promised blessings be multiplied unto you."

"No more

of that," shouted the ruffian, and ordered his dragoons to fire. Their arms remained motionless by their side; when, fearing a mutiny, perhaps, he hastily snatched his pistol from his belt, placed it close to the good man's head, and, firing, shattered his skull. His wife gathered the fragments in her lap; and to the brutal taunt of the murderer, "What think you of your husband now, my woman ?" meekly, nobly replied, "I aye thocht meikle o' him, but never sae meikle as I do this day." She composed his remains, wrapped his head in a napkin, spread her plaid over him; and then-not till then-sat down by his side, with her children around her, and gave vent to the mighty torrent of her grief. Do you wonder that curses rest on the man who could do a deed so foul, or that Scotland is proud of the sons and daughters who could act their part so well?

The case of David Steel, of Lesmahagow, was very much similar. I give it to you almost in the words of the historian; it needs no embellishment. Lieutenant Crichton, after promise of quarter had been given, ordered his dragoons to shoot him. Affected by the man's appearance, or, it may be, shocked with the breach of faith, they replied that "they would neither shoot him nor see him shot;" and, mounting their horses, immediately rode off. A second command was given to the footsoldiers, all Highlanders, who instantly obeyed. A number of balls passed through his head, which was literally shattered. His youthful wife, Mary Weir, who cherished an uncommon attachment for her husband, gazing, in the amazement of her grief, on his manly and honest countenance, now pale in death, said in a sweet and heavenly tone, as if whispering in the dull cold ear of death, "The archers have shot at thee, my husband, but they could not reach thy soul; it has escaped like a dove far away, and is at rest.”

Bending over his mangled corpse, she gently pressed down the eyelids yet warm with life. Then folding her hands, and looking up with eyes that pierced the heavens, exclaimed, 'Lord, give strength unto thine handmaid, that will prove she has waited for thee in the way of thy judgments." When the neighbours came to the spot, they found her gathering up his fair hair and the shattered fragments of his skull. Thus passed away another of those noble men. John Brown and he had often taken sweet fellowship together. They were intimate and lovely in their lives; strangely alike, too, in the tragic circumstances and heroic manner of their death. They lived quietly in the comparative solitude in which their lot was cast-far apart from the great world, little thinking that their names would ever become widely known. But their faithfulness has raised them to an honour of which they never dreamed. persecution which sought to crush had no power to harm them. It only "dragged them into fame and chased them up to heaven."

The

I ought almost to apologize for occupying your attention with these details; and yet there is another case illustrative not only of the cruelty of the persecution, but of the heroic spirit of the women of the Covenant, which I must venture to relate. A young woman, only eighteen years of age, named Margaret Wilson, was taken with another, an aged woman, and tied to a stake, on the western coast. As the flowing tide surrounded and gradually rose upon them, the dragoons sat and watched them from the shore. It must have been a fearfully trying position thus to look on death so long before it came. But Margaret was undaunted. When almost at the drowning point, she was brought out and offered her life, on condition of renouncing her principles. Declining, she was again led into the sea, and bound as before. She stood with death at her lips, when a word

might have saved her. No cry of terror or of weakness escaped her. Her songs of praise or of triumph were borne upon the flowing tide far across the waters. And she stood there till the rising waves drowned her voice, and wafted her soul to where it could present its protest against man's tyranny at the footstool of God's throne. As the sexton who showed her grave in Wigtown churchyard used to say-" She was but a lassie, and yet she died for the Covenant."

While such events were occurring in the moors of Scotland, under the reign of a king who was styled Defender of the Faith, death paid an unbidden visit to a far different scene, and to one who received the summons in a far different spirit. Charles died in February, 1685, the circumstances of his death proving that he had been a hypocrite as well as a libertine-a Protestant in name, but a Papist at heart. His conscience awoke as he stood face to face with death, and by a miserable expedient he sought to silence its accusations. The Popish priest was sent for, that by the help of a wafer he might float the poor little worthless, polluted soul which was about to leave the bloated body, safely into eternity. Having received the communion and the ghostly benediction, he died; and we cannot say worse of him than that he went, as all must go, " to his own place."

The persecution had now reached its climax. In the short reign of James, which succeeded, its fierceness was considerably abated. An act of indulgence was passed, similar to that of 1669, of which the Cameronians, as the strict Covenanters were now called, faithful as ever, refused to avail themselves. Young James Renwick, the inspired boy, who was converted to the Covenant by witnessing Cargill's execution, and since the death of Cameron had become their leader, kept alive in them the spirit of liberty

F

That spirit was growing in both the Scotch and English people, who were now prepared to act out the principle for which the Cameronians had struggled so long. Tired of the grinding despotism of James, the English sought help from Holland. The landing of the Dutch led to James's ignominious flight. His ministers in Scotland speedily followed the example of their master; and the kingdom rose at one bound to welcome the Prince of Orange, and to commence that career of liberty and progress which has made Britain, with all her faults, the fairest, happiest, noblest, and best of the nations of the earth.

So ended the Covenanting struggle. For fifty years, with more or less of vigour, and with occasional pauses, it had been gallantly maintained. And now, after varying success, and when it seemed almost extinguished, it became suddenly triumphant. Its essential object was gained. The supremacy of Christ as Lord of the conscience was recognised by the rulers of the nation-never more to be challenged. If the parchment of the Covenant might be said to have been consumed, the spirit which it enshrined had risen gloriously from its ashes. Not in vain had those noble men suffered and died. Their unconquerable resistance rung the knell of the Stuart dynasty. Their blood became the seed of our liberties. "That red rain did make the harvest grow" which in happier times we are privileged to reap. And while the testimony, borne in such tragic and impressive manner, is fresh in the minds of men- -while Britain retains the memory of that struggle, so long shall neither king nor kaiser dare to touch with sacrilegious hand the conscience of her people; so long shall she continue the home of the brave and free.

"First gem of the ocean,

First isle of the sea."

I need not say that liberties which have been so dearly

bought should be highly prized and sacredly guarded. Through much struggling-at a vast expenditure of lifehave they been handed down to us; through the same or severer struggles, at the same or a vaster expenditure, if need be, must we hand them down intact to the generations which are to come. Cowards are we, unworthy of the name of Britons, degenerate sons of noble sires, if we suffer pope or despot to lay rifling hand on our goodly heritage. Fools are we, if, under any pretence, we trust the promises or suffer the encroachments of that system which, under the disguise of Erastianism, pressed so heavily on our fathers. It may suit its purpose now to assume a tone of meekness, and an air of injured innocence; for it can coo like a dove as well as roar like a bear. It can so glove its iron talons as to make them appear soft and delicate as an infant's fingers; but despite its fair pretensions, its character is unchanged: it glories in its unchangeableness. We know how, wherever it has reigned with unbridled sway, it has converted nations of freemen into herds of grovelling slaves, and that it is only waiting its opportunity to serve us as it has served others to crush out with iron grasp all that is noble in man. We know, too, what they would like to see who labour to introduce Popish forms into our Protestant churches, who speak with maudlin affection of that blessed martyr Charies, and the Puritan-whipping Laud, and vent their spleen against Cromwell and his Puritans. We know what they wish to see who can thus eulogize the ignoble, and vilify the illustrious, dead. And whether it be to the Romanist proper, or to his Puseyite bastard cousin, what we have to say is,"There can only be war-eternal war, between us and you. Your purpose is to make us slaves; and rather than live your slaves, God's freemen we will die." We may not deny to them the rights which we claim for ourselves. We may not interfere with their freedom of opinion. But when they