But even the gloomiest and bitterest bigots that heard him, huddled in some deep morass and encircled by the cold mist, testified that Henry Pollock was greatest when he declared the evangel of Jesus, and besought his hearers, who might before nightfall be sent by a bloody death into eternity, to accept Christ as their Saviour. When he celebrated the sacrament amid the hills, and lifted up the emblems of the Lord's body and blood, his voice broken with passion, and the tears rolling down his cheeks, they said that his face was like that of an angel. Times without number he had been chased on the moors; often he had been hidden cunningly in shepherd's cottages, twice he had eluded the dragoons by immersing himself in peat-bogs, and once he had been wounded. His face could never at any time have been otherwise than refined and spiritual, but now it was that of an ascetic, worn by prayer and fasting, while his dark blue eyes glowed when he was moved like coals of fire, and the golden hair upon his head, as the sun touched it, was like unto an aureole. Standing in the embrasure of that gallery, which had so many signs of the world which is, in the pictures of sport upon the walls and the stands of arms, he seemed to be rather the messenger and forerunner of the world which is to come. As he looks out upon the fair spring view, he is settling something with his conscience, and is half praying, half meditating, for, in his lonely vigils, with no company but the curlew and the sheep, he has fallen upon the way of speaking aloud.
"There be those who are called to live alone and to serve the Lord night and day in the high places of the field, like Elijah, who was that prophet, and John the Baptist, who ran before the face of the Lord. If this be Thy will for me, oh, God, I am also willing, and Thou knowest that mine is a lonely life, and that I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. If this be my calling, make Thy way plain before Thy servant, and give me grace to walk therein with a steadfast heart. He that forsaketh not father and mother ... and wife for His name's sake, is not worthy." And then a change came over his mood.
"But the Master came not like the Baptist; He came eating and drinking; yea, He went unto the marriage of Cana in Galilee, and He blessed little children and said, 'For of such is the Kingdom of God.' Thou knowest, Lord, that I have loved Thy children, and when a bairn has smiled in my face as I baptized it into Thy name, that I have longed for one that would call me father. When I have seen a man and his wife together by the fireside, and I have gone out to my hiding-place on the moor, like a wild beast to its den, I confess, oh, Lord, I have watched that square of light so long as I could see it, and have wondered whether there would ever be a home for me, and any woman would call me husband. Is this the weakness of the flesh; is this the longing of the creature for comfort; is this the refusing of the cross; is this my sin? Search me, oh, God, and try me." And again the gentler mood returned. "Didst Thou not set the woman beside the man in the Garden? Has not the love of Jacob for Rachel been glorified in Thy word? Art not Thou Thyself the bridegroom, and is not the kirk Thy bride? Are we not called to the marriage supper of the Lamb? Is not marriage Thine own ordinance, and shall I count that unclean, as certain vain persons have imagined, which Thou hast established? Oh, my Saviour, wast Thou not born of a woman? My soul is torn within me, and unto Thee, therefore, do I look for light; give me this day a sign that I may know what Thou wouldst have me to do, that it may be well for Thy cause in the land, and the souls of Thy servants committed to my charge."