Page:Life and prophecies of Mr Alex. Peden (1).pdf/3

3 me in his own time and way. He went home, and walked at a water side upwards of 24 hours, and would neither eat nor drink, but said, I have got what I was seeking, and I will be vindicated, and that poor unhappy lass will pay dear for it in her life, and will make a dismal end! and for this surfeit of grief that she has given me there shall never one of her sex come in to my bosom; and accordingly he never married. There are various reports of the way that he was vindicated: some say, the time she was in child-birth Mr Guthrie charged her to give account who was the father of that child: and discharged the woman to be helpful to her, until she did. —Some say that she confessed; others,  that she remained obstinate. Some of the people, when I made inquiry about it in that country-side, affirmed, that after the Presbytery had been at all pains about it, and could get no satisfaction, they appointed Mr. Guthrie to give a full relation of the whole before the congregation, which he did; and the same day the father of the child being present, when he heard Mr Guthrie begin to read, he stood up, and desired him to halt, and said, "I am the father of that child, and I desired her to father it on Mr Peden, which has been a great trouble of conscience to me; and I could not get rest till I came home to declare it." However, it is certain that, after she was married, every thing went cross with them, and they went from place to place, and were reduced to great poverty. At last she came to that same spot of ground, where she stayed upwards of 24 hours, and made away with herself.

2. After this, he was three years settled Minister at New Glenluce, in Galloway: and when he was obliged, by the violence and tyranny of that time, to leave that parish, he lectured upon Acts xx. 17, to the end; and he preached upon verse 31st. in the forenoon, “Therefore