the instruments of death; they fired, and all the three fell prostrate on the heath, and the warm purple stream of life mingled with the dark moss water in the moor, and their redeemed spirits were conveyed by angels from their mangled bodies to the mansion of eternal blessedness. Their enemies appeared to conquer, but they who fell were really the victors; for "they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; for they loved not their lives unto the death."

They suffered martyrdom in a place where there were no earthly spectators present to sympathize with them, and they were buried in their clothes in the moss where they fell; and as "devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentations over him," so the friends of these Christian confessors came, when their enemies had retired from the spot, and dug their graves in the morass, in which they laid their murdered bodies, to rest till the morning of the general resurrection. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."

The sweet and gentle Marion Cameron, like a delicate and lovely flower, was, in the bloom of her days, despoiled of her life by the rough and pitiless hand of violence. She has a name among the "many daughters who have done virtuously;" and she, with her companions, has obtained the martyr's crown, and now are they with the multitude who have suffered for "the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." How enviable is the situation of the persecuted, even in their greatest affliction, compared with that of their oppressors, even in their greatest prosperity! The triumph of the wicked is short, while their ruin is endless and irremediable; on the other hand, in the case of the righteous, their "light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for them a far more exceeding and an eternal weight of glory."

About seventy years ago, while some cattle were trampling in the moss exactly over the graves of those worthies, their feet turned up part of the clothes of Marion Cameron, which were then in a tolerably good state of preservation, owing to the antiseptic quality of the moss in which they were imbedded; and a large common yellow pin, which she was accustomed to wear in her raiment, was found and cherished as a precious relic of one whose memory was held so dear. The pin came into the possession of Mrs Gemmel of Catrine,

a niece of Thomas Hutchison of Daljig, by whom it was retained all her days, as a precious memorial of the original proprietor. It is now in the possession of a daughter of Mrs Gemmel's, who at present resides in Stranraer, by whom it is preserved with equal care.

The murder of such saintly persons as Marion Cameron, depicts, in colours sufficiently glaring, the dark and revolting barbarity of the times. The sun in the firmament scarcely ever beheld deeds of greater atrocity than those committed by the rude and hardened troopers on the unoffending peasantry of Scotland. But the case of Marion Cameron was not a solitary one; there are other instances of young and timid females who exhibited the greatest firmness and moral heroism, in enduring sufferings for Christ's sake.

Such instances of barbarity show the reckless and unprincipled character of those who were deputed by the equally unprincipled and worthless rulers of the period, to do that work of wickedness to which Satan prompted them. But while such deeds of violence depict the character of those who perpetrated them, and hold them up in a very despicable light to posterity, they who suffered displayed a very different character. Their meekness, their constancy, their blameless deportment, the strength of their faith and hope in God, their confidence in the goodness of their cause, their joy in the Redeemer, and their firmness of purpose in the hour of death, were all displayed in an eminent degree, illustrative of the grace of God, which wrought so powerfully in them, to the entire discomfiture of their foes, who, though they killed the body, could not vanquish their principles.

CHAPTER XI.

Lesmahagow-Thomas Brown of Auchlochan-Smith of ThreepodJohn Gill-Stobo.

LESMAHAGOW is a name familiar to all who are in any measure versant in the times and scenes of Prelatic violence. Few sections of the country, perhaps, furnished a richer harvest of godly persons, among whom to thrust the bloody sicklepersecution; and nobly did these honoured persons maintain their fidelity, and the credit of that cause to which they were attached. The moorlands of Lesmahagow, if they could speak, could tell many a tale of suffering now unknown, and could also recount many a blessed hour of sacred intercourse with God, enjoyed by his people in the day of privation and of peril. The inhabitants of this district seem, in the days of Zion's affliction, to have been favoured with large communications of divine influence, and with much spiritual fortitude in the hour of temptation. The Steels of Lesmahagow were men of renown, and faithful witnesses for Jesus Christ. The death of David Steel, who was shot at Shellyhill in 1686, in the thirty-third year of his age, is, in all its circumstances, equally affecting with the death of John Brown of Priesthill. He was, after promise of quarter, murdered before his own door; and Mary Weir, his youthful and truly Christian wife, who, it is said, cherished an uncommon attachment to her husband, having bound up his shattered head with a napkin, and closed down his eyelids with her own haud, looked on the manly and honest countenance that was now pale in death, and said, with a sweet and heavenly composure: "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." What is it but the reality of religion that can so fully sustain the hearts of God's people in the day of their

tribulation, and under the pressure of afflictions so overwhelming?

