BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
(Continued from page 259.)
MRS. WELSH.
BOYD, of Trochrig, writing in 1625, in reference to Mrs. Welsh’s death, says:—”This month of January, 1625, died at Ayr, my cousin, Mrs. Welsh, daughter of that great servant of God, the late John Knox, and wife of that holy man of God, Mr. Welsh, above mentioned; a spouse and daughter worthy of such a husband and such a father.” This is a just tribute to a heroic woman who did no disgrace to the honoured names she bore as a daughter and wife. Mrs. Welsh had not to lay down her life for her fidelity to the cause she professed, but she bore her part nobly with her saintly husband in the persecution he endured in Scotland and during his exiled years in France. And to give some idea of what was implied in such loyalty to a persecuted cause, it may be advisable to give a brief sketch of the part taken in this struggle by John Welsh, one of the saintliest men who ever stood in a Scottish pulpit. John Welsh’s youthful career gave very little promise of a life of singular holiness and devotedness to Christ. In his case the story of the Prodigal Son was literally realised, and though his father’s welcome was not that recorded in the parable, yet, through the entreaties of his aunt, young John Welsh was received into his father’s house. He was sent to college, and a remarkable change came over the young man whose main delight hitherto had been in the exciting scenes and exploits of the border robbers. After his college curriculum was finished, he became minister at Selkirk, from which place he was transferred to Kirkcudbright. “At Kirkcudbright,” says Kirkton, “he staid not long; but there he reaped a harvest of converts which subsisted long after his departure, and were a part of Mr. Samuel Rutherford’s flock, though not his parish, while he was minister at Anwoth.” It is supposed that sometime between February and November, 1602, Welsh was translated to Ayr, at which place he ministered until his banishment. His labours in Ayr were abundantly acknowledged and owned of God, for—to quote Kirkton again—”If his diligence was great, so it is doubted whether his sowing in painfulness or his harvest in success was greater; for if either his spiritual experiences in seeking the Lord, or his fruitfulness in converting souls, be considered, they will be found unparalleled in Scotland. And many years after Mr. Welsh’s death, Mr. David Dickson, at that time a flourishing minister at Irvine, was frequently heard to say, when people talked to him of the success of his ministry, that the grape gleanings in Ayr in Mr. Welsh’s time were far above the vintage of Irvine in his own.” John Welsh was a man pre-eminent in prayer. He wrestled day and night with the Angel of the Covenant, and many are the stories told of him, exemplifying this fine trait of his Christian character.
But the time came at last when Welsh had to leave Ayr, the hallowed scene of a heaven-owned ministry. King James, in his blinded infatuation, determined to set aside the Presbyterian order of Church government and to introduce Prelacy, as more conducive to further his absolutist ideas of monarchy. When this crisis came Welsh was not found wanting, and rather than yield, he was willing to give up all his comforts, so that “it fell to be his duty to edify the Church by his sufferings, as formerly he had done by his doctrine.” King James had forbidden the General Assembly to meet, yet notwithstanding some of the godly ministers met at Aberdeen in July, 1605. Nothing had been done at this meeting by way of business, but it was regarded as open defiance of regal authority. The ministers who had been present were imprisoned. John Welsh was first taken to the Tolbooth, Edinburgh, and afterwards to Blackness. This was the beginning of his trials, and his true-hearted wife stood nobly by him. “During his imprisonment before his trial,” writes MacGavin, “she attended him unremittingly, and was present at Linlithgow with the wives of the other prisoners on the eventful occasion. And when informed of the sentence—cruel and iniquitous as it was—far from giving way to useless lamentation over their fate, she, and indeed all of them, praised God who had given their husbands courage to stand in the cause of their ‘Master’; adding that, like Him, they had been judged and condemned under the covert of night.” Welsh was charged with high treason for refusing to admit the Privy Council judges competent to deal with matters pertaining to Church judicatories. The sentence passed upon Welsh and the others was that of banishment. On the 7th November, 1606, Welsh left Scotland, never to return. He laboured diligently in France until his health failed. He was permitted to return to England, and on representations being made by his physicians that his native air might do him good, an effort was made to get these suggestions carried out, but James resolutely refused. Earnestly solicitous for her husband, Mrs. Welsh, through some friends at Court, was granted an interview with King James. The king asked her who was her father. She answered, “John Knox.” “Knox and Welsh!” he exclaimed; “the devil never made such a match.” “It’s right like, sir,” she said, “for we never speired (asked) his advice.” The king then asked how many children her father had left, and if they were lads or lasses. She said three, and they were all lasses. “God be thanked,” said the king, “for an they had been three lads I had never bruicked my three kingdoms in peace.” Mrs. Welsh pressed her request that her husband might get back to Scotland, so that he might enjoy his native air. “Give him his native air! Give him the devil!” said the king angrily. “Give that to your hungry courtiers,” came the quick reply from one who had learned to answer a fool according to his folly. At last King James offered to grant her request provided she would persuade her husband to submit to the new order of things. Mrs. Welsh, lifting her apron and holding it towards the king, replied, “Please, your Majesty, I’d rather kep his heid there.” She maintained the high traditions of her departed father for quick repartee and high-souled courage. And the reader will readily grant that Boyd of Trochrig’s characterisation of her, though high, was eminently just—”A spouse and daughter worthy of such a husband and such a father.”
