INTRODUCTION xxi 



centuries, stand the ruins of the pre- Reformation church 

 of Ormistoun, approached, according to old accounts, through 

 the laird's garden. It must have been in use in Adam 

 Cockburn's time, and in John's boyhood, for the present edifice 

 was built in 1696. There John must have been baptized, after 

 a short journey through the 'closs' and the garden, and, in due 

 course, catechised by the famous divine, John Cockburn, D.D., 

 who entered minister of the parish in 1683, closing a romantic 

 career as rector of Northall, Middlesex. Like his fellow Aber- 

 donian. Bishop Burnet, Presbytery was always obnoxious to him. 

 John thought of the old church only as a mark for his planting. 

 ' Don't forget,' he tells Bell, ' supplying the Large Elms and also 

 Chesnuts and Oaks in the Old Churchyard' (p. 78). Burial- 

 places used to be secularised without scruple. Of the old 

 church of Ormistoun we have only a beautiful arch in what 

 remains of the south wall and the chancel, both covered with 

 an evergreen pall of ivy. Here too are associations with 

 Knox. On the north wall of the chancel is a monumental 

 brass ^ to the memory of Alexander Cockburn,2a pupil of 

 Knox, and a lad of great promise, but he was cut off in early 

 life. His mother was Alison Sandilands of Calder, another 

 family closely associated with the reformer. The upper part 

 of the tablet has a Latin elegy extolling the lad's virtues, 

 written by George Buchanan. Knox had tutored him along 

 with the two sons of Douglas of Longniddry, another of the 

 reforming East Lothian families. To these pupils Wishart 

 referred when he parted with Knox, telling him to go back 

 to his bairns, as one was enough for a sacrifice. 



The Correspondence 



The Letters represent but a part of John Cockburn's 



correspondence. They are contained in a well-bound quarto, 



^ This is one of the very few to be found in Scotland. Its date is 1563" 

 2 Alexander Cockburn was son and heir of John Cockburn, who led a 

 strenuous life as a co-worker with Knox. The lad was for a time with his 

 tutor in the castle of St. Andrews when besieged by the Regent Arran. 