The tale of the martyrs of Lesmahagow has been told by a descendant of one of themselves-the Rev. Charles Thomson of North Shields. In the excellent and heart-stirring narrative which he has given of these worthies, we see, on their part, the display of a genuine godliness, of a patient endurance of trial, and of an unflinching constancy of purpose, even to the death, of a most instructive nature, and which, placed in contrast with the conduct of their heartless oppressors, points them out as the excellent ones of the earth, and as men of whom the world was not worthy.

Of the confessors of Lesmahagow, however, there are yet some gleanings which have not hitherto been made public, one of which shall be given here. Thomas Brown of Auchlochan, in the parish of Lesmahagow, was a good man and a steady Covenanter. He was present at Drumclog, where the fierce Claverhouse sustained a signal defeat by a handful of worshippers, who had been holding a conventicle near the place, on Sabbath the 1st of June 1679. He fought also at Bothwell Bridge, where the power of the Covenanters was lamentably broken, and their army scattered. If, prior to the rising at Bothwell, the furnace of persecution glowed with an intolerable heat, it was now kindled seven times; and the cloud that lowered over the afflicted Church grew darker and more portentous, and threatened to discharge its ominous contents in one full and vengeful tempest on the defenceless heads of those who had hitherto outbraved the fury of the storm, in the support of their civil and religious privileges. At this period, Claverhouse was ravaging the west, and, like a beast of prey, was tearing and devouring on all sides; for that reckless and infatuated Cavalier would not have scrupled to ride, even to the bridle reins, in the blood of the populace, to serve the vindictive purposes of his military employers; and much and precious was the blood which, with unsparing hand, he shed in the fields and moorlands, and loud was the cry which his oppression made to ascend from many a cottage in the land. Two of the troopers under the command of this blood-thirsty adventurer, came suddenly upon Thomas Brown, on the banks of the Nethan, a few yards above the house of Auchlochan. Brown stood on his defence, and, with his sword drawn, warded off for some time the blows of his antagonists. At length, however, he was overpowered, and falling under the heavy strokes of the two powerful troopers, he was left for dead on the field. At this

juncture, the appearance of another Covenanter on the opposite side of the stream attracted their notice, and, leaving their victim bleeding on the ground, they crossed the river in pursuit. This man, whose name is not mentioned, was speedily overtaken, and killed on the spot. Thomas Brown, however, though severely wounded, was not dead. He was stupified by the loss of blood, and stunned by the blows he had received; but, by the kind attention of his friends, he gradually recovered. He was at this time in the flower of his age, and he lived till he became an old man. The present proprietor of Auchlochan is his lineal descendant. It is no small honour to be sprung from those who, in their day, were distinguished as Christ's witnesses, and counted worthy to suffer for his sake. The worth of ancestry, however, will not save us; we must ourselves become followers of them who, through faith and patience, are now inheriting the promises.

The following anecdote refers to a striking incident which befell near the village of Galston, in Ayrshire. Ayrshire was at an early period visited with the Gospel. The Culdees and the Lollards of Kyle in different ages overspread this district, and disseminated the principles of religious truth among its population; and the doctrines of the Gospel, thus promulgated in this locality, were never entirely suppressed, either by the superstition of the dark ages, or by the strong arm of persecution. Several years prior to the Reformation, we find that a goodly number of influential individuals in that county had embraced tenets entirely opposed to the Popish creed, and in unison with the pure faith of the Gospel. "We find that, in 1494, Robert Blackatter, the first archbishop of Glasgow, caused to be summoned before the king and his great council held there, about thirty individuals in all, and mostly persons of distinction, accused of Reformation principles. Among these were George Campbell of Cesnock, Adam Reid of Barskimming, John Campbell of New Mills, Andrew Sharp of Polkemmet, Lady Pokellie, and Lady Stair. They were opprobriously called Lollards of Kyle, from Lollard, an eminent preacher among the Waldenses, and were charged, under thirty-four articles, with maintaining that images ought not to be worshipped, that the relics of saints ought not to be adored, and such like obnoxious tenets: but to these accusations they answered with such boldness, constancy, and effect, that the archbishop and his associates were at length constrained to drop the proceedings; and it was judged most prudent to dismiss them, with the simple