Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/46

16 drove the English out of the highlands and back to their own lands?”

“Five hundred years ago. Yes, for five hundred years that sword has been handed down from kinsman to kinsman. My father’s father’s fathers were Highlanders, wore the kilt and trampled the purple heather and played the bagpipes that summoned the clans.”

“But why did your father and mother leave Scotland, grandmother?”

“We came away for religious liberty, child, that we might worship God according to our conscience.”

“But I should not have run away. And I should have worshiped God according to my conscience. And they could have taken their swords and killed me.”

“Ay, they did that, my bairn; the blood was spilled of many a God-fearing man. Your ancestors wrote their names on the covenant in blood, and that meant they would keep the covenant with their life blood. Ay, dearie, dearie; it was a long and bitter and terrible strife, but religion was more to our ancestors than their lives.”

“What is religion?” asks the child, dropping the sword and resting her hands on her grandmother’s shoulders.

“Religion is to know and worship God.”

And there in the twilight of the garret the child fell a wondering, doubtless making then and there her covenant, while the grandmother returned to rummaging in the old chest which had crossed the ocean. Now the grandmother took from the chest some old newspapers, yellow with age, together with