Page:History of John Brown of Priesthill.pdf/5

 it was a benefit to the youth for miles around him, who were then much neglected. No faithful minister was left to instruct them. The fathers who used to tell the children what great things the Lord had done for Scotland, were either banished or had suffered death. To counteract the bad example of the wicked, who now walked on every side, since vile men were high in place, every Monday night he met with these young persons, and instructed them from the Bible and the Confession of Faith. In summer they assembled in a sheep-bught, and in winter they formed a circle wide around a large fire of peats and cannel-coal, that blazed in the middle of the spence-floor. The effects of the substantial information these rustics got, is felt to this day in that neighbourhood. John Brown was not alone in this good work; David and William Steel were helpmates.

It was about the year 1680, that Priesthill got acquainted with Isabell Weir, in the parish of Sorn. She was a very superior woman, though her disposition was the very reverse of his: she was lively and humorous, and could cheer up his grave countenance till he was as animated as herself; at other times she would sit and listen to the good sense of his conversation with the simplicity of a child. She saw him often, for he had frequently business to transact with her father, when he passed to and from Ayr. They often talked of Zion's trouble; and what was remarkable, when he sought her in marriage, he told her he felt a foreboding in his mind that he would one day be called to seal the Church’s testimony with his blood. If it should be so, she nobly answered, through affliction and death I will be