MRS. JAMES GUTHRIE, STIRLING.
WE now turn to heroines of the Second Reformation. Scotland had fought and won her battle against Rome’s mighty power, but ere she came to enjoy the fruits of civil and ecclesiastical liberty, she had to pass through a struggle that strained to the utmost the high heroism of her sons and daughters. Crowned and mitred tyranny were the dread antagonists against which the true and loyal-hearted sons of Scotland waged a war that called forth a courage and a faithfulness which have given to these heroes and heroines a deathless fame. Charles II. was determined to bend—and if not to bend, to break—the will of the Scottish people, and for this purpose he entered on a struggle with his Scottish subjects that was to redden Scotland’s mountain-sides with blood. It was the stirring Covenant times, and in the struggle we have an exemplification of the poet’s words—”Truth for ever on the scaffold; wrong for ever on the throne.” But they fought their battle nobly, scorning the comforts of home, for to them
“Their home was oft the mountain cave, their couch the waving fern,
Their pillow oft the grey moss stone in moorlands dark and stern,
‘Mid bleatings of the mountain lamb, the melody of rills,
The moss-hag ‘mid the purple blooms, deep in the heathy hills.”
It is to one of the heroines of this great struggle that we now direct attention, and in doing so it may be remarked that, while she did not pass through the terrible ordeal of a cruel death, she felt the anguish that comes to a true and loving wife in having her husband, the Rev. James Guthrie, of Stirling, removed from her side to end his days on the scaffold for the principles which were dearer to him than life. There is something so stern and granitic in James Guthrie’s character that it may have a tendency to repel those of a milder and more pliable disposition, but it is evident that Oliver Cromwell took the true measure of his man when he characterised him as the “short man who could not bow.” It is recorded of him that on one occasion a brother minister who knew something of the trials that may be shunned by yielding truth and principle, addressed him as follows: “Mr. Guthrie, we have a proverb which says, ‘Jouk (stoop) and the water will go over you.’ Will ye no jouk a little, Mr. Guthrie?” The stern Covenanter turned to his temporising brother and, looking him straight in the face, said, “My brother, in the things of Christ there is no joukin’.” And it is because he never learned to stoop when the cause of Christ was at stake that he ultimately found himself on the scaffold. When the terrible trial came and death’s dread messenger knocked at her door, Mrs. Guthrie met the summons with a fortitude that showed the strength of her faith. Her high Christian character may be gathered from the farewell letter addressed to her by her husband as he lay in prison awaiting his end. Mr. Anderson, in his Ladies of the Covenant, says, “This letter is interesting, both as a relic of a dying martyr and as a memorial of the lowly piety and supreme devotion to duty which characterised the person to whom it is affectionately written. It also indicates the sources of comfort suggested to her mind in her trying circumstances.” Here is the letter: “My Heart,—Being within a few hours to lay down my life for the testimony of Jesus Christ, I do send these few lines as the last obedience of unfeigned and spotless affection which I bear unto you, not only as one flesh, but as a member with me of that blessed mystical body of the Lord, for I trust you are, and that God who hath begun His good work in you, will also perfect it and bring it to an end, and give you life and salvation. Whatever may be your infirmities and weakness, yet the grace of God shall be sufficient for you, and His strength shall be perfected in your weakness. To me you have been a very kind and faithful yoke-fellow, and not a hinderer but a helper in the work of the Lord. I do bear you this testimony as all the recompence I can now leave you with. In all the trials I have met with in the work of the ministry these twenty years past, which have not been few, and that from aggressors of many sorts, upon the right hand and upon the left, you were never a tempter of me to depart away from the living God, and from the way of my duty, to comply with an evil course, or to hearken to the counsels of flesh and blood for avoiding the Cross and for gaining the profit and preferment of the present world. You have wrought much with your hands for furnishing bread to me and my children, and was always willing that I should show hospitality, especially to those who bore the image