Page:History of John Brown of Priesthill.pdf/3

 dregs of society, ignorant and wicked. Many of the bishops had sworn, along with the king and his nobles, to support the Church they had overturned. It was no wonder though they were regarded as coming in with perjury written on their foreheads; where holiness to the Lord had formerly been." The consequence was, that the churches were deserted; and the ministers, still bound by God's laws to their people, taught them from house to house. This the bishops could not bear, and fell to their former practice of making laws against them. The laws against non-conformity, says Defoe, were so extraordinary, and savoured so much of a spirit of persecution, were in them-selves so unjust, and in some things so unnatural, that none can wonder though they sometimes drove the poor people to desperation. "They suffered extremities that cannot be described, and which the heart can hardly conceive of, from hunger, nakedness, and the severity of the weather; where it is known how unsufferable the cold is, lying in damp caves, without covering, fire, or food. None durst harbour, speak to them, or relieve them, but upon the pain of death."

The whirlwind of persecution carried the seeds of salvation where the influence of the Reformation had not reached. The Scottish border, proverbial for freebooters or robbers, felt the divine effects of the banished ministers. They were there harboured without fear or dread of laws, and kindly entertained. The inhabitants of the heath-covered moors, and the distant isles of the sea, were made glad, and blossomed as the rose. Thus, the scattering of the ministers made new inroads upon