By the Rev. D. M. MACDONALD, Portree.
(Continued from page 13.)
Christ’s witnesses, from the highest in rank to the humblest, were not spared. The Earl of Argyle was condemned for treason and finished his course calmly on the scaffold, being glad to get rid of sin and to enter glory. Many others, such as Captains John Paton, Nisbet, Hackston, and Mr. Bailie of Jerviswood, gave wonderful testimonies to the power of Christ’s grace and support in their last words, among them also being two humble women, Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey.
One of the most famous ministers among the persecuted was Richard Cameron. He, along with others, made the first public testimony against the tyrannical house of Stewart, in the Sanquhar Declaration and became a marked man. In a skirmish with dragoons at Ayrsmoss he was killed, and in order to claim the reward offered for his capture, his head and hands were lopped off and taken to Edinburgh, where they were shown to his aged father, then in prison for attending conventicles. On being asked if he knew to whom they belonged, the devout old Covenanter tenderly lifted them saying, “I know them, I know them; they are my son’s, my dear son’s, it is the Lord; good is the will of the Lord who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy follow us all our days.”
The Rev. Donald Cargill, that great and faithful watchman on the walls of our Scottish Sion, was apprehended, with some others, by James Irving of Bonshaw. In due time he was taken before the Privy Council and, when threatened with torture by the Lord Chancellor Rothes, then not far from death through his own debaucheries, the valiant Cargill said, “My Lord, forbear to threaten me for, die what death I will, your eyes will not see it.” As usual, all the prisoners were sentenced to death, and when the clerk in reading the sentence came to the phrase, “having cast off the fear of God,” this falsehood was challenged at once by the unflinching covenanter, who cried, “Halt.” Then pointing to Lord Advocate McKenzie, called the “Bloody McKenzie,” he defiantly said, “The man that has caused that paper to be drawn up in that form hath done it contrary to the light of his own conscience; for he knows I have been a fearer of God from my infancy; but I say the man that took the Holy Bible in his hand and said: ‘That it would never be well with the land till that book would be destroyed’ is the man that has cast off all fear of God.” This thunderbolt probably scarred the seared conscience of the treacherous McKenzie. On the scaffold he sang part of Psalm 118 (Metrical Version): “I shall not die but live, and shall The works of God discover.” In the act of prayer he was turned over. The rest met their fate as bravely.
Among those who witnessed Cargill’s triumphant death was the beautiful James Renwick, then a young student of about nineteen years. From this hour he cast in his lot with the suffering remnant. For several years after Cargill’s departure he took the lead in upholding the banner of the Covenant. He went about continually preaching and encouraging the Societies formed for supporting the cause of God. Meetings were held in cottages or on lonely moors at midnight. He never spared himself. In the month of January, 1688, his voice was heard conducting family worship in the house of John Luckup, a dealer in English goods in Edinburgh. The gauger who heard his voice called for assistance and Renwick, after clearing a way for himself through those who waited to seize him, was struck on the head and losing strength was at last arrested. Efforts made to make him renounce covenanting principles completely failed. Some, even of his enemies, felt attracted by his winsome personality and deplored his fate. He was found guilty and condemned to be executed in the Grassmarket. It seems that at none of the terrible spectacles witnessed in Edinburgh during twenty-eight years of persecution were so many sorrowing spectators gathered as on the morning that he was put to death. He comforted his mother by prophesying that neither his head nor hands would appear on jail spikes and said that he was persuaded his death would do more good than his life for many years had done. On the scaffold, during a lull in the beating of the drums, his sweet voice was heard to say, “I shall soon be above the clouds. Then shall I enjoy thee and glorify thee, O my Father, without interruption forever. Lord, I die in the faith that thou wilt not leave Scotland but that thou wilt make the blood of thy witnesses the seed of thy Church and return again and be glorious in our land.” Not until the struggles of one of the noblest martyrs for religion had ended did the drums cease their monotonous beating.
