Grampian Club > Monuments and monumental inscriptions in Scotland > Volume 1

PARISH OF TRANENT. 219
But hope persuades we cease to mourn,
Faith saw her soul exulting fly."
"Thus ends the life
Of feeble man below ; nor pow'r, nor
Honour, fame, nor youthful bloom
Can gain a respite from
The dreadful blow."
The grave dissolves each social tie
And tells us too, that we must die,
And then corruption see.
Happy are they whose hopes arise,
High as the pleasure of the skies,
And then immortal be."
PAEISH OF TEANENT.
In the parish church of Tranent are interred the remains of the
gallant and pious Colonel James Gardiner. This distinguished
officer was born at Carriden, Linlithgowshire, on the 10th January,
1688. He entered the army at an early age, and though fearless
of danger and an active officer, was chiefly noted for his profligacy.
In July, 1719, when perusing a book entitled "The Christian
Soldier," which he had taken up to occupy an idle hour, he was
suddenly awakened to a sense of his criminality and danger. He
conceived that he saw a vision of the Saviour extended on the
cross, and remonstrating with him on his ingratitude. For a period
he experienced a feeling of distress and agony ; subsequently he
found peace in believing. He became a zealous and most ex-
emplary Christian. On the outbreak of the Eebellion in 1745, he
marched with his Eegiment from Stirling, to join Sir John Cope at
Dunbar, to give battle to the rebels. The hostile armies came in
view of each other on the 20th September, in the neighbourhood
of Colonel Gardiner's own house of Bankton, near Prestonpans.
He remained all night under arms wrapped up in his cloak. At