The Covenanters: What They Suffered.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 102, 10 May 1883, Page 3

The Covenanters : What They Suffered.

The Rev. Mr Murray lectured on the above. subject on Sabbath evening in the Presbyterian Church. He chose as his text, Lev. IL, 10 : "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. By none was this word of the Divine Master more faithfully kept than by the Scottish t ovenauters. This is abundantly proved by the history of their sufferings during the period of 28 years, from the Restoration to the Revolution. Nev«r has the moral and re igious condition of Scotland been higher than it was during the eight years of Cromwell's protectorate. But changed times were at hand. It appeared as if during these eight years of uninterrupted religious peace, God was preparing his people in Scotland for the long-continued and sharp trial which followed. Anyone who had followed the course of events up to the re-call of Charles, and who was ignorant of the events which followed, would naturally suppose that of all his -subjects into whose open arms he was now entering, the Scottish Covenanters would obtain the largest share of his affections. The Covenanters were Royalists. On the death of Charles 1., they had proclaimed his son King, crowned him at Scone, and fought for liim against all his enemies until overcowered and defeated. Of all his subjects they were least chargeable with complicity with Cromwell. Charles moreover had taken the Covenant as a .condition of obtaining the Scottish Crown. But then he was a Stuart King— one of that race who were never noted for gratitude to their friends, nor fidelity to their sworn word. No sooner was Charles seated on the English throne than he set about using means to overthrow Presbyterianism and re-establish Episcopacy. Matters were so managed that all were excluded from the first meeting of the Parliament of Scotland but those whom he could bend to his purposes. He scut as hu Royal Commissioner a man of low origin and bad character — a renegade Covenanter, whom he created Earl of Middleton. By this Parliament an "Act Recissory " was passed, i.e., an Act rescinding or cancelling all. the Acts passed by the Scottish Parliaments since.l 633. Thus all safeguards against arbitrary power were cast to the ground. -Then followed the destruction of the leading Covenanters. The first victim chosen was the great and good Marquis of Argyle, regarded at this time ap the greatest subj ect the King had . He was decoyed to London by a friendly letctr of the King, immediately seized on his arrival and imprisoned in the Tower. Thence he was conveyed by ship to Edinburgh, where he was put on his trial for high treason. By a mockery of justice ho .was condemned for complicity with Cromwell's usurption, a " crime" of which the whole nation, including his judges themselves, were equally guilty. "Ho was beheaded on the 27th of May, 1661. The next victim was the Rev. James Guthrie, minister of Sterling. He was hanged at the cross o>' Edinburgh, on the Ist of June, of the same year. Before being turned off the aged and infirm, but intrepid sufferer lifted the napkin from hia face and exclaimed, "-The Covenant, the Covenant, shall yet be Scotland's reviving-" Guthrie was the author of a little book, still popular, called "The Christians' great interest." Another eminent minister, the Rev. S. Rutherford, Professor of Divinity at St. Andrew's, only escaped the same fate by the providence of God calling him to a •better world by a quieter way. Though known to be dying, he was expelled from •bis professorship, and called before the council. When he received the summons be returned this message : " Tell the council I have received a summons from a higher tribunal than theirs, and I must obey it." Immediately afterwards he expired. Another most barbarous judi•aa\ murder of this period was the execu-tion-of Johnston of Warriston. It was he who first proposed the taking of the Covenant as a means of national union and-defence ia 1638. At the Restoration be fled to the Continent. He was delivered up by the French Government and • hanged at the cross of Edinburgh. What increases the barbarity of this execution is that Johnston had already one foot in the grave. He had almost lost his memory, and could scarcely speak articulately. He had been a leading man ia public affairs, and was one of the most .distinguished' of the lesser Barons of Scotland. . When the Presbyterian Ministers were turned out of their churches, great difficulty was found to supply the Vacant churches with men that would accept the new order of things. They had to accept the .most unworthy men, ignorant and immoral. It may b. easily understood that the people who had been deprived of their own clergy, whom they loveli ana' revered, would dislike these now incumbents thus thrust upon them. Tbey utterly refused to attend their ministrations, and continued to flock to their , old. pastors. These preached at first in tlieir own houses) and afterwards in the fields. The Government now set jjgelf to force the people, to abandon their old ministers- and attend upon the minis-tratiou*-of-these-curates, as they were called. Laws were passed subjecting all persons who .failed to attend their parish church to fines, varying in amount ac cording to their rank and condition in life. These fines were raised sumuiar-

ily by bodies of troops, which patrolled the whole country. Immense sums of money were thus extorted from the people. But this was only the beginning. New laws of even increasing severity wpre passed from time to time. Persons who frequented field preachings were j intercommuned, i.e., they were subjected to a civil excommunication. They were outlawed, and whoever gave them i either food or shelter, or even spoke to i them, were counted participators along . with them, in the guilt of rebellion. The I lecturer cited instances of cruel and in- j human persecutions of men, women and ! children. At the lowest computation up- j wards of 18,000 persons died in the per- j secution — by judicial mur.ier, military j execution, slaughtered when attending j worship, also by starvation in the , caves and morasses in which they had to seek shelter from their persecutors. Hundreds of persons were put to the torture of the boot and the thumbikins, and others were tortured by lighted matches tied between the fingers. This last torture was practised hy the soldiers ; to make the sufferers confess where tlieir j friends were concealed. The patient endurance of fhe sufferers was truly marvellous. The persecutors cvi iently tried to goad the people into rebellion that they might bave an excuse for treating the whole south and west of Scotland as a country in revolt, but they were baffled by the marvellous endurance of the suffering people. They endured as seeing Him who is invisible. The persecution deepened in intensity until the end. As the darkest hour is that which comes immediately before the dawn, so the fiercest persecution was that which immediately preceded the glorious Revolution of 16S8, which might truly be called the dawn of brighter and a better day, both in Scotland and in England. The lecture was listened to with great attention by a deeply interested audience.