But an independent mind and a public spirit like hers could not exist in those days, or in any day this world has yet seen, without raising up many and bitter enemies.  And both she and her husband suffered heavily, both in name and in estate, from the malice and the hatred that their fearless devotion to truth and justice stirred up.  So much so, that some of the finest passages in Rutherford’s early letters to her are those in which he counsels her and her husband to patience, and meekness, and forgiveness of injuries.  ’Keep God’s covenant in all your trials.  Hold you by His blessed word, and sin not; flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying, fretting.  Forgive an hundred pence to your fellow-servant, for your Lord has forgiven you ten thousand talents.’  And again:  ’Be patient; Christ went to heaven with many a wrong.  His visage was more marred than that of any of the sons of men.  He was wronged and received no reparation, but referred all to that day when all wrongs shall be righted.’  And again:  ’You live not upon men’s opinion.  Happy are you if, when the world trampleth upon you in your credit and good name, you are yet the King’s gold and stamped with His image.  Pray for the spirit of love, for love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.  Forgive, therefore, your fellow-servant his one talent.  Always remember what has been forgiven you.’  And on every page of the Kirkcudbright correspondence we see that, amid all these temptations and trials, no man had a better wife than the provost, and no children a better mother than Grizel and her two brothers.  Her talents sought no nobler sphere for their exercise and increase than her own fireside; and her public spirit was better seen in her life at home than anywhere out of doors.  Hers was truly a public spirit, and like a spirit it inspired and animated both her own and her husband’s life with interest in and with care for the best good, both of the Church and the State.  Her public spirit was not incompatible with great personal modesty and humility, and great attention to her domestic duties, all rooted in a life hid with Christ in God.

And then, all this—­her birth, her station, her talents, and her public spirit—­could not fail to give her a great influence for good.  In a single line of Rutherford’s on this subject, we see her whole lifetime:  ’You are engaged so in God’s work in Kirkcudbright that if you remove out of that town all will be undone.’  What a tribute is that to the provost’s wife!  And again, far on in the Letters he writes to Grizel Fullarton:  ’Your dear mother, now blessed and perfected with glory, kept life in that place, and my desire is that you succeed her in that way.’  What a pride to have such a mother; and what a tradition for a daughter to take up!  So have we all known in country towns and villages one man or one woman who kept life in the place.  Out of the memories of my own boyhood there rises up, here a minister