Page:Most remarkable passages in the life of the honourable Colonel James Gardiner.pdf/3

 there are none whole office is so sacred, or whose proficiency in the religious life is so advanced, but they may find something to demand their thankfulness, and to awaken their emulation.

Colonel JAMES GARDINER was the son of Captain PATRICK GARDINER, of the family of Torwoodhead, by Mrs. Mary Hodge, of the family of Gladsmuir. The Captain, who was proprietor of a handsome estate, served many years in the army of K. William and Q. Anne, and died abroad with the British forces in Germany, soon after the battle of Hochstedt, through the fatigues of that celebrated campaign.- He had a company in the regiment of foot once commanded by Col. Hodge, his valiant brother-in-law, who was slain at the head of that regiment (my memorial from Scotland says) at the battle of Steenkirk, which was fought in the year 1692.

Mrs. GARDINER, the Colonel's mother, was a lady of a very valuable character; but it pleased God to exercise her with very uncommon trials: for she not only lost her husband and her brother in the service of their county, as before related, but also her eldest son, Mr. Rober Gardiner, on the day which completed the 10th year of his age, at the siege of Namur in 1695. But there is great reason to believe God blesse these various and heavy afflictions as the means of forming her to that eminent degree of piety which will render her memory honourable as long as it continues.

Her second son, the worthy person of whom I am now to give a more particular account, was born at Carriden, in Linlithgowshire, on the 10th of January, 1687-8, the memorable year of the Revolution, which he highly esteemed among the happiest events of his time; so that when he was slain in the defence of those liberties which God then, by so gracious & providence, rescued from utter destruction