of God. These things I mention not to puff you up but to encourage you under your present affliction and distress, being persuaded that God will have regard unto you and unto the children of my body, which I leave unto your care, that they may be bred up in the knowledge of the Lord. Let not your wants and weaknesses discourage you; there is power, riches, and abundance with God, both as to the things of the body and things of the soul, and He will supply all your wants and carry you through. It is like to be a most trying time, but cleave you to God and keep His way without casting away your confidence. Fear not to be drowned in the depths of the troubles that may attend this land. God will hide you under His shadow, and keep you in the hollow of His hand. Be sober and of a meek spirit. Strive not with Providence, but be subject to Him who is the Father of spirits. Decline not the Cross, but embrace it as your own. Love all that love the Lord, and delight in their fellowship. Give yourselves unto prayer, and be diligent in reading the Holy Scriptures. Wait on the ordinances, and have them in great esteem as the appointed means for your salvation. Join the exercise of piety and repentance together, and manifest your faith in the fruits of a sincere obedience and of a gospel conversation. Value your conscience above your skin. Be not solicitous although you know not wherewith to clothe you and your children or wherewith to dine; God’s providences and promises are a true, rich, and never-failing portion. Jesus Christ be all your salvation and all your desire! You I recommend unto Him, and Him unto you. My heart, I recommend you to the eternal love of Jesus Christ. I am helped of God, and hope I shall be helped to the end. Pray for me while I am here, and praise with me hereafter. God be with you!—I am, yours, JAMES GUTHRIE.”
The parting between the noble-hearted woman and her husband is touching enough. “I but trouble you,” she said as she bade her last farewell in tears; “I must now part from you.” And the reply that came from him who so dearly loved her told that all earthly ties were loosened. “Henceforth I know no one after the flesh,” he said.
Mrs. Guthrie and her children were left in poor circumstances, but kind friends came to her rescue. Sir George Maxwell, of Pollok, took a kindly interest in them, and the martyr’s bairns and widow were well attended to. The last day Guthrie had on earth he took his son—a boy of four or five years—on his knee, and addressing him, said, “Willie, they will tell you, and cast it up to you, that your father was hanged; but think not shame of it, for it is for a good cause.” It is to this incident Mrs. Menteath touchingly refers in her Lays of the Kirk and Covenant—
“My child! my own child! am I clasping thee now?
My God, all Thy will be done!
And he whom no terror on earth could bow,
Rained tears upon his son.
‘Now rest thee, my Willie, upon my knee,
For thy father’s hours are brief;
And store up my words, with thy love for me
Engraved on thy heart’s first grief.
They will tell thee, my bairn, that thy father died
A death both of sin and shame;
And the finger of scorn—and the foot of pride—
Will be busy with my name.
But heed them not, boy. For the cause of God
I render this day my breath;
And tread thou the path that thy father trod,
Though it lead to thy father’s death.
For my Master’s honour—my Master’s crown—
A martyr ’tis mine to be;
And the orphan’s God shall look kindly down,
My pleasant child, on thee.
I seal thee now with my parting kiss,
Till at His right hand we meet.
Death, death, thy bitterest drop is this;
All else in thy cup is sweet!”
It is said that little Willie was in the habit of going to the place where the head of his martyred father had been placed high on the city wall, and pensively looking at the wan face that showed now no sign of recognising his darling child, would then come home, telling his mother that he had been to see his father’s head. This child, when he grew, became a serious seeker after his father’s God, and had intentions of studying for the ministry, but ere he had finished his theological course, he was called hence. As one tries to realise what it meant for the heroes and heroines of those days to be true to the faith, we may well say with Mr. (now Dr.) Smellie, in his Men of the Covenant, “It was a sore and heavy thing to be a Covenanter’s child,” and it was no less a sore and heavy thing to be a martyr’s wife, even though a fit companion in high-souled heroism; for who can tell the anguish experienced when the loving ties of husband and wife were rudely snapped asunder by a cruel death?
(To be Continued.)