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For one thing, when once Earlston had begun to keep watch over his own heart in the matter of its motives it was David Dickson, one fast-day at Irvine, on 1 Sam. ii., who first taught Gordon to watch his motives from that day Rutherford and Livingstone, and all his family, and all his fellow- elders saw a change in their friend that almost frightened them.
'A man of great spirit, but much subdued by inward exercise. Livingstone's Characteristics. The Gordons of Airds and Earlston could set their family seal to the truth of the promise that the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children.
If we are to judge of the character and attainments and intelligence of Rutherford's correspondents by the letters he wrote to them, then I should say that William Gordon of Earlston must have been a remarkable man very early in life, both in the understanding and the experience of divine things. One of the Aberdeen letters especially, numbered 181 in Dr.
Old Earlston, at once to protest against the persecution, and at the same time to save his draught-oxen, yoked ten of his stalwart sons to the mid-winter plough, and, after ploughing the whole of Christmas Day, openly defied both priest and bishop to distrain his team.
'Alexander Gordon of Earlston, says John Livingstone, in one of his priceless little etchings, 'was a man of great spirit, but much subdued by inward exercise, and who attained the most rare experiences of downcasting and uplifting. And in Rutherford's first letter to this Earlston, written from Anwoth in 1636, he says, in that lofty oracular way of his, 'Jesus Christ has said that Alexander Gordon must lead the ring in Galloway in witnessing a good conscience. This, no doubt, refers to the prosecution that Gordon was at that moment undergoing at the hands of the Bishop of Glasgow for refusing to admit a nominee of the Bishop into the pulpit of a reclaiming parish.
Tracing the Fairbairns still further back, we find several of them occupying the station of "portioners," or small lairds, at Earlston on the Tweed, where the family had been settled since the days of the Solemn League and Covenant. By his mother's side, the subject of our memoir is supposed to be descended from the ancient Border family of Douglas.
'William Gordon was a gentlemen, says John Howie, 'of good parts and endowments; a man devoted to religion and godliness. Unfortunately we do not possess any of the letters young Earlston wrote to Rutherford. I wish we did.
Thomas Boston in his most interesting autobiography tells us about one of his elders who, though a poor man, had always 'a brow for a good cause. Now nothing could better describe the Gordons of Earlston than just that saying.
Not James Durham, not George Gillespie, not David Dickson themselves ever got a stronger, deeper, or more eloquent letter from Samuel Rutherford than did young William Gordon of Airds and Earlston.
While still living at home and assisting his father in his farms and factorships, young Earlston was already one of Rutherford's most intimate correspondents. In a kind of reflex way we see what kind of head and heart and character young Earlston must already have had from the letters that Rutherford wrote to him.
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