Renwick’s faith was soon justified. Deliverance was at hand. On October, 1688, William, Prince of Orange, issued a Declaration that he was taking up arms in defence of Protestantism and the liberty of Scotland. The miserable tyrant, King James, fled to France. Parliament met and an Act was passed whereby William and Mary were accepted as King and Queen of Scotland. Prelacy was abolished and the rights and liberties of the nation placed in security. The struggles of fifty years had ended and the day of religious freedom for which many prayed and faithful martyrs died had come at last.
Needless to say, the intruded curates would feel a little concerned about their prospects. They had generally been detested by the people. Very often they had encouraged the soldiers to hound their godly parishioners to the death and they had every reason now to dread the consequences of their evil doing. Yet the people showed the greatest forbearance with them, taking them to the parish boundary, stripping them of their fringed gowns and dismissing them with a warning never to return. In some cases they may have received rough handling but they were only to blame for it themselves.
What about the noble four hundred ministers cast out of their manses to make room for worthless Episcopal curates? About sixty of the glorious company were still alive and able to occupy their vacant pulpits again. They spent their days from this time on looking after their pastoral charges and rejoicing in the renewed opportunity given of preaching the glorious gospel of Christ.
As soon as the Privy Council of Scotland and the Bishops heard of the Revolution they became alarmed for their own safety. They commanded the imprisoned Covenants to be set free and ordered the bleaching skulls of the martyrs on the city gates to be taken down and buried, for fear that inquiries would be made concerning those responsible for placing them there.
The principal persecutors were under godly Donald Cargill’s excommunication and some of them, if not all, came to a sad end. The Earl of Rothes, his body bloated with debauchery, had no peace in his death. Dalziel of Binns, hardened old ruffian, was found dead with a wineglass in his hand. The “bloody McKenzie,” Lord Advocate, sneaked quietly off to England. The Earl of Perth was arrested and imprisoned. The Duke of Lauderdale, his body worn out with excesses, died miserably. King Charles the Second ended his profligate career as a Papist. Claverhouse was killed at the Battle of Killiecrankie.
Dr. King Hewison states that according to the author of “The Scots Worthies,” and other authorities, the number of sufferers for the Covenants by imprisonment, banishment, and death, was 18,000. Of these 7,000 went into exile, 2,800 suffered imprisonment, 1,700 were transported; 680 were killed fighting; 750 were banished to the North Isles; 498 were dispatched on the fields; 362 were judicially executed, and many others perished in their wanderings. It is computed that at one time there were as many as twenty thousand persons whom it was death to furnish with meat, drink, house, harbour, victual or any other thing useful or comfortable to them; or to have intercourse with them by word, note or message, or any other way.
For the long period of twenty-eight years Scotland had to face oppression and persecution unparalleled in the history of the world, and in proportion to size and population there never has been a country that made such a tremendous contribution in life and sufferings to the advancement of civil and religious freedom.
Daniel Defoe, in his “Memoirs of the Church of Scotland,” says: “What a shame is it to us and how much to the honour of these persecuted people that they could thus see the treachery and tyranny of these reigns when we saw it not; or rather that they had so much honesty of principle and obeyed so strictly the dictates of conscience as to bear their testimony early, nobly, and gloriously to the truth of God and the rights of their country, both civil and religious; while we, although seeing the same things, yet betrayed the cause of liberty and religion by a sinful silence and a dreadful cowardice.”
Stands Scotland where she did?
Evidently not, for Romanism is now taught in not a few of the schools at the expense of the State. This is due to the Education Act of 1918, foisted on the people practically unknown to them. The work of the great Reformers is now in danger of being undone and it is high time Scotsmen were roused out of their apathy to shake off forever the shackles that Rome is seeking to fasten on them anew.
The first time the writer was in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, when looking at the statues erected to men famous in British history, the words of the poet came to his mind: “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land.” Soon they were followed by those of the inspired psalmist showing the emptiness of material things and of human grandeur, but the greatness and glory of Him who is the Creator of the ends of the earth and the God of Salvation: “There arrows of the bow He brake, The shield, the sword, the war. More glorious thou than hills of prey, More excellent art afar.” (Ps. 76: 2—Metrical Version.) He will overthrow every evil system in due time and establish His own Kingdom in the world through our Lord Jesus Christ.