On May 25th, 1831, an aged Presbyterian clergyman rose to his feet in the supreme ecclesiastical court of Scotland, the General Assembly, to utter a final plea for his eldest son, who stood accused of a charge of the utmost gravity before the venerable tribunal which was about to determine his fate. An interrupter protested that intervention at that stage was out of order; nevertheless the court allowed him to continue, and at length he ended with these words:
“I bow to any decision to which you may think it right to come. Moderator, I am not afraid for my son; though his brethren cast him out the Master whom he serves will not forsake him; and while I live I will never be ashamed to be the father of so holy and blameless a son.”