vacancy occurring at Wemyss in Fife, he was appointed minister, and at the general assembly which took place at Glasgow in the ensuing November, he had the honour to preach one of the daily sermons before the house, for which he took as his text, "The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord." The earl of Argyle, who had then just joined the covenanting cause, and was still a member of the privy council, thought that the preacher had trenched a little, in this discourse, upon the royal prerogative, and said a few words to the assembly, with the intention of warning them against such errors for the future.

In 1641, an attempt was made to obtain the transportation of Mr Gillespie to Aberdeen; but the general assembly, in compliance with his own wishes, ordained him to remain at Wemyss. When the king visited Scotland in the autumn of this year, Mr Gillespie preached before him in the Abbey church at Edinburgh, on the afternoon of Sunday the 12th of September. In the succeeeding year, he was removed by the general assembly to Edinburgh, of which he continued to be one of the stated clergymen till his death. Mr Gillespie had the honour to be one of the four ministers deputed by the Scottish church in 1543, to attend the Westminster assembly of divines; and it is generally conceded, that his learning, zeal, and judgment were of the greatest service in carrying through the work of that venerable body, particularly in forming the directory of worship, the catechisms, and other important articles of religion, which it was the business of the assembly to prepare and sanction. Baillie thus alludes to him in his letters: "We got good help in our assembly debates, of lord Warriston, an occasional commissioner, but of none more than the noble youth Mr Gillespie. I admire his gifts, and bless God, as for all my colleagues, so for him in particular, as equal in these to the first in the assembly." It appears that Mr Gillespie composed six volumes of manuscript during the course of his attendance at the Westminster assembly; and these were extant in 1707, though we are not aware of their still continuing in existence. He had also, when in England, prepared his sermons for the. press,—part being controversial, and part practical; but they are said to have been suppressed in the hands of the