It distresses and shocks us to read about 'midnight drinking' in Cardoness Castle, and in the houses round about, after all they had come through, but there it is, and we must not eviscerate Rutherford's outspoken letters. The time is not so far past yet with ourselves when we still went on drinking, though we were in debt for the necessaries of life, and though our sons reeled home from company we had made them early acquainted with. If you will not even yet pass the wine altogether, take a little less every day, and the good conscience it will give you will make up for the forbidden bouquet; till, as Rutherford said to Gordon, 'You will more easily master the remainder of your corruptions.'
Let us all try Samuel Rutherford's piecemeal way of reformation with our own anger; let us put a bridle on our mouths part of every day. Let us do this if we can as yet go no further; let us bridle our mouths on certain subjects, and about certain people, and in certain companies. If you have some one you dislike, some one who has injured or offended you, some rival or some enemy, whom to meet, to see, to read or to hear the name of, always brings hell's dunnest gloom into your heart-well, put off this piece of your sin concerning him; do not speak about him. I do not say you can put the poison wholly out of your heart; you cannot: but you can and you must hold your peace about him. And if that beats you—if, instead of all that making you more easily master of your corruption, it helps you somewhat to discover how deep and how deadly it is—then Samuel Rutherford will not have written this old letter in vain for you.
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Whether they built the castle or married into the castle, there is little doubt that generations of McCulloh inhabitants of the castle faced similar trials and temptations and we can only hope they had their own 'Rutherford' to challenge them and encourage them as they each worked out their own salvation.
Sources
Tales of Galloway - 1979, Skilton & Shaw, London
The Descendants of Captain John McCollough (1770-1847) And Anna Elizabeth Spangler (1779-1858) - 2006, Mark and Curtis McCollough
The Fortified House in Scotland - edited by Nigel Tranter, vol 3
Samuel Rutherford And Some of His Correspondents - Lectures Delivered in St. George’s Free Church Edinburgh: by Alexander Whyte, D.d. - 1894, Originally Published by Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, Edinburgh and London
Copyright 2006
