Note 473 — Chapter IV

The Rev. James Kirton says of the Rev. John Welsh, that some one who observed him walking, ‘saw clearly a strange light surround him, and heard him speak strange words about his spiritual joy.’ Select Biographies, edited by the Rev. W. K. Tweedie, vol. i. p. 12. But more than this remains to be told. The hearts of the Scotch clergy were so lifted up with pride, that they believed—horrible to relate—that they had audible and verbal communications from the Almighty God, which bystanders could hear. One of these stories, relating also to Welsh, will be found, as tradition handed it down, in Howie's Biographia Scoticana, p. 148. I cannot quote such blasphemy; and those who doubt my statement had better refer to the second edition of Howie's work, published at Glasgow in 1781. It may probably be met with in the British Museum.