CXXIII.--_To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, Younger._
[JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, younger, like his father, previously noticed (Letter LXXXII.), was naturally a man of strong passions. Judging from this letter, he appears not only to have been neglectful of religion, but to have freely indulged in the follies and vices of youth. Rutherford warns him of his sin and danger with much freedom and affectionate earnestness; and these warnings, it is to be hoped, were not in vain. He was in the Covenanters' army, in England, in 1644, as appears from a letter of his preserved among the Wodrow MSS. It is dated "Sunderland, 28th March 1644," and is addressed to Mr. Thomas Wylie. It is written in a religious strain. After referring to the success of the army, and to the account of this drawn up by Mr. Robert Douglas, it contains in the close the following passage:--"I entreat you be kind to my wife, and deal with her neither to take my absence, nor the form of coming from her, in evil part; for, in God's presence, public duties and nothing else removed me, or marred the form of my removal. Be earnest with her that she seek a nearer acquaintance with Christ: and fail not to pray for her and her family, and me." (Wodrow MSS., vol. xxix.)]