Baron of Merchiston. 93 



honestly accomplished and fulfilled their engagement the 

 one to the other : and it is decided that any other discharge 

 than the destruction of the present contract shall not be of 

 any value, force or effect : And, in case the said John shall 

 not find any treasure, after all his efforts and diligence, he 

 shall rely for the disbursement of his work and difficulties, 

 upon the the discretion of the said Robert. In witness of 

 the present, and in testimony of all honesty, faith and fide- 

 lity, to be observed in all its conditions, relative to each of 

 the two parties, they have both subscribed the present with 

 their own hands, at Edinburgh, day and year as aforesaid. 

 (Signed) " Robert Logan, of Restalrig. 

 " John Napier, of Merchiston." 

 How could the great theologian of Scotland, the Wonder- 

 ful Napier, as his biographer terms him, conscientiously 

 contract such an engagement, and an engagement almost of 

 necromancy, with a declared robber and assassin ; he who 

 evidenced so much horror, and such a scrupulous indigna- 

 tion against the temporal excesses of Papists, and against 

 those twenty-eight Popes who were decided necromancers? 

 The biographer does not dissemble the difficulty of this 

 question, and attributes the act to the barbarous rudeness 

 of the times, and to the simplicity of mind of our philo- 

 sopher. In our opinion, a more true and more grave ex- 

 planation might be found in the doctrine admitted then in 

 Scotland, among the Casuists of the Puritan Confederacy, 

 and renewed at the present day by another sect, which ap- 

 pears to be making great progress in England ; it is, that 

 all means are good for Saints ; in other words, that Saints 

 do not sin. The Scotch biographer passes, in detail, over 

 the moral consequences of the act, and only takes occasion 

 to admire the " unconquerable courage of the man who 

 feared not to engage alone with a robber in his cave." 

 After which, he adds, " To pronounce this transaction as 

 mercenary, would be to apply a false appreciation of modern 

 notions to manners obscurely appreciable by antiquity." 

 Papists, then, are not the only persons who have accomo- 

 dating opinions. 



Here terminates what we have to say of Napier, as a 

 politician, moralist, and theologian. We have explained 

 above, the considerations which have induced us to study 

 his character under this point of view, according to the 



