Page:Sketches of the History of the Church of Scotland.djvu/16

 available means, including fire and sword. And their language and deeds corresponded. At the beginning of the Covenanting times, for the crime of "malignancy," which was their favourite epithet for loyalty to Church and Throne, they put to death in cold blood men like Sir John Spottiswoode, the son of the Primate, and President of the Court of Session; and he is but a single specimen of hundreds of loyal gentlemen that might be named, who were put to death for the crime of "malignancy." These butcheries, for executions they cannot be called, so rejoiced the soul of one of the preachers, Mr. David Dickson, a shining light of the Covenant, that while feasting his eye? on the bloodshed, he exclaimed in ecstacy, "O, the Lord be praised, the wark o' God gangs bonnily on!" which, says Bishop Guthrie, passed into a proverb among the people. On the defeat of the great and gallant Marquis of Montrose at Philiphaugh, General Lesly, the leader of the rebel army, promised quarter to the remnant of the defeated royalists; but Nevay, one of the Covenanting preachers, seconded by the Marquis of Argyle, Montrose's deadly enemy, prevailed on Lesly to break his word. The prisoners of war were disarmed and butchered on the spot, Lesly, horror-struck at the carnage he had unadvisedly sanctioned, turned round to the preacher, who was walking with Argyle, both of them up to the ankles in blood, and sternly said, "Now, Mess John, methinks you have for once got your fill of blood!" Even Bishop Burnet, who treats the Covenanters as tenderly as he decently can, is compelled for once to speak the truth. "Upon this occasion," he says, "the Marquis of Argyle and the preachers showed a very bloody temper. Many prisoners, who had quarter given them, were murdered in cold blood. The preachers thundered against all who did the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cried out on all those that were for humanity and moderation, 'thine eye shall not pity, neither shalt thou spare.'" The Bishop adds, "The Covenanters triumphed with so little decency, that it gave the people very ill impressions of them."

And yet, as we all know, these are the very men who, when the day of reprisals came, are held up to popular admiration and eulogy as "The Scottish Martyrs," "The Martyrs for Christ's Crown and a Broken Covenant." Nay, even from many Churchmen of the present day, not very well read we must suppose, in the history of those times, one hears admissions made to the effect that the poor Covenanters were badly treated; that they were persecuted for conscience' sake, however ill informed their conscience, and however mistaken their religion may have been; and that this is a portion of Scottish history for which Churchmen ought to feel shame and regret. Now I take leave to express my distinct and deliberate conviction that such shame and regret are entirely misplaced. The truth ought to be known about those so-called "martyrs," which it is the aim of partisan writers and platform orators to conceal, that they refused either to accept toleration or to grant it. Their avowed object was