by John Galt
CHAPTER XLVI
The proclamation was as a stunning blow on the forehead of theCovenanters, and for the next two Sabbaths Mr Swinton was plainly inprayer a weighed down and sorrowful-hearted man, but he said nothing inhis discourses that particularly affected the marrow of that sore andsolemn business. On the Friday night, however, before the last Lord'sday of that black October, he sent for my brother, who was one of hiselders, and told him that he had received a mandatory for conformity tothe proclamation, and to acknowledge the prelatic reprobation that theKing's government had introduced into the church; but that it was hisintention, strengthened of the Lord, to adhere to his vows andcovenants, even to the uttermost, and not to quit his flock, happen whatwould.
"The beild of the kirk and the manse," said he, "being temporalities,are aneath the power and regulation of the earthly monarch; but in thethings that pertain to the allegiance I owe to the King of Kings, I willact, with His heartening, the part of a true and loyal vassal."
This determination being known throughout the parish, and the first ofNovember being the last day allowed for conforming, on the Sabbathpreceding we had a throng kirk and a solemneezed congregation. Accordingto their wonted custom, the men, before the hour of worship, assembledin the kirk-yard, and there was much murmuring and marvelling among us,that nobody in all the land would stand forth to renew the Covenant, aswas done in the year thirty-eight; and we looked around and beheld thegreen graves of many friends that had died since the great day of thecovenanting, and we were ashamed of ourselves and of our time, andmourned for the loss of the brave spirits which, in the darkness of Hismysterious wisdom, the Lord had taken away.
The weather, for the season, was bright and dry; and the withered leafstill hung here and there on the tree, so that old and young, the infirmand the tender, could come abroad; and many that had been bed-rid weresupported along by their relations to hear the word of Truth, for thelast time, preached in the house of God.
Mr Swinton came, followed by his wife and family. He was, by this time,a man well stricken in years, but Mrs Swinton was of a youngergeneration; and they had seven children,--Martha, the eldest, a finelassie, was not passing fourteen years of age. As they came slowly upthe kirk-stile, we all remarked that the godly man never lifted his eyesfrom the ground, but came along perusing, as it were, the very earth forconsolation.
The private door which, at that epoch, led to the minister's seat andthe pulpit, was near to where the bell-rope hung on the outer wall, andas the family went towards it, one of the elders stepped from the plateat the main door to open it. But after Mrs Swinton and the children weregone in, the minister, who always stopped till they had done so, insteadof then following, paused and looked up with a compassionate aspect, andlaying his hand on the shoulder of old Willy Shackle, who was ringingthe bell, he said,--
"Stop, my auld frien,--they that in this parish need a bell this day tocall them to the service of their Maker winna come on the summons o'yours."
He then walked in; and the old man, greatly affected, mounted the stool,and tied up the rope to the ring in the wall in his usual manner, thatit might be out of the reach of the school weans. "But," said he, as hecame down, "I needna fash; for after this day little care I wha ringsthe bell; since it's to be consecrat to the wantonings o' prelacy, I wisthe tongue were out o' its mouth and its head cracket, rather than thatI should live to see't in the service of Baal and the hoor o' Babylon."
After all the congregation had taken their seats, Mr Swinton rose andmoved towards the front of the pulpit, and the silence in the church wasas the silence at the martyrdom of some holy martyr. He then opened THEBOOK, and having given out the ninety-fourth psalm, we sang it withweeping souls; and during the prayer that followed there was muchsobbing and lamentations, and an universal sorrow. His discourse wasfrom the fifth chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, verse first, andfirst clause of the verse; and with the tongue of a prophet, and thevoice of an apostle, he foretold, as things already written in thechronicles of the kingdom, many of those sufferings which afterwardscame to pass. It was a sermon that settled into the bottom of the heartsof all that heard it, and prepared us for the woes of the vial that wasthen pouring out.
At the close of the discourse, when the precentor rose to read theremembering prayer, old Ebenezer Muir, then upwards of fourscore andthirteen, who had been brought into the church on a barrow by two of hisgrandsons, and was, for reason of his deafness, in the bench with theelders, gave him a paper, which, after rehearsing the names of those indistress and sickness, he read, and it was "The persecuted kirk ofSCOTLAND."
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem! let my right hand forget her cunning,"cried Mr Swinton at the words, with an inspiration that made every heartdirl; and surely never was such a prayer heard as that with which hefollowed up the divine words.
Then we sang the hundred and fortieth psalm, at the conclusion of whichthe minister came again to the front of the pulpit, and with a calmvoice, attuned to by ordinare solemnity, he pronounced the blessing;then, suddenly turning himself, he looked down to his family and said,"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Sonof man hath not where to lay his head." And he covered his face withhis hands, and sat down and wept.
Never shall I forget the sound which rose at that sight; it was not acry of woe, neither was it the howl of despair, nor the sob of sorrow,nor the gurl of wrath, nor the moan of anguish, but a deep and dreadfulrustling of hearts and spirits, as if the angel of desolation, inpassing by, had shaken all his wings.
The kirk then began to skail; and when the minister and his family cameout into the kirk-yard, all the heads of families present, moved by somesacred instinct from on high, followed them with one accord to themanse, like friends at a burial, where we told them, that whatever theLord was pleased to allow to ourselves, a portion would be set apart forHis servant. I was the spokesman on that occasion, and verily do I thinkthat, as I said the words, a glorious light shone around me, and that Ifelt a fanning of the inward life, as if the young cherubims werepresent among us, and fluttering their wings with an exceeding great joyat the piety of our kind intents.
So passed that memorable Sabbath in our parish; and here I may relate,that we had the satisfaction and comfort to know, in a little timethereafter, that the same Christian faithfulness with which Mr Swintonadhered to his gospel-trusts and character, was maintained on that dayby more than three hundred other ministers, to the perpetual renown ofour national worth and covenanted cause. And therefore, though it was anera of much sorrow and of many tears, it was thus, through themysterious ways of Providence, converted into a ground of confidence inour religion, in so much that it may be truly said, out of the ruins andthe overthrow of the first presbyterian church the Lord built up amongus a stronghold and sanctuary for his truth and law.