By the Rev. D. M. MACDONALD, Portree.
(Continued from Vol. xl, page 498.)
The next to suffer was the great-hearted James Guthrie, minister of Stirling. The charge against him was treason, a baseless one and untrue—but there was no escape. He was sentenced to death by hanging, his last words being, “The covenants, the covenants shall yet be Scotland’s reviving.” His head was left to bleach in the sun for twenty-seven years. The martyrs’ roll of Scotland was now to be rapidly increased. The Scottish Judas, James Sharp, was appointed Archbishop of St.
Andrews. Other bishops were appointed and all ministers were called to the meeting held by their over-seers to signify their submission and all who refused were ordered to leave their congregations. As a result of the “Drunken Act of Glasgow,” passed by the Earl of Middleton and his debauched Privy Councillors, four hundred ministers left their earthly all to suffer for Christ.
Not very long after Guthrie’s death Archibald Johnstone, Lord Warriston, was given the crown of martyrdom. His testimony at the end was delivered before the large crowd who gathered to his execution in these words: “I beseech you all, who are the people of God, not to scare at suffering, for the interest of Christ, or stumble at anything of this kind falling out in these days; but be encouraged to suffer for Him, for I assure you, in the name of the Lord, He will bear your charges.”
A High Commission Court was now set up to enforce the ecclesiastical laws and to punish all who would not submit to the rule of the bishops. The following incident will give an idea of the calculated and callous brutality of the Scottish Inquisition. A poor woman in the parish of Anerum tried to dissuade the curate from taking the place of their godly pastor and he struck her with his staff. Some boys who witnessed the affair flung stones in his direction, but no one was hurt. The woman, with two of her brothers and four boys was summoned before the Commission which sentenced the brothers to banishment in Virginia, the woman to be lashed through the town of Jedburgh, and the four boys to be scourged through the city of Edinburgh, branded in the face with a red hot iron and then sold as slaves to Barbadoes. It is recorded that the poor boys bore their cruel punishment like men and Christians to the admiration of multitudes.
(To be continued.)
Unbelief was the first sin and Pride was the first born of it.—Stephen Charnock.