The Reformer had just returned on a short visit to his native country, after being in exile for eight years. On his arrival he first preached and exhorted in Edinburgh, then went with John Erskine to his home at the house of Dun, where he discharged his ministry with saving power. After visiting Ayrshire, he returned to Forfarshire a second time, where he gathered the fruits of other men's labours. Wishart and others had sown the seed. Now the harvest had come, and John Knox was the reaper. On his return, "the most part of the gentlemen in the Mearns" 13 professed the true doctrine. It was under these circumstances that these men entered into the solemn engagement and "refused all society with idolatry" and to "maintain the true preaching of the Gospel," surely a most becoming sequel to the earnest labours carried on by Wishart in the school of Montrose. -- The Covenants of Scotland by John Lumsden, 1914, p. 20
