Grampian Club > Leaves from my autography

106 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
structed. Among those who subscribed were the
Duke of Argyll and the Rev. Dr Guthrie of Edin-
burgh, while Mr William Drummond purchased an
appropriate site in the cemetery enclosure, near the
principal entrance.
By the act of inaugurating the Guthrie monument,
the cemetery was opened on the 26th November
1857. At the ceremony an address was delivered
by Mr James Dodds of London, whose oratorical
abilities, conjoined with his remarkable sympathy
for the cause in which the martyi^ suftered, led me
to secure his assistance on the occasion.* Mr
Dodds' address — an eloquent exposition of the prin-
cij)les for which Guthrie suffered in relation to the
consolidation of civil and religious liberty — was
printed and circulated ; and at a public breakfast, to
which he was invited a few days afterwards, another
monument was suggested.
James Guthrie belonged to an ancient Scottish
house, and was remarkable alike for his theological
attainments and great firmness of character. In up-
holding the independence of the Scottish Church, he
proved obnoxious to the Earl of Middleton. Through
the hostile influences of that personage, he was ar-
raigned before the Estates, and condemned to suffer
for high treason ; he was executed at Edinburgh on
* In tlie previous spring I had the pleasure of inviting Mr Dodds to deliver,
at Stirling, a course of four lectures on the religious conllicts of the seventeenth
century, which have since been embodied in his valuable work, "The Fifty
Years' Struggle of the Scottish Covenanters."