portance, had conducted themselves with. singular judgment, prudence, and propriety, here, upon a very trifling question, and of easy solution, behaved in a manner not only disgraceful to the Christian but to the human character; violating in their case, to carry a point of very little moment, the first principles of order, without preserving which it is impossible to carry on rationally the affairs of ordinary society. In all this unhappy business we blush to be obliged to acknowledge that Ebenezer Erskine had an active hand; he stood in front of the list of the burgher presbytery, and, if we may believe the report of some who boast of being his admirers, abated considerably after this of his zeal for the principles of the reformation. He certainly lost much of his respectability by the share he had in augmenting the storm which his age and his experience should have been employed to moderate, and. it must have been but an unpleasant subject for his after meditations. He was after this engaged in nothing of public importance. He lived indeed only seven years after this, and the
better half of them under considerable infirmity. He died on the twenty-second of June, 1756, aged seventy-four years, saving one month. He was buried by his own desire, in the middle of his meeting-house, where a large stone with a Latin inscription, recording the date of his death, his age, and the periods of his ministry at Portmoak and Stirling, still marks out the spot. Mr Erskine was twice married; first, as we have already mentioned, to that excellent woman, Alison Terpie, who died sometime in the year 1720. He married three years afterwards a daughter of the Rev. James Webster, Edinburgh, who
also died before him. He left behind him several children, one of whom, a daughter, died so late as the year 1814. Of his character we have scarcely left ourselves room to speak. As a writer of sermons he is sound, savoury, and practical, abounding in clear views of the gospel, with its uses and influence in promoting holiness of life. As a preacher, he was distinguished among the greatest men of his day. In learning, and in compass of mind, he was inferior to the author of "The Trust," and, for keen and penetrating genius, to the author of "The Defence of the reformation principles of the church of Scotland;" but for straight forward good sense, incorruptible integrity, and dauntless intrepidity, he was equal to any man of the age in which he lived.
ERSKINE, Henry, third lord Cardross, one of the most distinguished patriots of the seventeenth century, was the eldest son of the second lord Cardross, who, in his turn, was grandson to John, seventh earl of Marr, the eminent and faithful counsellor of King James VI. By his mother, Anne Hope, the subject of our memoir was grandson to Sir Thomas Hope, king's advocate, the chief legal counsellor of the covenanters in the early years of the civil war. It may also be mentioned, that colonel Erskine of Carnock, father to the author of "the Institutes," was a half-brother of lord Cardross.
The father of this eminent patriot, was one of the seven Scottish lords who protested against the reddition of Charles I. to the English army, and he educated his son in the same principles of honour and fidelity to the laws, and to personal engagements, which inspired himself. Lord Henry was born about 1650, and succeeded his father in 1671. Having also succeeded to all the liberal principles of the family, he at once joined himself, on entering life, to the opposers of the Lauderdale administration. This soon exposed him to persecution, and in 1674 he was fined in £5000, because his lady had heard worship performed in his own house by a non-conforming chaplain. His lordship paid £1,000 of this fine, and after attending the court for six months, in the vain endeavour to procure a remission for the rest, was imprisoned in Edinburgh castle, where he continued for four years. While he was thus suffering captivity, a party of soldiers visited his house, and, after treating his lady with the
