In Mr Austin's note-book, I find the following notice with which I shall conclude:--
"August, 1689.--It hath pleased the Lord to restore poor old useless Samuel Austin to his people; but where are they?--twenty years have made a sad event and reckoning here. The child has attained to manhood; the man has disappeared, or labours under the infirmities of age; and many have been removed, not only by death but by duty; they have removed, in the course of God's providence, to other parishes, and even to other lands; and my flock is changed, and I feel no heart in preaching to these new faces, who know not Joseph. O Lord, let me arise and go hence; I am alone, in an altered world, of which I am weary. My house is desolate; my child--my wife--my sister--all--all gone on before; and fain, O, guid Lord, wad I follow--now let thy servant depart and sleep in peace."
In the kirkyard of Penpont, at the west end of the church, there is a monument (at least there was, in my young days, some fifty years ago) with the following inscription:--
Here lies the worthy and godly SAMUEL AUSTIN; Forty-five years Minister of this Parish, Nineteen of which years he was banished by ungodly men from his dear Flock, and sorely persecuted for the Truth, and for PRESBYTERY'S SAKE. God was pleased to restore him again at the period of the GLORIOUS REVOLUTION, and he continued to the day of his death, 25th April, 1694, faithfully, though in much bodily weakness, to administer to his loved and loving Flock. "_The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance._"
[1] Of the times to which reference is here made, as well as of the character here introduced to the reader's notice, Blackwood, in the "Sketches of Scottish Character," thus expresses himself, vol. viii., p. 12:--
"Sad time indeed, oh most detested time, When vice was fealty, and religion crime; When counsellors were traitors to the state; A chancellor's authority was fate And Scotland felt the grasp, o'er muir and dale, Of cruel, beastly, turncoat Lauderdale; When Grierson stepped abroad in human gore, The peaceful peasant butchered at his door; And cruel Graham, and merciless Dalziell, In nightly rendezvous enacted hell."
A very striking engraving of this well-known person, is given by Burns of Paisley, in his admirable edition of Woodrow.